THE ORATORY HOUSE Ex librt's LIBRARY University of California IRVJNE THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH PORTRAITS AND ESSAYS . GEORGE W: E 1 . RUSSELL Operemur bonum ad omnes, maxime autem ad domcsticos fidei LONDON HODDER AND STOUGHTON 27, PATERNOSTER ROW 1902 75"? R1 Print** by ffattli, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. WITH LOYAL AND LOVING GRATITUDE FOR BLESSINGS RECEIVED THROUGH HIS FRIENDSHIP AND MINISTRY 18711902 PREFACE book owes its existence to Dr. Robertson Nicoll, who suggested that I should collect and reprint some papers, more or less closely connected with Religion, which I had published during the last few years. My sincere thanks are due to the various Editors, whose kindness has enabled me to act on the suggestion. The paper on Cardinal Manning is ex- tracted, by permission of Messrs. Smith & Elder, from a book called " Collections and Recollections." By my title, I have endeavoured to convey that the book, both in its descriptive and in its critical parts, is throughout concerned with those whom St. Paul calls TOW oiWot> Ibid., p. 171. W. E. GLADSTONE 29 I remember him coming, as he always did on every emergency, great or small, to receive the Life of Christ at the Holy Table. I see him now kneeling there. The Sacra- ment of the Body and Blood of Christ had been received. His soul was feeding spiritually on that Body and Blood. Communicants went up and came back, but he remained absorbed evidently in communion with his Saviour. He was there till the end of the service. He had lost all thought of man. . . . He had no sympathy either with that flippant irreverence with which nowadays so many crowd to the holy altar of our God. It was to him a very solemn thing to receive the Holy Communion. Shall I ever forget the Friday in Passion Week, when I gave him the last Holy Communion that I was allowed to administer to him ? It was early in the morning. He was obliged to be in his bed, and he was ordered to remain there, but the time had come for the confession of sin and the receiving of absolution. Out from his bed he came. Alone he knelt in the presence of his God till the absolution had been spoken, and the Sacred Elements had been received. " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty ! " that was the keynote of his life. May the Lord bless him and keep him ! May the Lord make His face to shine upon him, and be gracious to him ! May the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon him, and give him joy never-ending in that quiet home of the redeemed ! "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord : even so saith the Spirit." In 1875 Mr. Gladstone wrote, with reference to controversies then current, a passage which applies with singular force to the events of the present hour : Unhappily, men of no small account announce that they care not for the sign, but must deal with the Thing Signified. They desire the negation by authority of the doctrine of the Real Presence of our Lord and Saviour Christ, and of the Eucharistic Sacrifice ; negations which again are synonymous with the disruption of the English Church. . . . There are even those in the English Church who urge with sincerity, and without being questioned by authority, the duty of preaching the "Real Absence"; and, though these be few, yet some who shrink from the word may yet be with them in the thing. On the other side . . . there are multitudes of 30 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH men who can patiently endure differences which they believe to be provisional, and adjourn their settlement to a future day ; but who believe that the lowering of Sacramental teaching of the English Church in any of its parts will involve, together with a real mutilation of Scriptural and Catholic truth, a loss of her Christian dignity and a forfeiture of all the hopes associated with her special position in Christendom. Of all Sacramental doctrine none is so tender in this respect as that which relates to the Eucharist. The gross abuses of practice, and the fanciful excesses of theological speculation in the Western Church before the Reformation, compelled the Anglican Reformers to retrench their statements to a minimum which can bear no reduction. 1 THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE [1878] If, in the current doctrine and practice of the Eucharist, the Sacrificial idea had, before the Reformation, and not for the best purposes, been allowed to assume an undue and erroneous predominance over that of Communion, it came in the course of controversy to be so depressed on the Protestant side that it was almost effaced from the common mind. This could hardly be done without a serious dislocation of the historical relations between that great Sacrament and its types. Nor again without seriously lowering the general conception of life and worship as a true sacrifice to God which had the Eucharistic Sacrifice for its central point. 2 THE POWER OF THE KEYS [1840] Now let us suppose a mind . . . seeking advice and counsel from a minister of God, it may be upon the bed of agony or in the very grasp of death. . . . He who lias come to supply its need is able to say, in addition to the ostensible goodness and comfort of his assurances, " That which I say is said under an awful responsibility. I who speak have been commissioned to carry a message from God to man, the message of the Gospel of Christ. His comir.iasion came to me by no mere fancy or conclusion of my own, but from the hands of those to whom He, in the flesh, seen by their eyes, heard by their ears, handled by their hands, 1 " Gleanings,'\vol. r vi., p. 172. ' Ibid., vol. iii., p. 235. W. E. GLADSTONE 31 entrusted it, to be delivered down in perpetual descent. So not the wit or will of man, but He, the Holy One, has given me the power and the charge to minister to your soul, at the most awful peril of my own." l This last quotation leads me to say a word about Mr. Gladstone's views concerning Confession and Abso- lution. Here certainly what have been called his " Anglican limitations " are very visible. He believed, of course, in the reality of the absolving power as part of the ministerial commission. He felt strongly about the obligation which binds English priests to move sick persons to make their confession. And I apprehend though of course I do not know that on his own death- bed he made his confession to the Bishop of St. Andrews. But with regard to habitual confession, he seems to have been more alive to its perils than to its advantages. The word " peril " may be unduly strong, but nothing is more conspicuous in his writings on the grave subject of repentance than his apprehension lest spiritual lazi- ness should lead people to substitute a merely mechanical process for the saving realities of heart-searching and self-abasement before the All-seeing Judge. In 1838 he wrote as follows about what he conceived to be the actual system of Rome : The tide of sin flows back upon us* the moment it has been repelled, and to be delivered from its flood, to be washed from day to day, to have our justification renewed and restored by the perpetual cleansing of the Blood of Our Lord this is the very pre-condition of all acceptable and Christian service. Yet even here the Roman arts have infused a poison. St. Augustine calls the Lord's Prayer Quotidiana, purgatio nostra, showing how he regarded this striving and supplication for pardon as a work incessantly required, and likewise depending on the exercise of the soul in confession " Church Principles," p. 271. 32 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH and prayer before God. But what routine are men permitted in the Roman discipline to substitute ? I do not say that she teaches so, but that so the mass of human nature will be found to use it. They will make confession at distant intervals to a priest, discharge the acts of penance which he enjoins, and receive his absolution. And a Sacramental character has been given to these acts acts, none of them blameworthy, but the reverse acts, however, taken out of their own place in the Roman doctrine. 1 It must be borne in mind that throughout this passage Mr. Gladstone is dealing with the Roman practice, and not with the Catholic theory, and even with regard to the practice he makes exceptions. He says : The holy men of Romanism have been great lights of Christianity. Penance with them would be a kind of thank- offering a beseeching God, as it were, to accept their humble and feeble, their sinful and punishable, efforts at self-discipline : Absolution, a comfort which they would receive with trembling ; and pain and shame, freely undergone, would co-operate with love so keep them steadfast in their allegiance. 2 His own view is that " our habitual exercise " should be lt those inward works of confession and prayer, self- inspection and self-government," to which "external Confession appears in the main to be properly subsidiary, when employed as a test or verification of that which is inward." 3 In 1841 he wrote, with reference to what are called " scandalous marriages," and to the revival of dis- cipline : Why should not a man having a small flock, and his churchwardens and persons of influence with him, devise sober rules, with the allowance of his Bishop, for his own people, and introduce them by degrees ? May he not require the private confession and contrition of the parties ? Would 1 " The State in its Relations," vol. ii., p. 73. J Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 75. W. E. GLADSTONE ^ 33 it be impossible to secure this in a small rural parish by means of persuasion and influence 1 May we not make a good use of the rubric enjoining or advising Communion after matrimony, in combination with the exhortation to con- fess before Communion in certain cases ? l The following passage, written in 1844, and repub- lished in 1890, may be taken as representing bis view of the system enjoined by the Church of England : We ought to remember the Church's solemn admonitions of repentance ; her constant witness in favour of holy discipline for the souls of her children; the heavy responsibility in self-examination and self-judgment which she throws upon them ; the means of authoritative support, of consolation ever Divine though ministered through the weakness and foolishness of a fleshly organ, to which she habitually points the way as their meet refuge, if they shall not of themselves suffice to the discharge of that awful duty. 2 I turn now to another point of Catholic practice round which recent controversy has raged Prayer for the Departed. On this point Mr. Gladstone's testimony is unequivocal. The strong and just reaction from the Purgatorial system prevailing in the Latin Church of the period [the Reformation] went far to account for, and even excuse, that stark and rigid conception of the effect of death on the state of the human being, which led to an abandonment of the uniform practice of the earliest ages of the Church, as testified by the Liturgies, in the commendation of the Faithful Departed to God for an increase of their rest and peace. But what caused nay, even what might excuse the violence thus done to Nature as well as to Religion did not frustrate its mischievous effects in narrowing the range of Christian sympathies, and establishing an anomaly in the general doctrine of prayer. With the obscuration of an universal tradition, there came indeed manifold confusion of doctrine ; the Final Judgment, with its solemn import, seemed to have 1 Life of Cardinal Manning, vol. i., p. 198. * Merry England, February, 1890. 3 34 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH no place left for it when the Intermediate State of Souls had been reduced almost to a cypher. Worst of all, the new standard appeared to be in hopeless conflict with the widest experience ; for it implied that the entire work of discipline was in every case fully accomplished on this side the grave that every soul passed away into the unseen in a state of ripeness for a final destiny of bliss or woe. 1 [1896] The Church has walked in the path opened for it by St. Paul through his prayer on behalf of Onesiphorus. [The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day. 2 Tim. i. 18.] 2 [1873 Of a deceased friend] I turn now to the brighter thought of his present light, and peace, and progress. May they be his more and more abundantly. 3 [1894 To a friend who had lost his father] May he enjoy the rest, light, and peace of the Just, until you are permitted to rejoin him. THE INTEKMEDIATE STATE [1896] The Christian Dead are in a progressive state ; and the appointed office of the interval between Death and Resurrection is reasonably believed to be the corroboration of every good and holy habit, and the effacement of all remains of human infirmity and vice. 4 A process of discipline, happy indeed in its result, but of which we have no right to assert . . . that the redeeming and consummating process will be accomplished without on admixture of salutary and accepted pain. 6 RELIGION AND THE WORLD [1851] Away with the servile doctrine that Religion cannot live but by the aid of Parliaments ! . . . The security of Religion lies, first in the Providence of God and the promise of Christ : next in the religious character, and strong senti- ment of personal duty and responsibility, so deeply graven on this country and its people. 6 [1894] Foul fall the day when the persons of this world shall, on whatever pretext, take into their uncommissioned 1 "Gleanings," vol. iii., p. 234. J "Studies Subsidiary," p. 253 " Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott," vol. ii., appendix iii. " Studies Subsidiary," p. 253. 5 Ibid., p. 234. 6 " Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 8. W. E. GLADSTONE 35 hands the manipulation of the Religion of our Lord and Saviour. 1 UNDENOMINATIONAL RELIGION [1894] An undenominational system of religion framed by or under the authority of the State is a moral monster. The State has no charter from Heaven such as may belong to the Church or to the individual conscience. It would, as I think, be better for the State to limit itself to giving secular instruction which, of course, is no complete education than rashly to adventure upon such a system. 2 EKASTIANISM [1876] If we follow the Erastian idea, it does not matter what God we worship, or how we worship Him, provided we derive both belief and worship from the civil ruler, or hold them subject to his orders. Many most respectable persons have been, or have thought themselves to be, Erastians ; but the system, in the developments of which it is capable, is among the most debased ever known to man. 3 CHRISTIANITY AND THE HUMAN RACE [1897] I write entirely from one defined and immovable point of view. According to my mind the whole interests of the human race eventually depend upon one question the question of Belief ; as, again, Belief is summed up in Christianity, and Christianity in Christ. He is for us the true Alpha and the true Omega. . . . Every measure and every movement in matters of religion, without any exception, ought to be tried by its tendency to bring mankind nearer to Christ, or to remove them further from Him. 4 In the extracts which I have read the Evangelical and the Catholic elements in Mr. Gladstone's system of religion have been almost equally conspicuous. Indeed, he wrote in 1879 that the leaders of the Oxford Move- ment accepted the preceding labours of the Evangelical 1 " Later Gleanings," p. 302. * The Daily News, November 9, 1894. 1 " Gleanings," vol. iii., p. 100. 4 " Later Gleanings," p. 396. 36 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH school as " part of a restoring work which it was their aim to complete," 1 and in the fulfilment of which his own heart and will were deeply involved. It remains to enquire if he had any sympathy with the Broad, Liberal, or Latitndinarian school. For my own part, I seem to find some traces of such sympathy in his high regard for Charles Kingsley, whom he twice promoted ; in his vigorous eiforts to keep Mr. Manrice at King's College ; in his early and per- sistent confidence in the present Archbishop of Canter- bury ; in that Essay in which, as Dr. Liddon says in the notes to his Bampton Lectures, " genius and ortho- doxy have done their best for the Christian honour of Ecce Homo " ; in his disparagement of the Athanasian, as compared with the Nicene, Creed ; and in his very lenient judgment on the nature and limits of culpable schism. But his most conspicuous departure from the rigid traditionalism of his earlier theology was his adoption, in " Studies Subsidiary to the works of Bishop Butler," of the doctrine which is commonly called Conditional Immortality. In August, 1895, it was my privilege to spend a week at Hawarden, and, during a great part of the time, to be alone with Mr. Gladstone. He opened his mind to me with a fulness and a frankness which he had never used before. He spoke of his own memories and experiences ; of political prospects and political men of our colleagues in his last Ministry ; of the increasing disadvantages of public life ; of the natural beauties of the place ; and of material improvements, actual and prospective, in the labourer's lot. What he said on these subjects, though well remembered by me, need not now be recalled. But two topics may be com- 1 " Gleanings," vol. vii., p. 223. W. E. GLADSTONE 37 memorated in connexion with the subject of religion. One was that grave branch of social duty which respects our fallen sisters. The other was the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul. (He was then at work on his " Studies Subsidiary.") Never shall I forget the hour when I sat with him in the park at Hawarden, while a thunderstorm was gathering over our heads, and he, all unheeding, poured forth, in those organ-tones of profound conviction, his belief that the human soul is not neces- sarily indestructible, but that Immortality is the gift of God in Christ to the believer. The impression of that discourse will not be effaced until the tablets of memory are finally blotted. I feel that the occasion is not suitable, and that I am not qualified, for an enquiry into the question how far Mr. Gladstone's doctrine on this most solemn of all topics accords with the general sense of the Catholic Church. But, as a disciple jealous for his master's theo- logical honour, I am bound to remind my hearers that, whether successfully or not, he labours most sedulously to prove that his theory does not conflict with the mind of the Church as exhibited in the Catholic Creeds. The limits of time do not allow me to enter into such topics as the alteration of Mr. Gladstone's theory about Established Churches ; his dealings with the Law of Marriage and Divorce ; his rigidly conservative views on the criticism of the Sacred Text. On all these and many similar topics, theological or closely connected with theology, I might have much to say ; but I pass on to matters of more immediate concern. A word must be said about Ritual. Mr. Gladstone's temperament, which was essentially artistic, gave him a natural taste for Ceremonial ; and he deplored the want of the aesthetic sense in ordinary Englishmen, with characteristic fervour. 38 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH As in the Italian language scarcely a word can be found which is not musical, so a " music of the eye " (I borrow the figure from Wordsworth) should pervade all visible pro- duction and construction whatever, whether of objects in themselves permanent, or of those where a temporary collocation only of the parts is in view. This state of things was realized, to a great extent, in the Italian life of the Middle Ages. But its grand and normal example is to be sought in ancient Greece. . . . The law that governed the design of an amphora or a lamp governed also the order of a spectacle, a procession, or a ceremonial. 1 On the other hand Put Englishmen to march in a procession, and see how, instead of feeling instinctively the music and sympathy of motion, they will loll and stroll and straggle. It never occurs to them that there is beauty or solemnity in ordered movement. 2 But, while Mr. Gladstone held thus strongly the value of Beauty in the general scheme of social life, and particularly in that highest part of our life which lifts us nearest to Heaven, he had no special or technical knowledge of religious ritual, and he never regulated his attendance at a church by reference to the amount or kind of ceremonial practised in it. In 1867 he wrote to Bishop Wilberforce : Yesterday I saw, for the first time, the service in a Ritualistic church proper. There was much in it that I did not like, could not defend as good ; perhaps could not claim toleration for. But that must be in the last the very last resort? In 1874 he wrote of All Saints', Margaret Street, as it had been thirty years before : Mr. Oakley (now alas ! ours no more) and Mr. Upton 1 " Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 112. * Ibid., p. 116. 3 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. iii., p. 208. W. E. GLADSTONE 39 Richards gave to its very simple services, such as would now scarcely satisfy an average congregation, and where the fabric was truly hideous, that true solemnity which is in perfect accord with simplicity. Mr. Oakley . . . had then gathered round him a congregation the most devout and hearty that I (for one) have ever seen in any communion of the Christian world. 1 In the same year he wrote : Ritualism surely means an undue disposition to Ritual. Ritual itself is founded on the Apostolic precept, " Let all things be done decently and in order" eio-^/xovws KOL Kara ra^Lv in right, graceful, or becoming figure, and by fore- ordered arrangement. The exterior modes of Divine Service are thus laid down as a distinct and proper subject for the consideration of Christians. 2 Ritual, then, is the clothing which, in some form and in some degree, men naturally and inevitably give to the per- formance of the public duties of Religion. 3 The life and teaching of Christ Himself are marked by frequent employment of signs in which are laid the ground, and the foreshadowing, both of Sacraments and of Ritual. 4 He sums Tip the whole case in words peculiarly applicable to current controversies : No ritual is too much, provided it is subsidiary to the inner work of worship ; and all ritual is too much, unless it ministers to that purpose. 6 So far, I have spoken almost exclusively of opinion. But conduct, as Matthew Arnold taught us, is three- fourths of human life ; and I feel that my hearers have a right to ask, What manner of man was he whose opinions you have unfolded to us at this in- ordinate length ? In some points you can answer the question for yourselves. Probably you all know something of his 1 "Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 140. * Ibid., p. 111. 3 Ibid.,-p. 109. s Ibid., p. 130. 40 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH incessant diligence ; his strong self-mastery ; bis abiding remembrance of " that solemn account wbich we rnnst one day give before the judgment-seat of CHRIST " ; his scrupulous attention to the weekly and daily offices of public worship ; his rigorous reservation of the Sunday for sacred uses. Sunday [he wrote in 1845] is reserved, with rare exceptions, for religious employments ; and it was my practice, in general, to receive the Holy Communion weekly. ... It is Sunday, I am convinced, that has kept me alive and well, even to a marvel, in times of considerable labour. 1 And just fifty years later he wrote : What is essential is that to the New Life should belong the flower and vigour of the day. We are born, on each Lord's Day morning, into a new climate, a new atmosphere ; and in that atmosphere (so to speak), by the law of a renovated nature, the lungs and heart of the Christian life should spontaneously and continuously drink in the vital air. 2 Few, however, can know his splendid munificence in charity, not haphazard or impulsive, but regulated and disciplined ; the alms not bequeathed, but given, so that the surrender could be felt. Be it remembered that he was one of the founders of the first Sisterhood that was ever opened in the Church of England (near the Regent's Park, in 1845), and of the House of Mercy at Clewer in 1852. One of his latest acts was to give not bequeath 30,000 for St. DeinioFs Library. None except those who lived close to him can realize the fibre of his religious life, combining the profundity of a saint with the simplicity of a school-boy. It was conspicuously marked by method, by discipline, and by a strict dutifulness. When he came home to die, 1 Life of Cardinal Manning, vol. i., p. 436. " Later Gleanings," p. 347. W. E. GLADSTONE 41 he asked for a fresh rale of life ; and when, in the extremity of weakness, it was proposed to communicate him with the Reserved Sacrament, he enquired of the clergyman if he was quite satisfied that such a practice was consistent with the Church's order. During the last weeks of his life we all heard what was perfectly true that "Rock of Ages" was in his judgment the grandest of hymns, and that " Praise to the Holiest " was constantly on his lips. But let me add a third hymn in which his innermost heart seemed to utter itself, and which he deemed only too sacred and too intimate for promiscuous use in public worship. Hark, my soul ! it is the Lord ; 'Tis thy Saviour, hear His word ; Jesus speaks, and speaks to thee, " Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou Me 1 " As he had lived, so he died. The Bishop of St. Andrews, who perhaps shared his religions confidence more deeply than any other clergyman, spoke thus in his Funeral Sermon : Shall I ever forget one hour a few months ago in the library at Hawarden, which is for ever to me consecrated ground ? He had no sympathy with the new ideas by which sin and Satan have been eliminated from our modern enlightenment. He felt that sin was a horrible thing, a cursed thing, that nailed the Son of God to the Cross, that any little sin was an abomination in the sight of God; and I wish that every young man here could have seen him as he weighed his life, not in the balance of earth, but of Heaven, as he reviewed the past and anticipated the future. " Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness. Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin." He did not know what was meant by the outside idea of sin and goodness. He knew what it was to have the light of God the Holy Ghost shining into his heart. He anticipated what every one of us here will one day learn when the books are opened and the record of life is revealed. 42 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH A friend wrote thus on the Friday in Passion Week, 1898 : This morning's Eucharist was memorable. . . . The altar ; the crucifix ; his rich voice swelling out with that deep devotion lin the Gloria and in the confession ; his determina- tion to get out of bed and kneel for the confession, absolution, and reception it was not to be forgotten. Then after his breakfast he went to sleep, and is sleeping the sleep of a little child. Qualis ab incepto. This was all of a piece with what had gone before. The spell by which my great master and leader held me was the sense that, amid all the turmoils and distractions of the most secular and most exciting occupation, his inner life was lived unbrokenly with God. It has been my happiness to know great saints in various communions ; but they have been either ministers of religion by profession, or recluses from the world by choice. Here was a man who did human work, and fought his human battles, with the most scrupulous diligence and the most masterful resolution ; and yet, all the while, was dwelling (to use his own phrase) "in the inner court of the Sanctuary whereof the walls are not built with hands." On May 10, 1898, I knelt by his death-bed, and received his parting benediction. As I turned away, I felt that I had been on the Mount of Transfiguration, and had seen a glimpse of Paradise through the Gates Ajar. From that death-bed, as most of you remember, he sent his farewell message to this place : There is no expression of Christian sympathy which I value more than that of the God-fearing and God-sustaining University of Oxford. I served her, perhaps mistakenly, but to the best of my ability. My most earnest prayers are hers, to the uttermost and to the last, W. E. GLADSTONE 43 My brothers, let those prayers be returned into his own bosom. Let us, as the Apostle bids us, " Remember our Guides," * and remember them where remembrance is of most avail. With prayer let thanksgiving be mingled for all that this great son of Oxford was enabled to do for the cause of Christianity in his day and generation. His life illustrated, in the full view of his countrymen and of the world, the lesson which Dr. Liddon taught from the pulpit of St. Mary's, in the first University Sermon which I ever heard that " the one thing worth thinking of, worth living for, if need were, worth dying for, is the unmutilated faith of Jesus our Lord." If ever we should be tempted to despond about the possibilities of human nature, we shall bethink ourselves of him and take courage. 1 If our faith should ever be perplexed by the Blank misgivings of a Creature, Moving about in worlds not realized, the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us. And, if ever we should be told by the flippancy of Scepticism that " Religion is a disease," then we can point to him who, up to the very verge of ninety years, displayed a fulness of vigorous and manly life beyond all that we had ever known. 1 Heb. xiii. 7. EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 1 IT was only at mid-day on Monday last that I received your Rector's summons to fill the gap created by the regretted illness of Mr. Mackay. The suddenness of the demand, and the pressure of business which could not be displaced, will, I hope, be my sufficient excuse for the utterly inadequate handling of a great theme. For the sake of clearness and lucidus ordo, let me begin with a few leading dates. Edward Boriverie Pusey was born on August 22, 1800. His father was the Hon. Philip Bouverie, a younger son of Lord Folkestone, and took the name of Pusey when he inherited the property called " Pusey " near the Yale of White Horse. This Mr. Philip Bouverie-Pusey married Lady Lucy Sherard, daughter of the fourth Earl of Harborongh, who was a clergyman. Lady Lucy Pusey lived till 1858, when she died at the age of eighty-six. She is an important link in the chain ; for Dr. Pnsey said in 1879, " The doctrine of the Real Presence I learned from my mother's explanation of the Catechism, which she had learned to understand from older clergy." This roughly links the Sacramental theology of 1880 with that of 1780, when Lady Lucy was a child, or even with 1712, when her father, the clergyman, was born. In 1812 Edward Bouverie Pusey went to Eton ; from 1 A lecture delivered at St. Margaret Pattens, Rood Lane, 1901. 44 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 45 Eton to a private tutor's ; and thence to Christ Church, Oxford. In the summer of 1822 he took his degree, being examined by Mr. Keble, and placed in the First Class. In 1823 he was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel College; and he then made two prolonged visits to Germany, where he became personally acquainted with some of the pioneers of free thought and Biblical criticism. Returning to England, he was ordained Deacon on Trinity Sunday, 1828, and immediately afterwards married a lady to whom he had long been attached. In the winter of the same year he was appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, and became, in virtue of his professorship, a Canon of Christ Church. It was his first and last preferment. On November 23, 1828, he was ordained Priest by Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford ; and on Christmas Day following he celebrated the Holy Communion for the first time. On September 16, 1882, he died. What happened in that long interval must now be briefly summarized. In reviewing cursorily so prolonged, so laborious, and so crowded a life, it is palpably impossible to enter minutely into dates and details. The chronological method must, therefore, now be laid aside ; and we must confine our attention to three or four principal and transcendent services which Dr. Pusey was raised up by God to perform. Those services, of course, were rendered in close connexion with what men have come to call " the Catholic Revival in the Church of England," or, more briefly, " The Oxford Movement." That move- ment began in 1833, and had its origin in the actual and threatened attacks on the Church, which immediately succeeded the Reform Act of 1832. On July 14, 1833, John Keble preached in St. Mary's, Oxford, his famous Assize Sermon on " National Apostasy," and immediately 46 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH afterwards the issue of the famous "Tracts for the Times " began. The first Tracts were a series of short papers in many cases hardly more than notes on great questions which the attack on the Church had suddenly forced into prominence. They affirmed, in emphatic and purposely startling form, the true and essential nature of the Church as a spiritual society founded by our Lord Himself, entirely independent of the State. They put in the very forefront the trnth of the Apostolical Succession, and its necessity to a valid ministry. They went on to deal with such topics as the Standing Ordinances of Religion, the] | Prayer-book, Fasting, and Ecclesiastical Discipline. The motive power of the Tracts the author of many, the inspirer of all was John Henry Newman ; and he must unquestionably be regarded as the leader of the Catholic Revival in its earliest years, with the potent, though unseen, influence of John Keble in the background, and the enthusiastic aid of a band of younger disciples whom he had gathered round him at Oxford. But soon an event occurred which had a decisive effect upon the character and fortunes of the Movement. This was the accession of Dr. Pusey. In earlier days he had been thought to have some sympathy with the " Liberal " theology of Germany, and he had not been closely associated with the beginning of the Movement, which was pre-eminently, and before all else, an attack on what is miscalled " Liberalism " in the sphere of religion. But he had been gradually drawn to the Movement, partly by his friendship with Newman, and partly by the development of his own convictions. The effect of his adhesion is thus described by a contemporary : I quote from Dean Church's " History of the Oxford Movement " : EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 47 Cardinal Newman, in the "Apologia," has attributed to Dr. Pusey's unreserved adhesion to the cause which the Tracts represented a great change in regard to the weight and com- pleteness of what was written and done. "Dr. Pusey," he writes, " gave us at once position and a name. Without him we should have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any serious resistance to the Liberal aggres- sion. But Dr. Pusey was a Professor and Canon of Christ Church ; he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy relations with the University authorities. . . . There was henceforth a man who could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the country who were adopting the new opinions ; and not only so, but there was one who furnished the Movement with a front to the world, and gained for it a recognition from other parties in the University." This is not too much to say of the effect of Dr. Pusey's adhesion. It gave the Movement a second head, in close sympathy with its original leader, but in many ways different from him. Dr. Pusey became, as it were, its official chief in the eyes of the world. He became also, in a remarkable degree, a guarantee for its stability and steadiness, a guarantee that its chiefs knew what they were about, and meant no- thing but what was for the benefit of the English Church. " He was," we read in the " Apologia," " a man of large designs ; he had a hopeful, sanguine mind ; he had no fear of others ; he was haunted by no intellectual perplexities. ... If con- fidence in his position is (as it is) a first essential in the leader of a party, Dr. Pusey had it." An inflexible patience, a serene composure, a meek, resolute self-possession, was the habit of his mind, and never deserted him in the most trying days. He never for an instant, as the paragraph witnesses, wavered or doubted about the position of the English Church. From 1835 to 1845 Newman and Pusey may be said to have jointly led the Catholic Revival. In October, 1845, Newman seceded to the Church of Rome, saying, " We trusted our Bishops, and they have failed us." Pusey said, " I never trusted the Bishops ; I trusted the Church of England." And he therefore stood firm. After Newman's secession Dr. Pusey was left in an 48 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH unique position of undivided authority, and this, in spite of all changes and chances, he occupied till his death. For the rest of his life he devoted his whole time and his whole being to a triune cause the maintenance of the Catholic Faith in its entirety against all assaults, from whatever quarter proceeding ; the vindication of the position and claims of the Church of England as the Catholic Church in this land ; and the cultivation of personal sanctity in individual souls. He was left a widower in 1839, and from that date onwards the mark of a profound asceticism was un- mistakably impressed on his character and life. He lived in a deep seclusion of prayer and discipline and study, from which he was only drawn forth by the imperative claims of his professorship, or by the necessity of championing some imperilled truth. The result of his life-long labours may be read in the titles of his published writings, which occupy fifty closely- printed pages in the fourth volume of his Life. In considering this huge output of devout and learned labour, I must perforce dismiss everything of secondary consideration. I shall, therefore, say nothing about the criticism of the Old Testament, or the limits of ceremonial, or the Athanasian Creed, or the relations of the Church to the State, or the principles of " Healthful Reunion " in Christendom. I will take just four, or, at most, five topics. And first, I put the signal work which Dr. Pusey did in reaffirming and establishing the true doctrine of Holy Baptism. His first definite contribution to the Oxford Movement was to write three of the Tracts (67, 68, 69), afterwards collected into one volume, and 49 published (in 1836) under the title of " Scriptural Views of Holy Baptism." u A pupil of mine," Pusey said forty-five years later, " was on the verge of leaving the Church for Dissent, and on the ground that the Church taught Baptismal Regeneration in the Prayer-book. So I set myself to show what the teaching of Scripture about Holy Baptism was. My tract was called ' Scriptural Views of Holy Baptism.' By news I did not mean doctrines, but only such aspects as Baptism would present to anyone who looks at Holy Scripture." As we read in his Life : The keynote of the subject, then, is struck in the title, " Scriptural Views of Holy Baptism." The object of the writer is to show that the teaching of Scripture on the point is plain enough ; that " difficulties raised against Baptismal Regeneration seeni to lie entirely in ... collateral questions, not in the defect of Scripture evidence for its truth." Accordingly, Pusey begins by insisting at length that tbe evidence for the doctrine must be considered without reference to its supposed influence, or the supposed religious character of those who held it at a given time. Understanding regeneration to mean " the act by which God takes us out of our relation to Adam, and makes us actual members of His Son," Pusey goes on to show that whereas generation is connected in Scripture with Baptism, there is nothing in Scripture to sever it from Baptism. . . . That which might strike an unprejudiced reader is Pusey 's anxiety to arrive at the inmost meaning of Scripture ; his anxious attention to its passing hints and its indirect teaching. But the doctrine is directly grounded by him first on tbe explicit words of our Lord, and then of St. Paul, combined with the words in which the Sacrament was in- stituted, and St. Peter's assertion that it is a present means of salvation. Then follows a review of passages in which Holy Scripture speaks of gifts of God, while modern writers often see only duties of man, or to whicb modern writers appeal when appropriating to themselves the privileges of Baptism, without thinking of tbe means by which they are conveyed. Not the least striking parts of the Tract are the discussions 4 50 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH of the incidental mention of Baptism in Holy Scripture, and the indications of its importance as inferred from the language of Scripture about it when conferred on individuals, and the Baptism of our Lord Himself, as sanctifying water. The types are discussed last : they illustrate to a believer the place assigned to the doctrine by Holy Scripture ; they do not by themselves prove it. II I now approach the all-important service which Dr. Pusey rendered to religion in reaffirming the true and substantive doctrine of the Most Holy Eucharist. As in the case of Baptism, I deliberately use the word "reaffirming"; because, though frequently ignored, or forgotten, or even denied, the true Eucharistic doctrine has, by God's mercy, never perished out of the Church of England. And Pusey, as we saw at the outset, himself learned it from his mother, who had been taught it by divines belonging to the beginning of the eighteenth century. On May 14, 1843, Dr. Pusey preached before the University of Oxford the most important sermon of his life. It was called " The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to the Penitent." His previous teaching on Baptism had, to use his own word, " scared " certain people with the notion that post-Baptismal sin was unforgivable. And, in order to correct this painful misapprehension, he set himself to show the divinely-appointed comforts for the penitent. Of these, naturally, the Holy Eucharist was the chief. The sermon, as Pusey himself said, " implied, rather than stated, even the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence, and was written chiefly in the language of the Fathers. Its one object was to inculcate the love' of our Redeemer for us sinners in the Holy Eucharist, both as a Sacrament and a Commemorative EDWARD BOUVER1E PUSEY 51 Sacrifice : as a Sacrament, in that He, onr Redeemer, God and Man, vouchsafes to be " our spiritual food and sustenance in that Holy Sacrament " ; as a Commemora- tive Sacrifice, in that He enables us therein to plead to the Father that one meritorious Sacrifice on the Cross, which He, our High Priest, unceasingly pleads in His own Divine Person in Heaven. The sermon was purely for edification ; it did not invite, or even suggest, con- troversy. It was only a plain reaffirmation, in language venerated all over Christendom, of the Eucharistic truth which has been held from the beginning. Nothing was further from the preacher's wish than that his application of this truth to the spiritual needs of the repentant sinner should startle his hearers or create disputations. But 1843 was an electrical time. The Oxford Move- ment was nearing its crisis. The air was thick with rumours of Romanizing ; and the Eucharistic language of the most orthodox divines even of the Fathers had come to sound strange in unaccustomed ears. Complaint was made to the Vice-Chancellor of the University, who asked for a copy of the sermon. He called to his aid Six Doctors of Divinity. They examined the sermon in secret, without giving Pusey an opportunity of self- defence. They condemned the teaching as erroneous ; and Pusey was suspended from preaching before the University for two years. Whatever this performance was intended to effect and that was known only to its authors, now long gone to their account what it actually effected is certain. It called public attention to a most precious doctrine of the Catholic Faith which had been strangely neglected. It gave Pusey an unequalled opportunity of demonstrat- ing the soundness of that doctrine, both according to Catholic and Anglican authorities ; and it, indirectly, but most really, helped to make him throughout the 52 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH remainder of his long life the special champion and the most insistent teacher of the Real Presence and all that it involves. I cannot better close this section of my subject than by quoting the beautiful and most true words in which my friend and your neighbour, Henry Scott Holland, has summarized the leading characteristics of Pusey's Eucharistic teaching. He singles out three such Awe, Spirituality, and Richness. He says : There is, first, the wonderful awe with which he hallows all his speech. This is so remarkable just because it is awe which familiarity seems to replenish, instead of to dissolve or disturb. He is insisting on constant nearness to the Blessed Sacrament, he is surrounding It with incessant attention, with the routine of order and regular service, with accurate rules of preparation, with formal methods of intimacy. He him- self is felt to be living, year by year, and day by day, in unfailing and familiar intercourse with Its grace. It is to him necessary and near as his daily food. It has all the common and unquestioned frequency of air, and earth, and sky. Yet ever his awe and wonder grow. Nothing ceases of that hushed and thrilling rapture which belongs to strange surprises, to unanticipated discoveries, to sudden intuitions. Nay, his reverence, his humiliation, his trembling, his fear, all seem to increase with the increase of familiarity ; there is ever in his voice the sound of searching alarm, the sense of the fire about the Mount, into which no unclean thing may enter lest it be consumed. That Altar, near and dear as it is, is ringed round to him with unflagging terrors ; his tones shake, his knees bow, his soul quivers, with the same wonderful awe as that with which a young child kneels, for the first time, in the hush of some still sanctuary, and hears the murmuring words of the priest who bends over him to lay, in the child-hands uplifted, the adorable Gift over which the bowing angels stoop, and gaze, and adore. . . . And then, secondly, no one can help feeling the spiritu- ality of such Sacramentalism, as we find laid out in page after page of these addresses. We should have thought it impossible for anyone who once had read them to indulge in crude contrasts between the carnal form and the inward spirit, or between technical dogmatism and the living faith. EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 53 Everyone can see that the entire belief rests on the robust reality of the actual event, which takes place on this or that Altar, through the mediation of a consecrated formula, used with exact ritualistic definiteness, over earthly elements that have been duly presented before God, and in the sight of the people, in literal obedience to sanctioned usage. Every- one can detect how accurate and watchful and complicated a theology informs every fragment of his language. And yet the external and formal fact glows through and through with the warmth of the heartfelt devotion, as a coal filled full with the splendour of flame. The outward form in- tensifies the heat. It supplies it with scope, and radiation, and vent. It feeds it with fuel. The flame leaps and rejoices, just because the material is given it ; it knows a new strength, it glows with a new ardour, as it lays hold of this external matter, and fills it, and infolds it, and inhabits it, and absorbs it. A fire lives on the fuel given ; and, to the flame of adoration, Sacramental fact is the fuel that feeds it. Never, surely, has the heart of man bent itself to innermost com- munion with the very life of Jesus, the Master and Lover of souls, in more direct, and evangelical, and unveiled contact than here is made known in every glowing word of love, and joy, and peace, and devotion. . . . Lastly, we should notice how it is this explicitness of apprehension which causes the third characteristic of Dr. Pusey's Eucharistic teaching, its marvellous richness. Im- plicit and unalterable faith may be strong, but it cannot be full. But here the inner strength of the faith, which has been enabled to emerge, and to lay hold of its objective material, and to develope its distinct expression, exhibits itself in the fulness and the variety with which it can apply itself to the whole round of practical life, or make use of the entire wealth of the imagination and the emotions. Every- thing seems to become Eucharistic under the doctor's handling everywhere the Sacramental blessing reaches. . . . As we let our eyes travel through page after page, we are always in face of one thought, the thought of that Most Blessed Presence under the forms of bread and wine, yet ever the thought offers novel variety of guidance, of direction, of illumination ever it prompts a new motion of the desires, a new effort of the will, a new hope of the affections. It is in writings such as these that we learn something of the unfading efficacy of the Sacramental theology the unfailing 54 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH attraction of the Sacramental life why it is that all other forms of adoration and communion, however real, cannot but appear imperfect, partial, inadequate, thin, meagre, shadowy, to those who have once felt this abundance, and have tasted of its treasures, and have sat at its feasts. To them it is known why word should be added to word in the effort to tell how the Eucharist has been to them both Hope, and Refuge, and Peace, and Sweetness, and Tranquillity, and Wisdom, and Portion, and Possession, and Treasure. All this the Eucharist was to Dr. Pusey his Sustenance, his Comfort, his Nurture through day after day of those long years that he spent with us ; and it is out of the holy fulness of such a life-long intimacy that he speaks to us the secrets of Eucharistic Communion with God. Ill The two years' suspension from preaching before the University expired in June, 1845. Dr. Pusey's next turn as preacher came on February 1, 1846. With char- acteristic courage he chose as his subject the Doctrine of Absolution. He took for his text St. John xx. 21-23, " Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you : as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are re- tained." He began in these words : " It will be in the memory of some that when, 'nearly three years past, Almighty God (for ' secret faults ' which He knoweth, and from which, I trust, He willed thereby the rather to ' cleanse ' me) allowed me to be deprived for a time of my office among you, I was endeavouring to mitigate the stern doctrine of the heavy character of a Christian's sins, by pointing out the mercies of God which might reassure the EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 55 penitent, the means of his restoration, the earnest of his pardon." In the censured sermon, which he now reasserted to the very full of its doctrinal position, he had shown the blessing conveyed through the Holy Eucharist. He now continued the same line of thought. All forgiveness is of God. The Church or her ministers are not substitutes for, but instruments of, Christ, the One Absolver. But that the One Absolver did delegate to His Church the absolving power was plain from the words of the text ; and that the Church of England claims the right to exercise this awful gift is plain from the formula of absolution in the Visitation Office, when read in connexion with the Ordinal. " The Church of England teaches the reality of priestly absolution as explicitly as it has ever been taught, or is taught to-day, in any part of Christendom." Against this sermon, strange to say, no objection was raised. Pusey's opponents had begun to realize that the thoroughness of his theological knowledge placed him in an unassailable position. The doctrine of the Keys was now triumphantly vindicated ; and a great part of Pusey's remaining life was spent in applying it practically. Of course, I am speaking without book, but I should imagine that no priest in the Church of England heard so many confessions or directed so many consciences. Two personal reminiscences may close this part of my subject. (1) When, at the beginning of the summer of 1873, Dr. Pusey returned to Oxford from a long illness abroad, I myself saw the crowd of ancient penitents who thronged his door in Christ Church like the impotent folk round the Pool of Bethesda. (2) I can never forget the tremendous solemnity with which, from the University pulpit, he urged on under- graduates who had fallen into evil courses the benefit 56 of Confession. " My sons, for sins of the flesh it is the remedy. If yonr conscience is troubled, you know who they are to whom our Lord has said, ' Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven.' '' IV I am particularly instructed by the Rector to say a word about Dr. Pusey's relation to the establishment of English Sisterhoods. As far back as 1839 we find him corresponding with Mr. Keble about the possibility of establishing Sisters of Charity in the Church of England. His daughter Lucy had, from very early childhood, expressed a wish to lead a single life, and dedicate herself wholly to good works. Dr. Pusey regarded this as a Divine leading, and it seems to have made him keener in pursuit of this new ideal. He wrote to several friends for information and advice ; and very soon the project gained ground. By 1840 several vocations had been inwardly realized. On Trinity Sunday, 1841, a young lady took the vow of Holy Celibacy, and sealed it at the altar of St. Mary's, Oxford. She was the first English Sister of Mercy. She is with us still, the Foundress-Mother of the Convent of the Holy Trinity, Oxford ; and by her kindness I can lay before you the passage which, under God, determined the dedication of her life. It occurs in Newman's " Church of the Fathers " (chapter xiv.). After speaking of the help to single women which the Community-Life affords, Newman says : And if women have themselves lost so much by the present state of things, what has been the loss of the poor, sick, and aged, to whose service they might consecrate the life which they refuse to shackle by the marriage vow? What has been the loss of the ignorant, sinful, and miserable among EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 57 whom they only can move without indignity who bear a religious character upon them ; for whom they only can inter- cede or exert themselves who have taken leave of earthly hopes and fears ; who are secured by their holy resolve from the admiring eye or persuasive tongue ; and can address themselves to the one heavenly duty to which they have set themselves with singleness of mind? When the first English Sister of Mercy resolved to dedicate herself to Holy Celibacy, there was no community or institution for her to join, and she was not, at the time, able to take upon herself the responsi- bilities of a foundress. It was not till 1845 that the first English Sisterhood came into being. Lucy Pusey had died the year before ; and her father charged her to " pray for the institutions to which she had hoped to belong." The prayer, if it was offered, was answered. Through the munificence of some lay Churchmen (Mr. Gladstone was one of them ; the present Duke of Rutland is the only survivor) a suitable house was procured in London, near the Regent's Park. Its working expenses were guaranteed ; and it opened its doors on March 26, 1845. Dr. Pusey was always regarded as the Founder, and he was the spiritual director of the inmates. The example soon spread. In 1849 Miss Priscilla Lydia Sellon started at Devonport a Sisterhood with which Dr. Pnsey was closely asso- ciated from its beginning till his death. This Sisterhood survives to the present hour in the beautiful Priory at Ascot, where Dr. Pusey died. Later came the great communities and widespread organizations of Wantage, Clewer, and East Grinstead, besides many smaller societies of like intent. All in turn profited by the experiences some felicitous, and some unfortunate of those who had led the way. To-day the principle of Sisterhoods is an organic element in the life of the Church of England, and I suppose 58 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH that the total number of Sisters and Associates in Great Britain and in our dependencies must be counted by thousands. And it cannot, I think, be doubted that Dr. Pusey did more than any other one man to lay the bases of Community-Life in a day of rebuke and blasphemy. Other, and perhaps more dexterous, architects built on his massive foundations. A concluding word must now be said about Dr. Pusey as a preacher. He had absolutely no pretensions to oratorical skill. He read every word, generally from a printed copy, in a low, deep, rather monotonous voice, which, in his later years, was husky and thick. His sermons were immensely long, packed with learn- ing, and exhaustive of the subjects with which they dealt. His style of composition was extremely strange ; so crabbed and so quaint that it now reads more like a bad translation from the German than genuine English. But occasionally there were passages of a solemn rhetoric, which rose very near to eloquence ; and, when he came to practical exhortation to the searching of the heart's secrets, and the enforcement of repentance it was like the voice of a god. Let one passage stand for all, and bring this most imperfect study to a close. It is Septuagesima Sunday, 1875, and Dr. Pusey is preaching before the University of Oxford from St. Luke ix. 23 : " If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." He begins : " Does then our Redeeming Lord indeed speak these words to us ? Is there no way out of them ? " And then, after an hour's solemn argument for the absolute necessity of self-sacrifice, he EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 59 turns to the Undergraduates' Gallery, and this is how he ends : Many of you, my sons, are provided with superfluities. You have not to stint yourselves as to the pleasures of your age. Day by day passes, I suppose, with all conveniences of life or amusement, or some self-indulgences which, though not directly sinful, are rather injurious. If our Lord was to come now, in how many do you think that you could tell Him that you had fed Him, clothed Him, supplied Him when sick ? Some, I fear, could not say that they had bestowed as much on Christ as upon their dogs. We are to-day at the vestibule of those days wherein, bearing the cross of this yearly abstinence, we are, if we are His disciples, to follow Him Who for our sakes did fast forty days and forty nights. . . . Three weeks hence you will plead that fasting to Him, and pray Him that, after His likeness, you too may use such abstinence, that, your flesh being sub- dued to the spirit, you may ever obey His godly motions in righteousness and true holiness. Let not your prayers be a witness against you. He does not put hard things upon you. He Who accepts the cup of cold water will accept petty self-denials. Self- indulgence is a hard master not Jesus. Yice wears the body : self -denial braces it. Sin is an exacting tryant : the service of God is perfect freedom. Give yourselves anew to Him, Who gave Himself for you. He grudged not for you one drop of His Heart's Blood : grudge not to Him the price of His Blood yourselves. Think ,of that place around the Eternal Throne which He by that Blood has individually prepared for you. Jesus will impart to your petty cross some of the virtue of His Saving Cross. He will make any hardness sweet to you, Who is Himself all sweetness, and every pleasurable delight. A RCHBISHOP TAIT'S biography, written by his XJL son-in-law and his chaplain, has been received with general favonr. Even in quarters which were most resolutely opposed to the Archbishop's ecclesiastical policy, there has been a generous disposition to forget buried animosities, and to do the fullest justice to the fine aspects of his character and career. In much of this general eulogy we must all concur. The Arch- bishop's deep and fervent piety, his manly courage under the pressure of illness and sorrow, his calm resolve in following out what he believed to be a right policy, and his strong sense of personal and official dignity, are qualities which command unstinted admiration.. But, in other respects, the eulogy seems to have been overdone. Admiration has been claimed for the least admirable parts of his conduct, and, while more than justice has been rendered to his successes, no notice has been taken of frequent and disastrous errors. I do not propose now to recapitulate the events of his life. That has been done sufficiently by previous writers, even exhaustively in the Quarterly Review. I purpose here to consider some aspects of his character and policy which have been either ignored or misleadingly treated alike by the biographers and by the reviewers. That Archibald Campbell Tait should ever have 1 Contemporary Review, 1891. 60 61 attained to the office of Chief Pastor of the Church of England is a curious, and even a startling, result of our highly-mixed Constitution. Such an event would only be possible where the relations between Church and State were unnatural and anomalous. Whatever else he may or may not have been, Archibald Tait was specially and essentially a Scotchman. His intellectual habits and interests, his moral sympathies, his temperament and feelings, all were characteristic of the land from which he came. After all, blood is thicker than water, and racial affinities count for much in the social and political intercourse of mankind. This Scotchman, by the accident of his education, became established for life on English soil ; but he never took root in it never thoroughly understood the English people in some of their moods and tenses ; never quite comprehended the thought, on some important topics, of those with whom he worked or over whom he bore rule. But the Archbishop was not only a Scotchman : he seems to have been more than half a Presbyterian. He was a devout and orthodox Christian, but on those ecclesiastical topics which distinguish Anglicanism from other systems of Reformed religion, his sympathies seem to have been rather with the Scotch Kirk than with the Church of England. If he had any theological reason for joining the English Church, it was a negative one. The English Church did not accept those doctrines of Reprobation and Assurance to which the Kirk is pledged, and which Tait conscientiously repudiated. But the main reason for his change of communion was not strictly theological. He was a firm believer in the principle of religious Establishment, and, as he had determined to make England his home, it followed of necessity that he should join the Established Church of England. Dislike of Calvinism and love of 62 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Establishments were the two causes which changed Tait from a Presbyterian to an Anglican. On all questions affecting Sacramental doctrine, the structure of the Church, and the nature of the ministry, he remained to the end of his life what he had been in his Presbyterian youth. In an article on " The Courses of Religious Thought," published in 1876, Mr. Gladstone reckoned, as one of five great schools, or systems of religion, "those who, rejecting the Papal Monarchy and the visibility of the Church, believe in the great central dogmas of the Christian system the Trinity and the Incarnation." On this the Archbishop briefly remarks that the school thus described " is the Christian school of the Apostolic days." A divine who holds that the Christianity of the Apostolic days ignored the visibility of the Church would, I venture to think, have been more at home in the Moderator's Chair at the General Assembly than on the throne of St. Augustine. While Tait was thus essentially a Presbyterian, he was not at all essentially a clergyman. He had, as far as one can judge, no special vocation to Holy Orders. He would have been a religious lawyer, or a religious merchant, or a religious country-gentleman, according to the cir- cumstances in which he had been placed ; but his early history gives no signs either of peculiar aptitude or of strong desire for the work of the priesthood, as it is understood by Churchmen, or even for any form of the clerical profession. Still, Tait was ordained as a matter of course. He was a Fellow of Balliol, and, as such, he was bound by law to take Holy Orders within a given time from his M.A. degree. He had not the least desire to do otherwise. Indeed he felt that the clerical character would help him in his tutorial work ; and, when once ordained, he became an active clergyman. But, as far as I can judge, he was led ARCHBISHOP TAIT 63 to Holy Orders rather by the external circumstances of his position than by inward desire or special fitness. In the first twenty years of his ministerial life there is little of distinctively ecclesiastical interest. As a tutor, a schoolmaster, and a Royal Commissioner, he was mainly occupied with public work, useful and admirable in itself, but not specially clerical. Even as a Dean he seems to have busied himself more with the secular than with the spiritual side of his office. His sudden and surprising elevation in 1856 to the See of London brought him for the first time into close contact with spiritual and ecclesiastical concerns of great pith and moment. All that was wise and skilful and effective in his episcopal administration has been abundantly eulogized. It is a less gracious, but a not less necessary, task to point out instances in which his judgment and his sympathy seemed alike at fault. First with respect to Ritualism. Where, as in Mr. Liddell's case, the offending clergy- man submitted at once, the Bishop could claim a success ; but, where the innovator was made of sterner stuff, the Bishop's action was less fortunate. The Consistory Court condemned lighted candles on the altar. Mr. Edward Stuart introduced them into his church St. Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square. Bishop Tait " laid his commands " on Mr. Stuart to discontinue them. Mr. Stuart " respectfully declined to obey " these commands, holding that the Bishop, in issuing them, had " transgressed the limits of that authority which the Church of England has committed to her bishops." Thus matters reached a deadlock, and in the correspondence which took place the Bishop showed, unhappily not for the last time, his total incapacity to understand the mental attitude of a clergyman who felt himself bound by the plain letter of the Rubric, 64 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH and could not construe the obligation of canonical obedience as meaning that whatever a bishop commands a presbyter is bound to do. Unluckily for the Bishop, Ritualism grew and flourished, in spite of his unsparing opposition. It touched particularly the young and the poor. It spread from parish to parish, and its propagators were deter- mined people, whom it was extremely difficult either to coerce or to wheedle. For twenty years, first as Bishop and then as Archbishop, Tait waged an unrelenting war against Ritualism. The boldest mano3iivre of the whole campaign the Public Worship Regulation Act will be noticed separately. The net result of so many pitched battles, of incessant skirmishing, and not a few ambuscades, was that, in spite of Tait's generalship and resources, the Ritualists won the day and held the field. Late in life he recognized the fact. In. 1875, flushed with his recent success in es- tablishing Lord Penzance's Court, the Archbishop re- ceived a deputation of working men connected with St. Alban's, Holborn, who came to ask his sympathy and help in some of their chronic troubles. He treated them and their cause and their clergy in very charac- teristic fashion scolded them soundly, lectured them on their duty, pooh-poohed them for liking elaborate ritual, and had nothing to offer them, in their obviously real distress, but his dry husks of hard legality. And this was the kind of treatment which he continued for several years to mete out to all sorts and conditions of Ritualists. The law of the Church of England was laid down by the Judicial Committee and Lord Penzance, and anyone who disobeyed it must take the consequences. But, as time went on, it seems to have dawned upon the Archbishop's mind that this kind ARCHBISHOP TAIT 65 of treatment was not quite adequate to the case. Whether right or wrong, the Ritualists were numerous and were resolute ; they could give a very good account of themselves historically and theologically ; they con- ceived, however mistakenly, that they had a right to exist in the Church of England, and this right they had the hardihood to maintain. Clearly they could not be snuffed out, and some more reasonable method of dealing with them must be devised. To this alteration in the Archbishop's view other influences, no doubt, contributed. Those who knew him best saw that his twofold bereave- ment in 1878 did much to soften him. He was inclined to rely less on the strong hand, and more on fatherly persuasion ; he began to perceive that Ritualists were not a parcel of obstinate children who amused themselves by dressing-up, but rational men, who, whether rightly or wrongly, thought that ritual served religious ends. He sought with new care for points of agreement with those from whom in some matters he differed, and was more inclined than he had been formerly to make common cause against common evils with men whose eyes were so holden that they could not discern the divine claims of the Judicial Committee. Another cause of the Archbishop's altered attitude towards Ritualism was a personal one his feeling for Mr. Mackonochie. As Bishop of London he had long known that devoted man, first as curate of St. George's-in-the-East, and later as Vicar of St. Alban's ; and, while he condemned his proceedings, he retained a sincere regard for his character. Much of this was due to the fact that they both were Scotchmen ; and people who knew the prelate and the presbyter were amused to see that each re- cognized something of a kindred spirit in the other each thought the other by far the best representative of a dangerous school. The events and controversies of 5 66 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH later years brought the two men into more frequent relations with each other. The Archbishop learned to set an increasingly high value on Mr. Mackonochie's self-sacrificing devotion ; and everyone remembers the touching effort which he made on his death-bed to undo the mischievous effects of earlier policy, and end the persecution to which St. Alban's had been subjected. It was the act of a brave and a great man great enough to admit that he had been in the wrong. But in spite of all this softening change in the Arch- bishop's bearing, there was still a rather provoking vein of condescension to the Ritualists, as to a feeble folk, and a curious failure to understand their position and beliefs, even when he was really bestirring himself to spare their feelings and to do them substantial justice. This was strangely illustrated in the sequel to the Bordesley case, where the Consecrated Wafer had been sacrilegiously abstracted and used as evidence in Court. The natural piety of every instructed Churchman was horrified by this outrage, and the Archbishop was im- plored to rescue the Sacred Species from the registry of the court in which It had been impounded. This he did ; strongly condemned the conduct of the persons who had abstracted It ; and duly consumed the Wafer in his own private chapel. But, his biographer tells us, the gratitude of Churchmen for this relief to their feelings distressed and surprised the Archbishop almost as much as their previous horror. " He refused with unwonted sternness to receive a deputation which desired to thank him," and he replied to a memorial on the subject in terms which showed that, with all the will in the world to do what was right, he did not even faintly comprehend the feeling with which devout Anglicans regard the Consecrated Elements, by reason of their relation to Things Unseen. The old methods of forcible repression, having utterly 67 failed of their object, were thus replaced by a sort of contemptuous kindness. The change was perhaps an improvement as far as it went ; but it left much to be desired. It is to be hoped that those who have inherited the Archbishop's tradition, and aspire to carry on his policy, will realize that pitying patronage is scarcely less offensive than persecution ; and that there is no hope of abating ritual difficulties in the Church until onr rulers recognize that Ritualists, as well as Puritans and Neologians, may be capable and intelligent, though perhaps mistaken, men. Even more unfortunate were Tait's dealings, as Bishop of London, with the vexed question of Confession. Mr. Poole, a curate of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, had been accused of scandalous conduct, and had triumphantly routed his accusers. But he was arbitrarily deprived of his licence, because he had presumed to exercise, in a manner and degree which the Bishop disapproved, that Ministry of Reconciliation which the Church of England entrusts without restriction to all her priests. The Bishop's willingness to license Mr. Poole elsewhere puts his own previous conduct in an even more unfavourable light ; for it seems to show that, in silencing the curate at St. Paul's, he acted not so much in obedience to prin- ciple as in deference to a local clamour which had been proved to be unfounded. But, from first to last, Tait always paid an even excessive respect to lay opinion, unless it happened to be that of Ritualists ; in which case he commonly treated it as if it emanated from Earlswood or Hauwell. In the matter of Confession, as of Ritualism, time decided against the Archbishop, and the warmest admirers of his consistency will hardly allege that he would have ventured to repeat in 1876 the high-handed conduct of 1856. 68 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH During the earlier years of Tait's episcopate the minds of English Churchmen were long and seriously perturbed by Bishop Colenso's theological aberrations, and the consequent difficulties of the Church in South Africa. Throughout these troubles Bishop Tait displayed great powers of character and judgment. He kept his head amid universal clamour ; saw his own way, and pursued it through evil report and good. But, from the point of view of spiritual Churchmanship, his action was little less than deplorable. More than almost any man of equal ability, he was incapable of mental change. Throughout these interminable debates he appears exactly as he was in old days at Balliol and Rugby, and as he remained to the end. He was, to all appearance, con- stitutionally unable to conceive of the Catliolic Church as a spiritual society, essentially distinct from, though accidentally allied with, the State ; founded by our Lord Himself, and by Him endowed with a constitution, laws, and traditions of her own. This being so, of course it follows that he could not apprehend the English Church, or the South African Church, as being a part of that Universal Church, and having her share in that great birthright of self-governance. To Tait's mind the Church of England seems to have been a Department of the State, like the Customs or the Police ; charged by law with the duty of main- taining such theological beliefs and moral practices as Parliament might, for the time being, approve ; and subject in every question, however momentous, of doctrine or discipline, to the authority of a tribunal which spoke of " the Inferior Persons of the Trinity." It was this ingrained Erastianism of the Bishop's mind that made him so wholly unsympathetic to those who were fighting the battle of the Faith in South Africa. Not that he had much sympathy with the offending prelate. He ARCHBISHOP TAIT 69 saw as clearly as anyone the mischievous nature of his opinions, and the frivolity of his critical tone. But he was so tightly tied and bound to the chariot- wheels of the State, that he could not move a finger unless and until Crown and Cabinet and Parliament and Law- Courts should graciously permit him and his episcopal brethren to exercise the sacred powers entrusted to them by the Divine Head of the Church. During the debates of the first Pan-Anglican Confer- ence in 1867, Tait's passionate Erastianism carried him beyond the bounds of his usual self-control, and threw him into vehement antagonism to the majority of his brethren, especially those who came from the free Churches of America and the Colonies. Bishop Wilber- force wrote to a friend : " The Lambeth gathering was a very great success. Its strongly anti-Erastian tone, rebuking the Bishop of London, and strengthening those who hope to maintain the Establishment by maintaining, instead of surrendering, the dogmatic character of the Church, was quite remarkable." His Erastianism was one of the elements of failure in the Archbishop's long, consistent, and in many respects sagacious administration. It threw him hopelessly out of harmony, not only with the best traditions of our older divinity, but even more fatally so with that new movement which sprang from Oxford in 1833, and which still lives and works, under changed aspects, but with unchanged spirit. That movement, whatever else might be said of it, was pre-eminently distinguished by its intense and austere unworldliness. Its leaders and disciples could not have much in common with a prelate whose counsel to the Church, at every crisis, was to accept the mess of pottage and surrender the birthright of the Bride of Christ. Throughout his working life Archbishop Tait found himself in bitter, 70 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH and often bewildered, opposition to men who made their appeal, alike in doctrine and in practice, not to Acts of Parliament or decrees of secular Courts, nor even to the episcopal edicts by which bishops sought to give a spiritual colour to those very mundane mandates ; but to the Faith once for all delivered to the saints, and the customs always and everywhere observed by them ; to historical testimony and to Catholic consent. I spoke just now of Archbishop Tait's excessive deference to lay opinion, so long as it was not the opinion of Ritualists. This was curiously illustrated in the controversy about the Athanasian Creed. Towards the year 1871 a smouldering hostility to that venerable symbol was quickened, by judicious fanning, into the semblance of a flame. All at once an agitation sprang up. People not remarkable for the regularity of their attendance at Divine Worship (and least of all on week-days) suddenly found that their lives had been made a burden to them by dogmatic assertions to which they were forced to listen some five times a year. They clamoured for relief from the annoyance. Various ways of escape were suggested. The Creed might be altogether disused ; its use might be made optional ; it might be used only once a year ; the " damnatory clauses " might be struck out ; it might be retranslated ; it might be explained away in a note anything rather than that its precise teaching and emphatic warnings should still ring in the ears to which all positive faith was an affront. The attack on the Creed was attended by an impressive amount of sound and fury ; but, as we look back on it after the lapse of twenty years, it seems to have been to a great extent fraudulent. It was an agitation under false pretences. No doubt there were, as there still are, some well-instructed ARCHBISHOP TAIT 71 * Churchmen, of unimpreachable orthodoxy, who, abso- lutely believing every statement of the Creed, considered it out of place where it stands in the Prayer-book, and would have been content to place it with the Articles, as being in its form unfitted for public recitation. No doubt there were also a certain number of persons, themselves devout believers in the constructive parts of the Athauasian theology, who yet felt that the " damnatory clauses " were inconsistent with Christian charity, and would have been glad to see them ex- punged, if only a National Church were competent to alter a document of world-wide authority. But it was not from either of these sections that the agitation against the Creed proceeded. It proceeded from those to whom the fundamental doctrine of the Creed was distasteful. Beneath a fair- seeming show of charity and candour, there lay concealed a disbelief, which hardly cared to avow itself, in the central doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation ; and the attack, thus organized by the enemies of the Christian Faith, was reinforced by the indifferent and the irreligious, the vaguely speculative and the merely ignorant, and by those who had never troubled them- selves to ascertain the meaning of theological terms. These external foes of the Creed had their allies inside the citadel. There were distinguished clergymen, highly placed in the Church and the Universities, who, themselves disbelieving in the theology which they were pledged to teach, welcomed with effusion whatever tended to disparage it. Dr. Pusey and Dr. Liddon saw at once the true bearings of the case, and faced the danger with courageous front. If the Creed were multilated or defaced, they would resign their prefer- ments and retire into lay -communion. Men who were resident at Oxford in the autumn of 1872 have probably 72 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH not forgotten the trumpet-blasts which those two great champions of the Faith delivered from the University pulpit Dr. Liddon preaching on October 20 on " The Life of Faith and the Athanasian Creed," and Dr. Fuse) 7 on Advent Sunday on " The Responsibility of Intellect in Matters of Faith." These trumpets, at any rate, gave no uncertain sound, and their summons roused the great mass of the clergy, and almost every layman who could, by any stretch of terms, be called a High Churchman. Unluckily the Archbishop, though himself an orthodox believer, lent his great authority to the movement against the Creed. He wished to remove it from its honoured place in the sanctuary, and bury it in some lumber-room where it could not offend the susceptibilities of even the most delicate heterodoxy. Speaking in Convocation, he justified the course which he proposed by saying that no one in the Church of England took the "damnatory clauses " in their plain and literal sense ; and he thereby elicited from an aggrieved clergyman of his Province such a rebuke as has seldom been suffered by a chief pastor of the Church. 1 The opposition to the attack on the Creed proved infinitely stronger than Tait had anticipated ; and, while retaining his original opinion, he fell back upon the rather feeble compromise of an explanatory note or declaration, which, as it was only accepted by Convocation and not inserted in the Prayer-book, disturbed no one, while it possibly comforted some remarkably tender souls. Thus the attack was foiled, the Creed was saved, and a schism averted. But the credit of the result can hardly be claimed for the Archbishop. Tait's admirers have always been in the habit of See p. Ill, ARCHBISHOP TA1T 73 laying peculiar stress upon his statesmanship. His reputation for that great quality has been made to rest, in large measure, upon the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874. The sudden death of Bishop Wilberforce, in July, 1873, removed the only prelate who, in Parliament, in Convocation, and in private dealing, could meet the Archbishop on equal terms. The consequences of this lamentable event were soon seen. " Now that Wilberforce is gone, we shall have strange doings " was a prophecy on many lips, and the Church had not to wait long for its fulfilment. We have seen already the Archbishop's inveterate dislike of Ritualism. Of the two chief forces that had restrained him from short and easy methods of repression, the one Bishop Wilberforce was removed by death, and the other Mr. Gladstone by the result of the General Election. Early in 1874 the Bishops met at Lambeth, and decided on immediate action. Arch- bishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson undertook to draft a Bill. They seem to have honestly believed that, if they took in hand the suppression of Ritualism, their high position would secure the acquiescence of all loyal Churchmen, and that the only opposition they would have to encounter would proceed from quarters unfriendly to the Church. Considering the attitude of these Most Reverend prelates towards all questions of Ritualism, and to some of graver importance, throughout their episcopal careers, this touching confidence in the docility of those whom they had systematically snubbed strikes one as a very remarkable instance of self-deception. The famous Bill in due course appeared. Its provisions were as follows : " In every diocese there was to be set up a Council, presided over by the Bishop, and consisting of three incumbents and five laymen, elected respectively by the clergy and the churchwardens, in 74 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH addition to the Chancellor, Dean, and Archdeacons. The members of this Council were to be a kind of grand jury ; any complaint of irregularity in ritual was to be referred to them in the first instance, and they were to advise the Bishop whether there was any ground for further proceedings. If such proceedings were taken, the Bishop was to decide the point at issue, and his decision was subject only to an appeal to the Archbishop. The Archbishop's decision was to be final." With regard to this revolutionary proposal, Tait's biographers mildly say that it merely " aimed at re- viving in a practical shape the forum domesticum of the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seemed necessary to meet the changed circumstances of modern times." Forum domesticum is distinctly good, and so is " coercive force." Delightful mitigation of unpleasant facts ! Surely, as Master Shallow says, " Good phrases are, and ever were, very commendable." The forum domesticum of the Bishops has really quite a comfortable sound. It suggests a pleasing picture of the fatherly Bishop and the filial Ritualist amicably settling their little differences over a quiet cup of tea in the episcopal study ; while, as to the " coercive force " which lurks in the background, why, it would surely argue a morbid curiosity to enquire too closely into its nature. The biographers seem to think that the natural effect of such proposals must have been to inspire every reasonable Ritualist with the halcyon calm of absolute security. It is much as though the Archbishops had said : "We do not suggest hanging as the proper remedy for Ritualism. We merely propose to revive the secular jurisdiction of the Episcopal Courts, with power to apply so much of a suspensory process as ' the changed circumstances of modern times ' may seem to ARCHBISHOP TA1T 75 require." What could be a more encouraging prospect ? However much men might dislike being hanged, surely they had no right to object to a " suspensory process." And yet, such is the innate and incurable perversity of Ritualistic nature, that, no sooner were the archiepiscopal proposals made known than a storm of remonstrance broke out, and High Churchmen of every shade joined in the protest. It has never been a foible of the Anglican Episcopate to bear itself with too high a front in the face of secular opinion ; but it has made up for this rather excessive modesty by as much peremptoriness towards the inferior : clergy as the law permitted. Fortunately that law, | as it stood, set very definite limits to the episcopal authority, and it was even brutally indifferent to the forum, domesticum. Here, probably, was the true, if unrealized, origin of the Public Worship Regulation Act. Archbishop Tait was a man who knew his own mind, and liked to have his own way. An authoritative- ness which was part of his nature was enhanced by every circumstance of his career. As tutor of his college, as headmaster of a Public School, as dean of a Cathedral Church, as a bishop, and as a primate, he had been placed in a succession of stations where his will was necessarily law for a great many people subjected to it. But in dealing with the parochial clergy, he learned that their position was an uncommonly strong one ; voluntas could no longer stand pro rations ; and he was forced to persuade, advise, exhort, instead of commanding and threatening. The Public Worship Regulation Act was a distinct attempt to abrogate this freedom of the parish-priest, and to place him under the diocesan's absolute control ; and, considering the natural weakness of even episcopal flesh and blood, it is obvious that the prospect of these greatly extended powers would not be 76 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH unwelcome to the meekest bishop who ever sate on the bench. The Bill was introduced by the Archbishop on April 20, 1874. In Committee it was transmogrified at the instance of Lord Shaftesbnry, acting for Lord Cairns. The forum domesticum was abolished, and it was provided that a single lay-judge should be appointed by the two Archbishops to hear and determine all representations under the Act, in either Province, with- out the intervention of any such diocesan council as had been originally proposed. When the Bill reached the House of Commons it was powerfully opposed by Mr. Gladstone ; but the feeling of the House was dead against him, and Mr. Disraeli used the opportunity with characteristic skill. He adopted the Bill with great cordiality. He rejected all the glozing euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords. He uttered no pribbles and prabbles about forum domesticum and paternal guidance, and the authoritative inter- pretation of ambiguous formularies. " This," he said, " is a Bill to put down Ritualism." That was the naked truth, long and carefully shrouded from view in aprons and lawn-sleeves, bat now displayed in all its native charm. Its success was instantaneous and overwhelm- ing. The House of Commons read the Bill a second time without a division, and it passed, without material change, into law. The Archbishop wrote in his journal : "I received congratulations on all hands." Perhaps they were a little premature. The working and results of the Public Worship Regulation Act, as we have seen them exhibited during the last fifteen years, are scarcely such as to justify the theory that its principal author was distinguished by prescient statesmanship. In connexion with the subject of statesmanship, it is natural to say a word about the Archbishop's parlia- ARCHBISHOP TAIT 77 mentary performances. It may be cheerfully conceded, even by those who most disliked his policy, that he played a great part in the House of Lords. With his dignity of person and bearing, his weighty and fluent speech, and his practical sagacity, he worthily re- presented the great institution over which he presided. His speeches were always heard with interest and respect, and not seldom they turned votes. In any parliamentary business with which he concerned himself, he wielded important influence. He had a natural turn for strategy and arrangement, and a keen eye for a working compromise. He had close relations with the Queen, and, in spite of his Whiggish antecedents, with the leaders of the Tory party. He showed great skill in getting men to sink minor differences, and in com- bining more or less discordant elements for the attain- ment of important ends which he had at heart. All these arts of management he practised with untiring industry, and, as far as the House of Lords was con- cerned, with conspicuous success. Parliamentary power is a great gift, and its possession carries with it a heavy responsibility. The only possible justification of a system which gives seats in the legislature to the chief ministers of a religions body is that they should represent moral sense and Christian principle, laboriously promote whatever tends to the ethical aud physical improvement of the people, and guide the national conscience aright in those great crises of public controversy where, as in the Eastern Question, the path of politics crosses the path of religion. Arch- bishop Tait was, according to his panegyrists, the great statesman-ecclesiastic of our day; to put it at the lowest, he was a parliamentary manager of much tact and experience. He sat in the House of Lords for five-and-twenty years, and took a leading part in its 78 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH business. In purely ecclesiastical matters his influence, whether for good or evil, was constantly and effectively exercised ; but his biographers do not, I think, mention a single spiritual or moral cause which gained the slightest assistance from the fact that the Chief Pastor of the Church of England was also a Peer of Parliament. What is the use of Bishops in the House of Lords ? ON December 15, 1887, there came to a strange and yet most appropriate close a life which, without the name or profession of Christian Socialism, had yet been saturated by its spirit and spent in its work. After the lapse of ten years I venture to lay before the readers of The Commonwealth some memorials (written at the time of Mr. Mackonochie's death) of a remarkable character and a noble life. Before I speak of the man I must describe his en- vironment. " Baldwin's Gardens." A traveller who had nothing more than this name to guide him would probably take some time before he discovered the nook which bears it, and which lies in the angle formed by the junction of Gray's Inn Road and Holborn. Neither eye nor nose suggests the presence of a garden, and all traces of " Baldwin," if ever he existed, have departed as completely as the odour of his flowers. In Baldwin's Gardens stands St. Alban's Church, and St. Alban's parish is bounded by Holborn, Leather Lane, Gray's Inn Lane, and Clerkenwell Road. Whole- sale demolitions of over-crowded and insanitary dwellings have of late years materially improved the physical condition of the place, as the exemplary labours of a devoted clergy have bettered it morally. But it is 1 The substance of this paper appeared in The Times, 1888. 79 80 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH necessary for our present purpose to recall it as it was some five-and-thirty years ago. What is now St. Alban's parish was then part of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and its tiny area five hundred yards by two hundred contained some eight thousand souls. Decent people seldom ventured into its courts and alleys. If they did, they ran the risk of being assailed with filthy missiles and filthier words from inhabitants who resented all intrusion. The very policemen ap- peared rarely, and then in pairs. A notorious Thieves' Kitchen stood on the spot which is now occupied by the font of St. Alban's Church. About the year 1860 that munificent son of the Church of England, Mr. John Gellibrand Hubbard afterwards Lord Addington resolved on a brave and bountiful attempt to evan- gelize this squalid slum. He took the legal steps to erect it into an ecclesiastical district. On a site generously given by Lord Leigh he built a church, which he dedicated to St. Alban, the proto-martyr of Britain, and endowed it with 5,000 in the Three per Cents. He further gave the use of a clergy-house, and 100 a year for each of two curates. These prepara- tions made, he looked round him for some clergyman fitted, by self-denial, power of work, and love of souls, to take the command of this new crusade. The recent disturbances at St. George's-in-the-East had directed the eyes of all Churchmen to that remote parish ; and in connexion with those disturbances it is interest- ing to learn, on the recent testimony of Mr. J. M. Ludlow, that they were " nominally, and in part really, caused by Mr. Bryan King's ritualistic practices, but largely stimulated by the Jewish sweaters of the East End, whose proceedings Mr. Bryan King's curates, Messrs. Mackonochie and Lowder, had the unheard-of impertinence to denounce and interfere with." One ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 81 of those curates is the subject of the present sketch ; and what manner of man he was we will now try to see. First, we mnst briefly recall the few and simple facts of his career. His father was Colonel Mackonochie, of the Honourable East India Company's service, and he was born August 11, 1825, at Fareham, in Hamp- shire, where^ his father Kacf settled on his return from India. He received his early education at private schools at Bath and Exeter, and, after studying for a short time at the University of Edinburgh, he went up to Wadham College, Oxford. He obtained a Second Class in the Final Classical School, and then, in obedience to a vocation which he had felt from his earliest years, he dedicated himself to the ministerial career. He was ordained Deacon by Bishop Denison at Salisbury in 1849, and Priest in 1850. His first curacy was at Westbury, in Wiltshire. Thence he removed to Wantage, where Dr. Liddon was one of his fellow- curates. During a visit to London in 1857 he went to St. George's-in-the-East ; and he was so deeply impressed by the strenuous work which Mr. Lowder was there carrying on, that in the following year he joined the Mission, and came to live at the Mission House in Wellclose Square. It was at this time that, unknown to himself, he fell under the watchful eye of Mr. Hubbard, who discerned in him a man fitted beyond all others for the difficult and laborious charge of his new church in Baldwin's Gardens. Never was a more judicious selection made, for in many aspects of his character and constitution Mr. Mackonochie was the ideal priest. In early youth his health had been delicate, but strength had come with years, and long self-discipline had rendered him almost insensible to fatigue and impervious to common ailments. His head was as hard as his body clear, cold, and strong. His 6 82 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH habit of mind was characteristically Scotch in its dry logic and theoretical consistency. No one wonld have thought of describing him as a very clever man ; but its astonishing powers of " grind " enabled him to attain 'at the University and subsequently a degree of in- tellectual success out of proportion to his purely mental gifts. Nothing was more characteristic of the man than the dogged resolution with which he would address himself to the study of some quite uncongenial branch of knowledge, such as an unfamiliar school of painting or a fresh discovery in science. At these he wonld " toil terribly " ; and, holding that a religious teacher should keep abreast of all new knowledge, he would dutifully endeavour to familiarize himself with ideas and phenomena which in themselves had only the faintest interest for him. This intense habit of con- scientious study was only a form of his invincible will. A more resolute man never lived. When once he had deliberately adopted a course, he pursued it with grim tenacity, and his power of resistance to pressure was at least as strong as his constructive volition. Hence arose that unfortunate disagreement between himself and the founder of St. Alban's, which caused so much pain to two excellent men. When Mr. Hubbard offered him the living, he refused to entertain the offer except on the condition that he should be absolutely free, and unfettered by any understandings except those which bound him as a clergyman of the Church of England. He frankly stated that his principles of doctrine and worship were those which have since come to be called " Ritualistic " ; and, in his own words, he made it plain that he could not accept the responsibility of such a parish except on the basis that my duty to God and to the souls of His people, according to the best judgment that I could ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 83 form of it, would have to be paramount over every other consideration. The point I kept before myself, and as forcibly as I could impressed on others, was that when once a priest was licensed to the parish, and the church consecrated, the work would be neither his nor Mr. Hubbard's, but God's. With the priest, as God's steward, would rest the responsibility, and, therefore, with him alone, after such security for sound judgment as he might be able to take, must rest the decision for which he alone would answer at the Judgment. These considerations, strongly urged by Mr. Mackonochie, were duly weighed by Mr. Hubbard and other friends of the new church, with the result that they implored Mr. Mackonochie to raise no farther difficulties, but to accept the charge on his own terms. This he cheer- fully did. All he asked was a free hand. His was the responsibility, and his must be the power. He could not share the one ; he dared not share the other. From the moment when he accepted the living of St. Alban's, he sketched out for himself a line of action which, whether wise or unwise, was bound to develope into the form which it ultimately assumed. Strong in his Scotch love of logical coherence, nothing could turn him back, or modify his judgment, or stay his hand. Prosecutions, persecutions, admonitions, abase, ridicule, calamny all ran off this robust constitution like water off a duck's back. And yet, except in matters where his ecclesiastical conscience and judgment were involved, he was the humblest and most teachable of men. He was modestly aware of his intellectual defects, always ready to be informed and full of touching confidence in the superior wisdqjr of much younger men. By them //] in turn he was greatly loved. His absolute honesty, sincerity, directness, and fearlessness commanded their respect. His contempt for wealth, ease, enjoyment, and honours fascinated their imagination. He had acquired, in the most sacred of all confidences, a 84 deep insight into the inner springs of character and conduct, which was as helpful as it sometimes was startling. His intense and most practical sympathy with poverty, sickness, pain, and trouble, whether material or mental, endeared him to thousands who would have been repelled by his stern fidelity to the letter of an unpopular creed, by his prosaic and unimaginative temperament, and by the dignified austerity of his personal demeanour. When Mr. Mackonochie entered on his duties at St. Alban's, the beautiful church a masterpiece of Mr. Butterfield's Gothic skill was not finished, and the first services were held in a room over a coster- monger's fish-shop, at the corner of Baldwin's Gardens, on Sunday, May 11, 1862. In June the services were removed to the cellar below the basement of a printer's shop in Greville Street. This cellar was about twenty feet long. The printing-machines overhead rattled down dust on the worshippers beneath. The printer's boys in the midst of evensong used to come down to turn on the gas for the rooms above, borrowing chairs from the congregation to enable them to reach the meter. The yamins of the neighbourhood crowded round the windows of the house, and noisily joined in the Gregorian tones which pro- ceeded from the basement. Here the services were conducted for nine months, the furniture of the cellar consisting of a temporary altar, a few chairs, and some matting. Yet from the first the Holy Communion was celebrated with lights and vestments. Meanwhile, the church was approaching completion, and, amply stored with all the appliances of a seemly worship, it was consecrated on February 21, 1863, by Bishop Tait, of London. A tablet over the south door bears this inscription : Free to Christ's poor for ever, on a site given by William Henry, second Baron Leigh, this church is erected by a Merchant of London. ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 85 In view of subsequent events, it is important to bear in mind that the mixed chalice, unleavened bread, lights, and vestments were used from the first. Mr. Mackonochie was not long before he gathered round him a gallant band of like-minded fellow- workers, and the parochial machinery organized by these devoted priests was elaborate and thorough in a very high degree. True to their vocation as I " fishers of men," they made ample provision for the l needs of the body and the mind as well as the soul. The purely spiritual ministrations of the Church I celebrations, services, sermons, and the like were of course frequent, reverent, hearty, and full alike of outward attractiveness and inward edification. There was absolute freedom of private Confession, which was heard openly in the church. Outside the church, the agencies for good included a Sisterhood ; a Burial Society ; Guilds and Associations for Men, Boys, Women, and Girls ; a Working-men's Club ; an Infant Nursery ; a Choir-School ; Parochial Schools, built at a cost of 6,000, and educating 500 children ; Night Schools for Boys and Girls ; a Soup-Kitchen ; a Blanket Loan Fund ; a Lying-in Charity ; a Clothing Fund ; a Coal-Charity ; a Savings-Bank and Clothing Club ; a Shoe-Club ; provision and food for the destitute, and relief for the sick, to the amount of some 500 a year. What, it may be asked, was the result of all this varied and munificent endeavour ? The answer is not far to seek. In such a district as Baldwin's Gardens, the three main evils are practical heathenism, immorality, and poverty. The following figures will tell, more elo- quently than the most elaborate rhetoric, what the - ministrations of St. Alban's did towards overcoming : these three chief enemies of good. Within seven i years from the consecration of the church, and, as 86 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH respects some of the figures, in less time, the number of baptisms had risen from 295 to 537, marriages from 5 to 28, Easter communicants from 291 to 569, and offertories from 541 to 2,184. In brief, whatever may be thought of the theological lines on which it was conducted, the work of St. Alban's was earnest, was practical, and was eminently successful. But trouble was impending. The high ritual practised in the church attracted public notice. The daily papers described it in " graphic " articles. The angry bigotry of a Puritan section wholly unconnected with the parish was aroused ; and it was determined to test the legality of the ceremonial used at St. Alban's. The difficulty was to obtain a local prosecutor, for the great majority of the parishioners were devoted to their clergy and church. At worst they were indifferent. No one was hostile. The real prosecutor was the notorious Church Associa- tion, described by Archbishop Magee as " The Persecution Company, Limited," and it secured the co-operation of a certain Mr. Martin, a resident in St. George's, Blooms- bury, whose sole connexion with St. Alban's was that his name stood on the parish rate-book for some schools of which he was secretary. At Mr. Martin's instance, legal proceedings against Mr. Mackonochie were begun on March 28, 1867, when the Bishop of London sent the case by Letters of Request to the Court of Arches. The charge against Mr. Mackonochie was that he used in Divine worship certain specified practices which were contrary to, or inconsistent with, the rubrics of the Church of England. The case was tried in the Court of Arches before Sir Robert Phillimore, who decided against Mr. Mackonochie on certain points ; but with regard to three namely, altar-lights, kneeling at the Consecration, and elevating the Holy Sacrament ALEXANDER HEHIOT MACKONOCHIE 8? pronounced that they were legal. On these three points Mr. Martin forthwith appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ; and an enquiry touching the niceties of Eucharistic ritual was conducted by a tribunal including a Presbyterian, an ex-representative of the Orange town of Belfast, a partisan Archbishop, a lay Low Churchman, and a theologian who talked about " the Inferior Persons of the Trinity." It is not surprising that, under such judges, a Ritualist fared badly. The case was given against Mr. Mackouochie, and he was condemned in costs. Mr. Mackonochie, who in truth cared little for the precise forms of ecclesiastical ceremony, so long as reverence, seemliness, and intelligible teaching were secured, h immediately conformed to the letter of the judgment. But his prosecutors were not satisfied with the extent of his compliance, and delated him to the Privy Council for disobedience to its monition. It may not be unin- teresting, as illustrating the spirit and methods of this prosecution, to cite a portion of the bill of costs presented by the proctors for the Church Association to Mr. Mac- konochie, exceeding, before taxation, 400, and relating only to that part of the case heard on December 4, 1 869 : July, 1869. . -s. d. Attending Mr. Pond, instructing him to attend St. Alban's on Sunday, July 11 068 Taking his statement and fair copy . . 18 4 Paid him for his attendance . . . .220 Attending Mr. Pond, instructing him to attend the early Communion on July 12 (i.e. the next day, Mon- day) and four following days . . .068 Taking his statement and fair copy . . 18 4 Paid him for his attendance . . . .650 (Two guineas for Sunday, one each week-day.) Three persons were employed. Similar entries occur all through, exceeding in the whole 100. Though judgment was given in Mr. Mackonochie's favour on two charges out of three, he was ordered to pay the whole costs. Not satisfied with this partial victory, the prosecutors now proceeded against Mr. Mackonochie for sanctioning the performance by others of illegal acts. Hired spies were again sent to make observations at the church ; and, although their evidence was contradicted on some main points by the affidavits of clergy, churchwardens, and lay- , communicants, the Privy Council found Mr. Mackonochie guilty of disobedience to their judgment, and suspended ! him from the performance of his clerical duties for i.three months. During this period the services were carried on precisely as before. Mr. Mackonochie returned to his post when the term of his suspension had expired, and for three years the parish was left in peace. In 1874 the second " London Mission'" was held, and, partly in connexion with the mode in . which it had been conducted in St. Alban's parish, a fresh prosecution was begun by the indefatigable Mr. Martin, and Mr. Mackonochie was again suspended. This second suspension was the signal for some very decisive proceedings. A Committee of Defence was formed in the parish, and an emphatic remonstrance against the treatment of the vicar was presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Bishop of London refused to receive a similar deputation. During Mr. Mackonochie's suspension, Mr. Stanton, as curate-in- charge, refused to celebrate the Holy Communion with maimed rites, and the congregation of St. Alban's moved in a body to St. Vedast's, Foster Lane. When Mr. Mackonochie returned to the parish, some alterations were made in the accustomed ceremonial, and the enemy seemed to be for a while appeased. Then came ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 89 seven years of quiet and successful work, and ever- increasing activity in the service of the poor. But in 1882 the inveterate Church Association prepared a fresh I] law-suit with a view to Mr. Mackonochie's deprivation. ; . At this time Archbishop Tait was on his death-bed, and he resolved, with noble freedom from all petty pride, to acknowledge and, as far as in him lay, to repair the unhappy effects of his own Public Worship Regula- tion Act. From his death-bed he arranged with Mr. Mackonochie that he should exchange livings with Mr. Suckling, Vicar of St. Peter's, London Docks ; and he procured the sanction of the Bishop of London to this arrangement, which defeated the projected law- suit. To St. Peter's Mr. Mackonochie accordingly went at the beginning of 1883, and there he continued until the threat of yet another prosecution, promoted by the agency which had done so much to embitter his life, made it desirable, in the interests of St. Peter's parish, that its much-persecuted vicar should resign his charge. Signs were not wanting that the anxieties and hard- ships of his life had told on him more severely than his friends had guessed. He resigned St. Peter's, and returned as a curate_to_ his__iJ_d_parish of St. jAlban's^ where he was welcomed with touching and chivalrous loyalty by his friend and successor, the Rev. R. A. J. Suckling. During the last two years a gradual failure of strength compelled him to withdraw from ministerial work, and to live mainly with his own family in the country, where he still keenly enjoyed the society of . , intimate friends and the beauties of nature. On Thursday, X. December 15, 1887, while on a visit to the Bishop of Argyll, at Ballachulish, he went out for a long walk, and, being overtaken by snowstorm and darkness, lost his way in the Mamore deer-forest. He was found there on the following Saturday, lying dead in a snowdrift, 90 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH his body guarded by two dogs which had accompanied him on his walk. Death came as a merciful release from increasing infirmity, and closed a life which had been spent with prodigal self-sacrifice in the service of his fellow-men. The following words are from the pen of Mr. Stanton : It is ungracious, and beyond just surmise, to say that the enfeeblement of his manly, strong, loving life was the necessary result of the repeated prosecutions which the Church Association thought it their duty to maintain ; but there can be little doubt that underneath the brave cheer- fulness with which he met all the reverses, and submitted to the indignities consequent upon them, there lay a very keen sensitiveness, and that the " iron entered his soul." For although never admitted by him, it was observable, so that no one wondered at the storm-beaten expression on his face and the broken utterances of his lips which marked the two declining years of his life. The mystery of his stern, hard, self-devoted life completed itself in the weird circumstances of his death. He seems to have walked round and round the hollow in which he had taken shelter from the mountain storm, trying to keep life in him as long as he could ; then, as if he knew his hour had come, deliberately to have uncovered his head to say his last prayers, and then to have laid his head upon his hand and died, sheltered in ' the hollow of the hand ' of God, Whom he served so faithfully ; and at His bidding the wild wind from off the moor wreathed his head with snow. This dramatic ending of a noble life awoke a general and kindly interest in the history and character of Alexander Heriot Mackonochie. A generation has arisen which never heard of the riots at St. George's- in-the-East, and barely remembers the acrimonious liti- gation which so long harassed St. Alban's. Modern society has learned the lesson of toleration its critics would say, of indifference so rapidly and so completely, that it can only recall by an effort the passionate animosities which twenty-five years ago made eccle- siastical controversy so furious and so vindictive. In this altered condition of the public mind it may not be uninteresting to recall the kind of life, of opinion, and of practice which earned for Mr. Mackonochie the guerdon of personal violence, protracted persecution, judicial penalties, pecuniary loss, professional discredit, shattered health, and ruined happiness. The writer stands sufficiently removed from the scene and the chief actor in it to write, as he believes, with complete impartiality. His sole object is to reproduce some remarkable characteristics, and to correct some mis- apprehensions which have prevailed even in quarters where there was a sincere wish to be fair. In handling the question of religious opinion, it is necessary to disclaim all theological partisanship. No attempt will here be made to decide on the soundness or unsoundness of the doctrines preached at St. Alban's. The writer only seeks to show what those doctrines were, and what they were not. A notion was at one time current that the teaching at St. Alban's was of the Roman type, and tended in a Romeward direction. This was pure delusion. The clergy of St. Alban's were entirely out of sympathy with Italian views of religious truth, and, as a natural consequence, the congregation of St. Alban's has been remarkably free from those secessions to Rome which have so often marred the work and belied the teaching of Ritualistic Churches. The doctrines held and taught by Mr. Mac- konochie and his colleagues on such subjects as sin, redemption, and grace, the constitution of the Church, the functions of the ministry, and the nature of the Sacraments, were the doctrines which, whether true or false, have notoriously been held by a large, learned, and devout section of the Church of England at every period of her history. The modern and exotic accretions 92 I which are the peculiar property of the Church of [ Rome found no place either in the explicit or the implied teaching of St. Alban's. On the contrary, the clergy of that church had a strong grasp of " Bible Christianity," a fearless and emphatic way of preaching the unfettered Gospel, and a fidelity to the letter as well as to the spirit of Holy Scripture, which favourably distinguished their teaching from that of a narrower and more mechanical school. In particular, the writer would record his own personal experience, that he has never heard more strictly and thoroughly Evangelical preaching than that of Mr. Stan ton, nor known a man whose zeal for the open Bible and the Protestant Sunday was more characteristically English. But when we turn from the question of doctrine to the outward medium through which it was conveyed in a word, to Ritual it is difficult to pronounce so entirely favourable a judgment. As has been said before, Mr. Mackonochie personally had no taste for ritual, and was even said by experts to know little about it. " Ceremonial, purely by itself," he wrote in 1877, " is an infinitely small thing." All he insisted on was that the ritual for which he was responsible should forcibly express the Sacramental doctrine in which he believed as firmly as in his own existence. If this point was secured, he cared little for details. And thus, in mere indifference to what he considered trifles, he permitted usages in his church for which no authority, Anglican or ancient, could be cited ; which were asso- ciated in the public mind and eye with the most modern developments of Romanism ; and which, as far as they expressed anything, expressed what Mr. Mackonochie would have considered unauthorized or even erroneous. There were many loyal friends of St. Alban's who would gladly have seen these exotic growths abandoned, ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 93 and the enemy thereby deprived of an occasion to blaspheme. But it is to be borne in mind that, when- ever Mr. Mackouochie, in obedience to a legal judg- ment, in deference to his bishop, or for peace' sake, gave np any particular practice or symbol, the concession, instead of pacifying objectors, was immediately inter- preted to justify past persecution, and made the signal and starting-point for renewed attack. We turn now from these questions of dogma and form, which after all have only a limited and technical interest, and we ask, What manner ^of^ life did these V /: , men lead ? And here itT may be^permltted to include" in a common description the entire family no more formal word seems appropriate of those who during the last five-and-thirty years have lived and laboured at St. Alban's. Their lives may be expressed in three words Sacerdotium est Sacrijiciiim^ Men of good j position, of private fortune, of University education, of abilities certainly not below the average in some 1 respects, which conduce to professional success, con-/ spicuously above it they gave up, to the work of the; Church and the service of the poor, health, means, ease, comfort, the countenance of their ecclesiastical superiors, and all hope of preferment. They made the! surrender, not in a sudden gust of soon-repented en- thusiasm, but by a deliberate and sustained act of calculated sacrifice. And the sacrifice was not more deliberate than complete. In youth and middle age and advancing years, at morning, at noon, at night, jn summer and winter, in sickness and in health, in workdays and holiday-time, in popularity and in per- secution, these men gave themselves, body and mind and soul, to the work which they had undertaken. Indefatigable in the duties of their sacred office, they laboured far beyond its limits for all that could serve 94 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH the material and moral interests of their fellow-men. They worked for public health, for higher and wider education, for all innocent and rational recreation. Not content with teaching, and preaching, and visiting the sick, and guiding the perplexed, they instructed the ignorant, and comforted the sorrowful, and fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and helped without pauperizing the industrious poor. Never at even, pillowed on a pleasure, Sleep with the wings of aspiration furled ; Hide the last mite of the forbidden treasure ; Keep for my joys a world within the world. Every priest who worked at St. Alban's might have taken this stanza for his motto ; and it is not to be conceived that such lives, lived with unflagging purpose for five-and-thirty years in one of the poorest and most degraded quarters of a crowded city, could fail to produce their moral effect. " There is nothing fruitful but sacrifice," cried Lamennais, and the sacrifice of the St. Alban's clergy, whatever may be thought of its theological accompaniments, has been rich in ethical and social results, which certainly deserve at least (his imperfect commemoration in a magazine devoted to the Social Ideal of the Christian Character. JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 1 ""VTOMEN intra has eedes semper venerandtim." j_l These words, taken from the inscription under Cardinal Wolsey's bust in the Quadrangle of Christ Church, may not unsuitably be prefixed to an article on Dean Burgon in The Quarterly Review. Within these precincts, if anywhere, the Dean's name is to be held in respectful remembrance. With this Review his relations were long and intimate : to those re- sponsible for its conduct he was bound by ties of mutual regard. Here some of his most brilliant and most characteristic writing first saw the light. It was here that, by his dashing onslaught on prosaic pedantry, he so effectually routed the authors of the Revised Version of the New Testament, and taught the public, and we trust also the Revisers themselves, to rate more modestly, and therefore more accurately, the valne of their handiwork. John William Burgon was born on August 21, 1813. His father, Mr. Thomas Burgon, was a merchant of London, and, paternally, his descent was purely English. But his mother, Catherine de Cramer, was the daughter of the Austrian Consul at Smyrna, by a Miss Maltass, a lady who had Greek or Smyrniote blood in her veins, and a sister of that Mrs. Baldwin (born Jane Maltass) whose beauty " created a great sensation both at Vienna and in London, procured for her attentions 1 The Quarterly Review, 1892. 95 96 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH from the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., and elicited even from Dr. Johnson a burst of clumsy amorousness," and whose portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, formerly in the collection at Strawberry Hill, was this spring sold by Messrs. Christie. Mr. Thomas Burgon was a High Tory and a High Churchman, an antiquary and a connoisseur. He dealt in Greek and Turkish produce, and the nature of his business obliged him to reside for several years at Smyrna, where his eldest son John William was born. But shortly after the boy's birth he returned to England, and London was henceforth his home. John William Bnrgon, during the first eleven years of his life, was taught by his mother. In 1824 he was sent to a private school ut Putney, and subsequently to one at Blackheath. We do not find that he made any special proficiency in classical study, bat he was a thoughtful and precocious boy in fact, we suspect, not a little of a prig. Reviewing at the age of twenty- one some records of his school-days, he says, " I notice the same love of books and of study, the same hatred of school and contempt for the society of my equals in age, which since I was eleven, and first went to school, I have neverbeen able to shake off." From early days his mind was of a seriously, though not an emotionally, religious cast. At the age of sixteen he was confirmed, and it is curious to find that, though he was constant in his attendance at church, he only communicated twice in the next five years. What makes this fact the more remarkable is that at this period his heart was set on taking Holy Orders, though the fulfilment of this design was unavoidably deferred. Difficulties, destined before long to be fatal, were beginning to gather round his father's business, and it became necessary for young Burgon, 9? instead of proceeding to Oxford or Cambridge, to enter the paternal counting-honse. " He disliked it more than I can tell," writes his sister, "and found relief only in the pursuit of Poetry and Art during his leisure moments, when he returned from the City." These scanty intervals of leisure he used with praiseworthy diligence. He attended lectures at the University of London ; worked hard at archeology and kindred studies ; published a considerable number of fugitive pieces, both in prose and verse, and one work of more pretension a historical treatise on " The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham." Meanwhile, he had the advantage of early and frequent access to the society of literary men whom he met at his father's table, and his annual holidays were occupied in excursions, which seem generally to have had historical or archaeological research for their object. A visit paid to Mr. Dawson Turner, at Yarmouth, in April, 1838, had, however, an interest of a different kind ; and we gather from his biographer's hint, that it was only the constraining sense of domestic duty, and the absolute necessity of trying to relieve his father's embarrassed finances, that restrained him from offering marriage to his host's daughter. And so some ten years rolled by, and the skies were darkening for a storm. It broke on August 19, 1841, when Mr. Thomas Burgon's house suspended payment, and bankruptcy ensued. The crash of his father's fortunes proved an un- speakable blessing to John William Bnrgon. It terminated his commercial career at a stroke, and left him free to follow the bent of his own inclinations. He had long desired to go to Oxford with a view to seeking Holy Orders, and this desire was now ful- filled. On August 23, 1841, he wrote to his friend, 7 98 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Mr. Dawson Turner, who had generously offered him pecuniary aid : My backwardness (in Greek especially) is what you would not believe; and indeed my ignorance generally is frightful. I can only hope by a few months' serious application to get into a condition to be fit to go to Oxford. Then my necessities will begin. What they will be, I know not. If it depended on me, I should say little enough. ... I shall keep no society ; get into a garret, if I can (for two reasons) my habits are quite the reverse of expensive, and I have books. On the other hand, a good tutor I will have, coute que coute. I cannot suppose that I shall want much more than 100. a year, at least I fix that sum in my mind as a kind of point to reason from. On October 21, 1841, Burgon matriculated at Oxford, as a Commoner of Worcester College, having chosen that Society on the recommendation of Dr. Pusey, whose brother-in-law, Dr. Cotton, was its Provost. Owing to domestic engagements, connected with the winding-up of his father's affairs, and his family's re- moval from the old home, he did not begin residence at Oxford till the following year. Once established there, he threw himself with characteristic earnestness into his new life ; was equally attentive to the religious and the educational duties of the place, and " toiled terribly " to make up for lost time. Never [writes a contemporary] did a more devoted, humble, loyal, dutiful alumnus pass the threshold of Alma Mater; never did any student strive more vigorously to avail himself of all advantages within his reach. Day and night were all alike to him ; and I have ever marvelled how his consti- tution bore the excessive strain, continuous as it was, and how in the intervals of meals, and slight, restricted re- creation, he invariably maintained a buoyant, exuberant cheerfulness and fun, which made happy all who had the good fortune to be associated with him. Burgou took no more than a Second Class. How was this ? You are doubtless aware of his disadvantageous start. I do not attribute his JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 99 failure (shall I so call it?) to this; but as in a march a forced march through a territory the man \\ho now and again steps aside in botanical or geological research is re- tarded in his progress, so Burgon was never satisfied without a nice exact ferreting- out of every difficulty, sometimes amusingly apparent in the lecture-room, where the tutor always indulged and appreciated his integrity and zeal. He never rested until he had acquired all that could be known respecting the matter before him. His interruptions of the lecture were to be seen as well as heard, and his humble, plaintive manner of enquiry was a striking contrast to the dry, solemn mode of the tutor's reply, who nevertheless, I believe, always appreciated Bui'gon's earnest thirst for information. I believe his notes on the Classics would wonderfully testify to the fact of his probing every question to the depth, and would thus tell of hours lost ; I mean by lost, that a much more superficial acquaintance would have answered his purpose in the Schools. The foregoing account of Burgon's reading is fnlly confirmed by a letter of his own, written just after the examination : I cannot fully realize the notion that the heavy labour I was going through is all ended. It seems impossible that I may go to bed at twelve, if I like ; that I may breakfast without Butler's Sermons before me, or take tea without reading so many hundred lines of a Greek Play ; nay, that I may breakfast or dine when I please. Even Magazines and Reviews are open to me now, which they have not been foi the last three years. . . . How my health has stood it, I cannot understand. I did not let anyone know how I was going on ; but fear I was, at last, acting as it would have been impossible for me to have gone on acting. For many weeks past I have not had five hours' sleep and in order to read without molestation, abridged myself in food and exercise to the minimum point (consistent with comfort). The very eve of going in for vivd voce, I read for nineteen hours without stirring, except to chapel. This excessive strain produced its natural result. During his Public Examination he was giddy and tired, and his memory failed him. The Examination, on th 100 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH whole, " went against him," and he felt that, from one cause or another, he had done much less well than he had a right to expect. On November 26, 1845, the result was declared, and Burgon was in the Second Class. His keen and ambitions temper was deeply mortified. The only notice of the event in his diary is the modest ejaculation, " Thank God I am no lower ! " but to a friend he writes : " If the Examiners had been IN me, they would have given me a First Class. To judge from my papers, I had perhaps no right to hope for more than a Second. But the report had got abroad that I was to have been at the top of the tree ; and I am conscious that the power is not lacking and so I cannot but feel a little crest-fallen." It is impossible not to sympathize with this natural outbreak of vexation ; but, when the disadvantages of his early training and his late entrance into the University are taken into account, the attainment of a Second Class in an examination so drastic and so far-reaching as " Greats " at Oxford may well be regarded as a triumph. Meanwhile, the technical studies required for " the Schools " were not allowed to engross the whole of Burgon's time. They were lightened and brightened by a more romantic pursuit. He had a genuine and inborn love of, and capacity for, Poetry, as may be seen by his volume of collected poems published in 1885. In his first, second, and third years of residence at Oxford, he competed for the Newdigate Prize. All three attempts were un- successful ; but in 1845, he won the prize with a poem on Petra one of the very few prize-exercises that have even been remembered and quoted beyond the academical circle, and half a century after their first publication. It is not often that a poet contrives to produce in two lines so complete an effect both JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 101 of local colour and of historic interest as Burgon in his famous couplet : Match me such marvel, save in Eastern clime A rose-red city half as old as time. To be parodied is at once the proof and the penalty of successful authorship ; and when an Oxford wag wished to commemorate the astonishing longevity of the nonagenarian Thomas Short, Fellow of Trinity and sometime tutor to Cardinal Newman, he instinctively exclaimed : Match me such marvel, save in college port, That rose-red liquor half as old as Short ! The mortification caused by failure to obtain a First Class was in Burgon's case soon and fully outweighed by a notable triumph. On April 17, 1846, he was elected to the Fellowship of Oriel, which Mr. J. H. Newman had just vacated. " There was a tradition," writes a contemporary, " that his elegant and felicitous translations got him his Fellowship." In his diary he writes : " How full of blessings has my life been till now ! . . . May God give me grace and help me to live as if I loved Him, and was sensible of His exceeding favour and mercy." Burgon now began his residence in that famous College which was destined to be his home for exactly thirty years. As a Fellow of Oriel, of course he had no difficulty in obtaining private pupils, with whom he read for the Pass Examinations. It would seem that his pupils liked and admired him ; but tuition was scarcely the work for which he was best fitted. His next literary achievement was a Letter addressed to the Rev. R. Greswell, on " Art with Reference to the Studies of the University." The purpose of this Letter was to urge 102 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH upon the authorities of the University the duty of making some provision for the study of Ancient and Modern Art. Ancient Literature and Ancient Art, the writer argues, are so inseparably connected that no one can understand the one without studying the other ; while of Modern Art, so far as it is concerned with Sacred Painting, he holds that it is invaluable as an instrument of moral and spiritual improvement. In connexion with this Letter, it is to be noted that Burgon's fondness for art was by no means a matter of mere theory or sentiment. He was a facile and vigorous draftsman, and had a singular knack of reproducing with pen or pencil, not only a characteristic likeness or a striking bit of landscape, but the niceties of a classical coin or an Egyptian vase. This excursion into the realm of aesthetic study was merely a digression, though a congenial one, from the path which Burgon had marked out for himself. His whole heart and mind were set towards the attainment of Holy Orders, and towards theological study as the means thereto. He wrote for, and won, the Ellerton Essay-Prize, with a discourse on " The Importance of Translation of the Holy Scriptures," in which he entered, as it were by prophetic foresight, a vigorous protest against such rash and inconsiderate handling of the Sacred Text as, five-and-thirty years afterwards, he saw exemplified in the Revised Version of the New Testa- ment. He attended the Theological Lectures of Pro- fessors Hussey and Jacobson, and bestowed his whole time on the systematic study of standard divinity. " I was all this time," he writes, " fagging at Pearson and some of the Fathers often for twelve hours a day." He was ordained Deacon by Bishop Wilberforce in Christ Church Cathedral on Christmas Eve, 1848, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination Service. On the next Sunday he preached his first sermon at JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 103 Christ Church, Albany Street ; and at the beginning of the ensuing term he returned to Oxford. His Fellowship had of course been his title to Orders, bat he was full of pastoral yearnings, and he satisfied them by undertaking a curacy at the obscure village of West Ilsley, on the Berkshire Downs. He used to walk to this place on the Saturday, after his week's work in College was done, officiate on the Sunday, and return to Oxford on the Monday. He threw himself into his pastoral duties with intense energy and earnestness, and lavished his affectionate but eccentric kindness on the poor people committed to his charge. On December 23, 1849, he was ordained Priest, and on January 20, 1850, he celebrated the Holy Communion for the first time in Ilsley Church. In the spring of that year his curacy at Ilsley came to an end, and, after a short engagement at a village called Worton, he became curate to the Rev. William Jocelyn Palmer, Rector of Mixbury and Finmere, in Oxfordshire. Mr. Palmer, the father of William Palmer of Mag- dalen, Lord Selborne, and Archdeacon Edwin Palmer, was a man of remarkable character and influence. Burgon thus describes him : " Mr. Palmer is a clergy- man of the George Herbert class. He is absolute monarch of his parishes, and exercises the functions of lawyer and physician, as well as parson. He is the father and friend of all." From this truly venerable man, who had been a pupil of the saintly Jones of Nay land, Burgon gained invaluable instruction in the methods both of quickening spiritual life in the rural poor and of administering the practical business of a parish. Mr. Palmer himself lived at Mixbury, and Finmere, which was two miles off, became Burgon's peculiar charge. Here he soon made full proof of his ministry. He came to Finmere from Oxford every 104 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Saturday afternoon. That evening he called, as a rule, at every house in the village. On the Sunday, besides his work in church and school, he visited alt the sick in the parish. On the Monday morning he commonly entertained a dozen of the school-children at breakfast. His love of children was from first to last one of his most characteristic traits, and to young and old alike he was generous to a fault. On the Monday he used to return to Oxford, and was immersed in study and college-work till the Saturday again came round. At this time he was busy with his " Harmony of the Gospels," out of which his admirable " Plain Commentary " w-as developed ; and in 1851 and 1852 he brought out, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, the Rev. Henry John Rose, Rector of Houghton Con- quest, two excellent series of engravings from the sacred pictures of the great masters. This publication was designed to convey a clear idea of the leading events of sacred history to the minds of the poor and uneducated, whose notions of such events were even painfully obscure. No one [wrote that most experienced parish -priest, the Rev. F. E. Paget, of Elford] who does not live among cottagers can have the faintest conception how indispensable pictures are for the purpose of conveying instruction (and, I may add, comfort) to their minds ; nor how intense is their ignorance with respect to matters with which it is assumed that they are familiar, but which have not been brought before them through the medium of pictures. . . . There are grown persons who had no idea of the manner of our Blessed LORD'S death until a print of the Crucifixion was, of late years, brought before them. On April 26, 1851, Burgon preached for the first time before the University of Oxford. Its subject was " The Interpretation of Holy Scripture," and it was the nucleus from which, in later years, grew his JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 105 controversial volume on " Inspiration and Interpretation." His ministry at Finraere came to an end in the summer of 1853. Henceforward he resided in Oriel almost continuously till his removal to Chichester in 1876, spending his Long Vacations with his sister and brother- in-law at the moated Rectory of Houghton Conquest, near Ampthill. In 1854 the "Plain Commentary on the Four Holy Gospels " was published, at first anony- mously. It is an admirable piece of work, and a notable monument of patient and reverent study. Its leading principle is the minutely careful comparison of Scripture with Scripture. In matters of interpreta- tion, reference is always made to the consent of the Fathers. Where they speak with virtual unanimity, as on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary and the Miracle that attended the Piercing of Our Lord's Side, the point is regarded as settled ; where they are divided, the commentator weighs and balances their judgments, and gives the reasons which finally determine his own view. Immediately after the " Plain Commentary " Burgon published a series of " Short Sermons for Family Reading." He published also a volume of " Historical Notes on the Oxford Colleges." He entered freely into the political and academical controversies of the time. All the while he was eking out his narrow means by taking private pupils, and fulfilling the official duties which devolved on him as a Fellow of his College. Concurrently with all this varied eifert he laboured zealously in the functions of his sacred calling ; " reading Genesis with a class of citizens in the Town Hall" at Oxford ; officiating constantly in local churches ; and bearing part, as a special preacher, in the Diocesan Missions which Bishop Wilberforce inaugurated in the large towns of Oxfordshire, Bucks, and Berks. 106 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH On September 7, 1854, Burgon lost his mother, to whom he was passionately and romantically attached, and four years later his father followed her. There is no more endearing trait than the warm affection which often underlies a fiery temper and an aggressive bearing. Those who only knew Burgon in the arena of con- troversy, and shrank in astonished alarm from the fierceness of his polemical methods, will read, perhaps with surprise, but certainly with pleasure, Burgon's emotions and conduct in the presence of these domestic sorrows. In a small volume of private memoranda, written immediately after his mother's death, and by the bed on which her body lay, Burgon records that he and his brother and sister laid her out on the bed where she had died. A heavy task it was for us all. Still, we were wonderfully supported ; and we preferred doing this, a thousand times, than that profane hands should meddle with our grief. The wedding-ring which I drew off the fourth finger of her left hand, the kind ones present urged on me to wear myself. . . . Accordingly I placed it on my little finger, and there, please GOD, I will wear it till I die. ... I slept on the sofa in my beloved mother's room that night Thursday. It was awful, but pleasant. I prayed near her, very happily. Every detail of the funeral, and the preparation and dedication of the grave, was the subject of Burgon's minutest care. For years he visited her grave daily, standing over it bareheaded. On the fourteenth anni- versary of her death, he writes in his private journal : Sept. 7th, 1868, between 6 and 7 P.M. This is the day and the hour which always seems to bring me nearest to my beloved, a day of sweet and solemn recollection, as well as of awful meditation. For I ask myself, Where is she abiding ? and I tell myself that it must be in the place of perfect peace; and so I seem to stand in adoration near the half- opened gates of paradise, and something tells me that the Beatific Vision is the bliss of those who dwell within, Does JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 107 she think of me ? Yes. And she has prayed for me, and for us all, often ; and her prayers have been heard. Under the date " August 28th, 1859, about twenty minutes to 10 P.M.," he writes : It is a year exactly, within a few minutes, since I lost my dearest father. . . . There is no one now no one, to whom I can turn for unmingled sympathy in joy or sorrow ; ho one who can and will rejoice in my joy and sorrow for my sorrow, as something which belongs to himself. . . . From infancy, through boyhood, on to early manhood, we were together. Two days arrived September 7th, 1854, and August 28th, 1858 and O the difference ! at first a be- reaved and broken heart, and next a desolate, or rather a destroyed home. All seems quite changed. In 1859, Burgon published " The Portrait of a Christian Gentleman," a memoir of his friend Patrick Fraser Tytler, author of the "History of Scotland." This memoir, the product of an overflowing affection, and a perfect sympathy between author and subject, met with an instant and a gratifying success, a second edition being called for within two months. In the early part of 1860, Burgon paid his first visit to Rome, and undertook the duties of the English chaplain there. The results of his visit were embodied in a series of letters to the Guardian, afterwards republished in a single volume. Of these letters, some, and perhaps the most valuable, dealt in a trenchant and popular style with the claims and authority of the celebrated Codex B. In the rest, he gives us a lively account of his investigations into the antiquities, the religious life, and the natural phenomena of Italy : His ears and eyes are wide open to every object of attrac- tion offered by the Eternal City ; his note-book, sketch-book, and pencil are, as usual, in his hand all day long. He at- tends observantly all Roman services and forms of devotion, and compares them with the Anglican, not unfairly, though 108 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH always of course with a decided preference for the latter ; he listens to and reports sermons and dialogos (showing that he must have possessed a fair working knowledge of Italian probably he obtained the rudiments of it in childhood from his mother) ; he witnesses processions, missions, and the grotesque absurdities of relic-worship ; he has interviews with the superiors of convents, and elicits from them the truth as to the exact observance of the Seven Hours of Prayer ; he visits and minutely describes the catacombs, copying and commenting upon many of the inscriptions, and showing therefrom the unequivocal sympathy of the Primitive Age with the English rather than with the Romish branch of the Catholic Church ; he gets access to several of the more rarely visited objects of interest, as well as to those which all the world makes a point of seeing ; and before leaving Italy he visits Naples and Pompeii, and makes the ascent of Vesuvius, an incident which he records in his usual vivid and picturesque strain. From this memorable and instructive journey, Burgon returned to Oxford in the summer of 1860, having in the meantime been appointed one of the Select Preachers before the University. The year 1860 was signalized by the appearance of " Essays and Reviews," a volume now forgotten, but at the time of its appearance worthy of Carlyle's graphic epithet " Famous-infamous." The British Association had met at Oxford in June, and the present Bishop of London preached before the Association a sermon " On the Education of the World." The sermon passed at the time without much comment, and, indeed, it is in itself a harmless composition enough ; but later in the year it reappeared in the forefront of " Essays and Reviews," in which five of the higher clergy (besides Dr. Temple), and one layman (" Seven Champions not exactly of Christendom," as Burgon styles them), set out to apply, with greater or less degrees of audacity, the principles of scientific criticism to the credentials and claims of Christianity, JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 109 The book created an extraordinary stir. Bishop Wilberforce attacked it |in the pages of this Review, roundly accusing its authors of moral dishonesty, and the entire Bench of Bishops condemned it. Burgon was not slow to seize the opportunity thus offered. He devoted his sermons as Select Preacher to the dis- comfiture of the Essayists, and then enlarged and repro- duced them in a powerful treatise, partly destructive, and partly constructive, on Inspiration and Interpreta- tion. We shall speak of his views on these momentous subjects rather more at length when we come to consider his standing as a Theologian. In 1861 Burgon joined a party of friends in a journey it might almost be called a pilgrimage to Palestine. They started from Constance across the Alps to Milan, Venice, and Trieste, and thence to Alexandria and Cairo. They went up the Nile to the Second Cataract, and back to Cairo. Thence to Petra (the theme of Burgon's early poem), Sinai, Hebron, and Jerusalem. The visit was, of course, full of the profoundest interest for Burgon ; but, unluckily, he was laid low by malarial fever at Jerusalem, and was brought back to England in a state of great suffering and exhaustion. He reached home in July, 1802, but his recovery was tedious and protracted, and it was not till October, 1863, that he was sufficiently restored to resume his residence in Oxford. When he did so, it was in a new capacity, for he had in the meantime accepted the Vicarage of St. Mary the Virgin, the patronage of this, the University Church, being in the hands of Oriel College. Many years before, he had written to an intimate friend, " What I do desire is not to die till I have had the shepherding of a flock " ; and now that such a charge was entrusted to him, he threw himself into the work with all the energy of his singularly energetic nature. It was highly characteristic of him 110 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH that, when he had not had more than a month's experi- ence of pastoral work in a town, he completed and brought out his elaborate " Treatise on the Pastoral Office," which he had begun years before, in the days of his rural curacies. In 18G7, Burgon was appointed Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London, on the foundation of the worthy whose biographer he had been, and he gave his Inaugural Lecture in January, 1868. He was now bound officially, as well as led by personal inclination, to make Divinity his special study ; and, as an outward and visible sign of this occupation, he determined to proceed to the degree of B.D. It was at that time required from candidates for that degree that they should compose and read publicly two Theological Exercises. Burgon chose for his theme "A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark's Gospel." These exer- cises were published in a volume which, according to so competent a judge as Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, "constituted a new era in the history of the science of the criticism of the Sacred Text " ; but which, according to Dr. Farrar, is " entirely unconvincing." In this narrative of Burgon's life, we have deemed it unnecessary to expatiate on the innumerable contro- versies in which he was perennially engaged. His " zeal " for the truth, as he understood it, fairly " con- sumed " him, and his patience and prudence at the same time. The subjects with which he dealt polemically in- cluded in turn the Doctrine of Inspiration ; the Relation between the University and the College, and between the College and the Parish, at Oxford ; the Consecration of Bishop Temple ; the Enforcement of a New Lectionary ; the Admission of an Unitarian to a Share in the Revision of the New Testament, and to Communion ; the Develop- ment of Ritualism in Oxford ; and the Election of Dean JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 111 Stanley to a Select Preachership. The first election of a woman to serve on a School-Board elicited from Burgon a protest which, on account of the admirable lady to whom it referred, was long remembered in Oxford as " Miss Smith's Sermon." When Archbishop Tait joined in an assault upon the Athanasian Creed, Burgon's passionate zeal for Orthodoxy, his contempt for con- sequences, his readiness to rebuke faithlessness in high places, his unconventional vehemence of tone, and his absolute self-reliance were seen in their highest per- fection. The subjoined letter, which is not quoted by his biographer, may be taken as a fair sample of his controversial method. We record it for the edification of those who would know what manner of man he was when sacred interests seemed to be imperilled : TO HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, On the ninth day of February last, with reference to the Warning Clauses in the Athanasian Greed, you deliberately in the presence of your assembled Suffragans made the follow- ing portentous declaration : " We do not, there is not a soul in this room who does, nobody in the Church of England takes them in their plain and literal sense." Speaking for myself, I beg leave to declare in the most solemn manner that I am quite incapable of the baseness you thereby imputed to me. I have ever taken, I shall ever (Goo helping me) take, the Church's formularies " in their plain and literal sense." I forbear, most Reverend Father in GOD, to say how the sight affects me of an Archbishop of Canterbury heading the assault which is just now being made against one of " the three Creeds " of the Church ; a Creed which we of this nation have enjoyed for upwards of a thousand years ; a Creed to which we are most of all indebted for the measure of Right Faith which yet subsists among us ; a Creed which the whole body of the Clergy, at the most solemn moment of their 112 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH lives, in accepting the Eighth Article of the Church, have accepted as most certainly true. I will not trust myself to say how this sight amazes, troubles, oppresses me. I might be betrayed, like the great Apostle, into the use of stronger language than may lawfully be addressed to " GOD'S High Priest " ; and I should be without the Apostle's excuse, namely, that he had spoken " without consideration." I am, most Reverend Father in GOD, your afflicted servant and much-injured son in CHRIST, JOHN W. BURGON. ORIEL, S. Mark's Day, 1872. The next three years, like those that had preceded them, were divided between controversy, parochial work, and laborious study. Burgon's main occupation at this period was the magnum opus of his life : a dissertation on the " True Principles of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament," which he left incomplete, but which, we are happy to learn, is to see the light under the competent editorship of the Rev. Edward Miller, Rector of Bucknell. And now his time of residence in Oxford was drawing to a close. On November 1, 1875, he received a letter from the Prime Minister, Mr. Disraeli, proposing that he should succeed Dr. Hook in the Deanery of Chichester ; and on Quin- quagesima Sunday, 1876, he took leave of Oxford in a sermon before the University, entitled " Humility ad Clerum." The analysis of contents which he prefixed to this sermon, when published, is so characteristic of the writer's mind and method that it deserves repro- duction here. The text is Job xi. 12, " Vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt," and the analysis runs thus : The text explained the clergy wanting in humility, when they profess a science which they have not cared to acquire. Need of humility to the clergy, illustrated in several par- ticulars. The lawlessness and undutifulness of a certain JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 113 section of their body. Some account of the great Church movement which took place fifty years ago. Proof that the Ritualists of the present day do not represent that movement; for it taught submission to authority, sobriety, loyalty to the Church of England, whereas lawlessness, extravagance, affecta- tion of Romanism characterize this new sect. The younger men apostrophized. From this concluding apostrophe the following words are taken. After quoting Bishop Ridley's account of his theological studies at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Burgon thus applies it to his undergraduate hearers : These, these, be your studies, ye younger men ! The like of this be your method ! There is nothing of the " wild ass's colt " recognizable Jiere. It is all, from first to last, the method of profound HUMILITY; a method which will influence your conduct ; shape your views ; eventually colour your whole life. And O the peace and satisfaction it will bring you so to have approached your sacred calling ! O the holy confi- dence with which at last you will take upon yourselves the teacher's office ! O the honest joy and gratitude unutterable with which, when the bitter moment of severance from Oxford comes (for come at last it must !), you will look back on vanished opportunities and studious hours, of which the blessed fragrance at least can never quite forsake you ! . . . yea, rather it is to be hoped (in Ridley's phrase) that we shall " carry the sweet smell " of our sacred studies (Goo grant it !) with us, yea, into the very bowers of bliss ! Dean Burgon entered on his residence at Chichester in the early summer of 1876 ; but the long-deferred promotion brought him, we fear, very little happiness. The place was dull he called it " Sleepy Hollow." He was from the first embroiled in bitter disputes with his colleagues in the Chapter. The income was altogether inadequate to the office. And in addition to these domestic troubles he had mortifications from without. His name had been inserted in the list of Royal Commissioners who were to be appointed, under " The 8 114 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act," to carry out far-reaching changes in the Universities ; and then, in deference to some Parliamentary clamour, the Tory Government asked him to let himself be withdrawn. The Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford, which had been the most cherished object of his ambition, became vacant, but he was told that it would be contrary to precedent to remove him from a higher to a lower dignity. His curious arrogance and imperious temper made him unpopular and ineffective in Convocation, and before long he ceased to attend its sittings, and plunged himself into the seclusion of his Deanery. All this time he was, as usual, engaged in a running fire of controversy, academical and ecclesiastical, and the years 1881-2 saw his best achievements in that field of effort. Tlie Revised Version of the New Testament was published in May, 1881, and in the October number of this Review Burgon published his first article on "The New Greek Text." He writes thus to Lord Cranbrook, between whom and himself there had long subsisted a close friendship, based on theological and political agreement : The appearance of the Revision exercised me much ; for I found that the Greek Text had been remodelled on what I consider entirely mistaken principles. Mr. Murray was willing to admit an article upon the subject ; and accordingly in the October number appeared the fruit of not a little labour. Let me request you, if you have not yet seen that number of the Quarterly, to give what you will find there a patient hearing. My performance seems to have fallen like a shell into the enemy's position. It sold the Quarterly, and another edition is called for. A shower of letters from every quarter convinced me that I had been passing the long summer days not unprofitably. Not least surprised was I to learn from Murray that Mr. Gladstone had driven to his door, and sat with him to discuss the merits of Burgon's JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 115 article (for the authorship of it, in spite of all my endeavours, transpired instantly), with which he said he agreed entirely. In the January number of 1882, the Dean returned to the charge with an article on " The New English Version," and this he followed up in April with a third, on "Westcott and Hort's New Textual Theory." These three articles he reprinted, together with a reply to Bishop Ellicott's championship of the New Version, in a substantial volume, which was published under the title of " The Revision Revised," at the end of 1883. Considerations both of space and of fitness forbid us to enter here and now upon an examination of Burgon's views concerning the Greek Text, and the threefold testimony of " Copies, Versions, and Citations," to which he habitually appealed. It is enough to say that in this masterly volume he urges them with characteristic liveliness and vigour. Even more effective, because appealing to the taste and knowledge of a far wider circle of readers, were his strictures on the diction of the Revised English Version. A critic so little pre- judiced in favour of theologians as Matthew Arnold wrote : The Dean of Chichester has attacked the revisers with exceeding great vehemence, and many of his reasons for hostility to them I do not share. But when he finally fixes on a test -passage, and condemns them by it, he shows, I must say, a genuine literary instinct, a true sense for style. . . . The Dean of Chichester takes for his text the well-known passage in the first chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter : " And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue ; and to virtue knowledge ; and to knowledge temper- ance ; and to temperance patience ; and to patience godliness ; and to godliness brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness charity." By this work of the old translators he then places the work of the revisers : " Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue ; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge 116 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH temperance ; and in your temperance patience ; arid in your patience godliness ; and in your godliness love of the brethren ; aud in your love of the brethren love." In merely placing these versions side by side, the Dean of Chichester thinks that he has done enough to condemn the revised version. And so, in truth, he has. The publication of " The Revision Revised " was the last fully-accomplished work of Burgon's life. His " Twelve Good Men " a series of tense and brilliant biographies, many of which appeared in this Review occupied him during his latter days, bnt he did not live to see it published ; and his crowning work on the " True Principles of Textual Criticism " is, as we have seen, still incomplete. At the beginning of the summer of 1888 he fell into bad health, less, apparently, the result of any specific disease than of worry, over-work, nervous exhaustion, and a systematic disregard of the conditions of healthy living. He was moved from Chichester to Folkestone, and after a few weeks' residence there returned to the Deanery partially restored. But the improvement was only transient, and the end came, after much suffering, on August 4. Such in brief outline was the life of John William Bnrgon. It remains that we should attempt some estimate of his personal qualities, and of his standing in the theological world. There probably have been few men in our generation whose public and private demeanour presented a greater contrast to one another than those of Dean Burgon few whose reputation with the world at large less resembled the impression which they made upon their personal friends. The world knew Bnrgon as an ex- traordinarily bitter controversialist ; at war with all mankind in turn ; sarcastic, uncharitable, censorious ; JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 117 reckless in the imputation of motives, and dealing habitually in language which led so genial a critic as Dean Church to call him " that dear old learned Professor of Billingsgate." Those, on the other hand, who were admitted to the circle of his intimacy knew him as an exceptionally warm-hearted and tender-hearted man ; loyal in friendship, passionately attached to Auld Lang Syne, abounding in sympathy, delighting in hospitality, and generous to the verge of imprudence. In public controversy it too often seemed as if he aimed at giving pain. In private dealings his constant study was to give pleasure. One of the most marked features of his character, as portrayed in his biography, is his feeling towards women. We saw how, very early in his career, he contemplated marriage. In middle life it became neces- sary for him formally to deny the report that he was engaged. His confidante, counsellor, and referee in the gravest matters, both of action and opinion, was a lady with whom he was very distantly connected. To the very end he was surrounded by the care and affection of devout and honourable women, old and young, to whom, in the sacred intercourse of private life, he habitually addressed himself in terms of the warmest affection. Yet the outside world would probably have regarded him as a kind of unprofessed monk, for whom ladies' society had no charms, and who was totally unfitted, by temperament and experience, to participate in it His love of children was as marked a feature of his character as his love of ladies. It was manifested in the days of his earliest curacies, when the school-children Plucked his gown to share the good man's smile ; when he entertained them at breakfast-parties and bribed them with sugar-plums, and carried a little boy, 118 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH enfeebled by illness, pick-a-back over the hilly roads of Berkshire. Oxford men will recall the tall, attenuated form of the Vicar of St. Mary's, clad in cap and gown, and bent almost double to pat the head or pinch the cheeks of some tiny urchin trotting along the High Street. To " children of a larger growth " the undergraduates who attended his Sunday evening lectures, the young ladies who composed his parochial Bible-class, and theological students who sought his guidance in view of their Ordination he was equally accessible, obliging, and even playfully affectionate. He would spare no pains or labour to stimulate their interest in sacred studies ; and on Sunday evenings, though thoroughly exhausted by the day's public ministrations, he seemed to revive and throw off all fatigue when, being in truth " a Scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven," he brought forth out of his treasure things new and old. It is certainly true no one who knew Burgon would deny it that all this warmth of heart and depth of feeling were associated with a marked oddness of demeanour. He was not the least like anyone else. His appearance, manner, style of speech, turn of thought, way of looking at things, were all his own. Much of this individuality may, not unreasonably, be traced to his foreign extraction. The current saying in Oxford was that he was " half a Greek." This was a mistake ; but he was half an Austrian, and the Austrian half of his nature was tinged with Greek or Smyrniote blood. The un-English bias deduced from his birth was reinforced by the circumstances of his home and education. His earliest thoughts were shaped by a foreign mother ; his boyish mind was formed by inter- course with a middle-aged society of dilettanti, anti- quarians, and men of letters. A brief experience of some indifferent private schools could not supply the moulding JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 119 and inspiring influences which he would have received at Winchester or Westminster ; and the wholly uncon- genial atmosphere of a merchant's counting-house, which occupied in Burgon's life the years usually dedicated to the University, drove him in upon him- self and his own resources ; made him introspective, thoughtful, studious ; and gave him a curious aloofness from his equals in age and standing. Going up to Oxford at an age when most men have been long embarked upon their life's work ; with narrow means, a darkened home, and an intellectual equipment, if not inferior to, at least quite different from, that of other men, he had little chance of shaking off the habits which his earlier experience had engendered, or of learn- ing, from association with his fellow-undergraduates, to think and speak and act as they did. In brief, every circumstance of Burgon's training tended to make him what he was a man absolutely sui generis as indi- vidual in his charms and graces as in his faults and foibles. Among these last, candour compels us to reckon a temper which had never learnt to curb itself ; a " cocksureness " which was partly ludicrous and partly irritating ; an absolute intolerance of contradiction or even disagreement ; and an irresistible tendency to play the universal censor. It is obvious to observe that these are exactly the faults most likely to beset a youth brought up in a narrow circle, where he is con- spicuously the leading spirit, and exactly those which the training of a Public School, or a University entered at the usual age, would most effectually correct. To constituted authorities, official superiors, and the powers that be, Burgon professed, as a matter of principle, the utmost loyalty and reverence ; though not seldom his practice, when engaged in controversy, 120 clashed rather roughly with his theory. To those who submitted themselves absolutely to his guidance, whether ladies or curates or school-children or theological students, he was full of fatherly kindness and patience ; but the footing of equality was one which he could not under- stand or endure. In College, in the University, in the Convocation of Canterbury, and in the Chapter of Chichester, this fatal love of pre-eminence destroyed his influence, crippled his power for good, and alienated those who ought to have been his friends. Even in the field of public controversy, it diminished the effect of his brilliant polemics, by suggesting the suspicion that a controversialist who so systematically ignored all his fellow-soldiers, and even his commanding officers, might not improbably be less than fair to those who were fighting in the opposite ranks. To Burgon's inveterate love of controversy we have already referred. There never was so irrepressible a pamphleteer. Armed with the positive conviction that he was right and everyone else wrong, he took the field against all comers, eagerly disclaiming all hampering or compromising alliances on this side or on that ; made enemies of all parties at once, and seldom won any practical victory for the cause which he championed. Impetuosity was indeed the leading feature of Burgon's character, and beyond doubt it had its in- convenient side ; but it is bare justice to say that it was allied in him with some of the finest qualities of a manly nature. He was self-reliant and courageous to a fault. Like John Knox, he never feared the face of man. He did not care a jot if he made enemies in the most influential quarters. Wherever he saw disloyalty to faith or morals, he exposed and denounced it without the faintest regard to consequences. He was JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 121 by no means destitute of an honourable ambition ; bnt, whenever truth was at stake, he flung to the winds all considerations of expediency and all calcula- tions about promotion, and was perhaps even more outspoken when his opponent was a man in high place, as conceiving that the betrayal of trust was in such a case the more heinous. The same courage supported him in his intellectual enterprises. No difficulties, whether arising from health or means, deficient re- sources or opposing circumstances, ever daunted or deterred him when once he had seen a worthy object and resolved to pursue it. He was absolutely inde- pendent in pecuniary matters. He had known affluence and known poverty ; had faced trial and difficulty with undaunted front ; had supported himself and those who belonged to him by his own unaided efforts. He never sought money, nor went a yard out of his way to obtain it ; but, practising the severest self-denial in his own life, was able to be munificent to deserving people and to good causes, far beyond the usual pro- portion of charity to income. Bnt what has just been said about peculiarities of temper, isolated habits, and systematic self-denial, must not be understood to imply that Burgon was a morose or gloomy man ; indeed, he was conspicuously the reverse. He delighted in congenial company, had the keenest enjoyment both in giving and in receiving hospitality, and had a genuine though fantastic sense of humour. Lord Sherbrooke once publicly called him a "jocose fanatic." A " humorous enthusiast " would perhaps convey the same thought in less contemptuous phrase. An enthusiast he certainly was, with all the enthusiast's blindness to moral proportion and perspective ; but his passionate zeal for the causes which he espoused was relieved and enlivened by his love of the ludicrous. 122 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH He was as quick as lightning to recognize the humour of a phrase, of a situation, of a character ; he had a sharp eye for vanity, pretentiousness, and inflated ignorance, and knew exactly how to prick the bladder of pompous humbug. His power of sarcasm and knack of satirical allusion were leading elements in his con- troversial method ; and, if only they had been allied with good taste and good temper, they would have been infinitely more efficacious than they were. Though one of the most devout and reverent of men, he was riot afraid to let his sense of fun play over Scriptural incidents and phrases, or flash from the pulpit of St. Mary's. The remorseless analysts of academical tradition have suggested " historic doubts " concerning the most cherished stories of Burgon's facetious preaching ; but enough remains engraven on the faithful tablets of memory to satisfy the writer that those stories, if not literally true, were closely akin to the truth. In fact, Burgon loved a joke, and could not resist the opportunity of making it ; and, unlike some professed humourists, he appreciated other people's jokes quite as keenly as his own. We have been told that one of the most popular purveyors of laughable entertainment the accomplished Mr. Corney Grain- after performing at Chichester, received a visit from the Dean, who called early in the morning on purpose to express his high appreciation of the amusement afforded over-night, and to offer some suggestions for the enrichment of the performance. The brief epitome of his life and labours which we have given at the beginning of this article will suffice to show that Burgon was fundamentally and essentially a student. Whatever department of study he under- took, he worked in (he spirit of Browning's Grammarian, with an intense, minute, and exhaustive industry, which JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 123 would lavish precious time and profound thought on a comma or a hyphen. It was this keen eye for the smallest details, this unconquerable patience in ascertaining them, this rigid accuracy in stating them, which made him so consummate an authority on Textual Criticism, and gave its special value to all his literary work, whether theological, biographical, or antiquarian. Though a great student, Burgon was not a fine scholar, in that restricted sense of the term which means a faculty for translating English into Greek or Latin, or for original composition in the classical languages. The highly desultory nature of his early education would have put such accomplishments beyond his reach ; but he had a competent knowledge of, and an unfeigned love for, the great writers of antiquity. Homer and Herodotus appealed alike to his poetic sense, which never missed the fine aspects of a phrase, a scene, or an event, and to his antiquarian zeal, which made the life and acts of primeval man, and whatever tends to illustrate them, quite as real to him as the transactions of the present hour, and much more interesting. This reverent love of antiquity an inborn taste which his father's favourite studies had fostered was one of the elements which coloured the whole of Burgon's life and thought. All that was old was precious to him, whether it was a Greek bust or an Egyptian mummy ; an inscription in the Catacombs or a fine manuscript of the Gospels ; a tradition of the Fathers, or a maxim of the Constitution ; a relic of King Charles L, or an oracle of Dr. Routh. It was inevitable that a man who thus worshipped antiquity should be in every department and aspect of life, in Church and in State, in religion and politics, in education and society, the stiffest of Tories. For the utilitarian Conservatism of modern days he had 124 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH only the scantest sympathy ; at best it seemed to him a compromise ; and his politics were founded on principles which were part of his religion ; which knew nothing of accommodation or expediency ; which paid the utmost reverence, in their several spheres, to the Altar and the Throne, and all the hierarchy of consti- tuted society ; regarded them as inseparably knitted together by Divine appointment, and shrank from every project of reforming zeal as from blasphemy and treason. Having now traced the course of Burgon's life, and sketched some leading features of his character, it is time to consider his theological standing ; and here we may suitably cite the eloquent language of his biographer, Dean Goulburn : It may perhaps be questioned even by some of those who greatly esteemed and admired John William Btirgon . . . whether the part he played in ecclesiastical affairs, and in the history of religious thought during the past half-century, was of sufficient importance to justify so detailed a record of his life as is attempted in these volumes. The author entirely thinks it was so, and for the following reason. Burgon was in this country the leading religious teacher of his time, who brought all the resources of genius and pro- found theological learning to rebut the encroachments of Rationalism, by maintaining inviolate the integrity of the written Word of God as the Church has received it; by pointing out its depth, its versatility of application, and absolute inexhaustibility of significance ; and by insisting upon its paramount claims to the humble and reverent reception of mankind, as having been "given by Inspiration of God." This is, of course, the glowing language of personal affection, and, as such, is perhaps liable to the reproach of over-statement. For our own part, indeed, if Dean Goulburn's judgment on his friend had ended with the words, " the leading religious teacher of his time," we could not have endorsed it ; but we take the remainder JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 125 of the sentence as qualifying this emphatic eulogy, and we understand the Dean to affirm that Burgon stood foremost among those of his contemporaries who opposed the onslaughts of Rationalism by maintaining the Divine claims of the Written Word. Even this is a very strong statement, when we are dealing with an age which pro- duced Dr. Pusey, Bishop Wordsworth, Bishop Lightfoot, and Bishop Westcott ; and it needs very considerable deductions and modifications before it can be accepted. It might perhaps be a more exact presentment of the case if we were to say that, in the great battle for the Faith against Infidelity, Burgon was the most expert and vigorous wielder of a particular weapon. Some divines had combated the enemy by dwelling on the historical evidences of Christianity ; others by showing how exactly it had fulfilled prophetical forecasts ; others by urging its essential adaptation to the constitution and needs of man. Some, again, had called attention to the processes by which the Sacred Scriptures were collected and received in the Church, and had laid stress on the immemorial and world-wide tradition of Christendom concerning Holy Writ. Others, again, had concentrated all their energies on the defence of some particular book, or had sought, by applying a rigid system of literary and historical criticism, to establish a Sacred Text, of which the claims should be beyond the reach of controversy. All these various forms of defence were of use some of them of incal- culable use against the common foe; but of Burgon it may be safely said that the weapon on which he absolutely relied, of which he had unique mastery, and which he used with unequalled effect, was the doctrine that the Received Text of the New Testament is in all its parts the Revealed Word of God. He was in truth the most strenuous and the most learned advocate of the 126 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH doctrine of Verbal Inspiration. Into the merits of that doctrine this is not the place to enter. They have long engaged, and probably will never cease to engage, the earnest thought of professed theologians ; and, in the absence of anything like an authoritative judgment of the Church upon the subject, it may be permitted to hold a less rigorous theory than that of Dean Burgon, without for a moment compromising the claims of Christian faith and dogmatic orthodoxy. But those who, after due consideration of the various diffi- culties involved, and the balance both of probability and of authority, adhere to the doctrine of Verbal Inspiration, may well regard John William Burgon as the most powerful champion of their belief whom these latter days have seen. Having said so much about Burgon's theory of in- spiration, it remains to say a word about his exegetical method. Here he combined in the most curious har- mony an austere literalness with an unbridled mysticism. According to Burgon, every statement in the sacred volume meant, in the first instance, exactly and liter- ally what it said. The Six Days of Creation were days of twenty-four hours each, which could have been measured by the clock. The Garden of Eden was not a district or a country, still less an expression or a symbol, but "a square garden with a wall round it." The waters of the Deluge covered the whole earth, and not merely the inhabited part of it. The whale was a whale, as zoology understands that word, and Jonah was imprisoned for three days and three nights in its belly. But it is needless to multiply instances. What the Bible said, Burgon believed, literally and implicitly, and emphatic were his warnings to those who approached the sacred narrative in a more critical spirit. Just before he left Oxford, in 1876, he took a walk with JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 127 a young clergyman, who is now one of our most influential theologians. The conversation dealt from first to last with the difficult problems arising out of the interpretation of the Old Testament. As they parted, Burgon said, with solemn and affectionate eagerness, " If you give up believing that the Six Days of Creation were six literal days of our time, you will infallibly be led on to deny the Incarnation. 1 haven't the time just now to prove this, but rely upon it that it is so." This was Burgon's method all over. With the minutest care to ascertain what the Bible exactly said, arid the most dutiful submission in ac- cepting it, he combined a singular love of inferential teaching, and a quaint dogmatism on points absolutely beyond the reach of proof. " This is certain " was his favourite formula, when " This is what I think, but equally competent authorities think otherwise " would have been the exacter statement. When a Presbyterian friend pointed out to him that there was nothing about Episcopacy in the Bible, said Burgon : " Of course there is. Don't you remember how we are told that our Lord, before His ascension, talked a great deal to His disciples about His kingdom? Of course He was telling them of the necessity of Episcopacy." But this was what may be called Burgon's private method of interpretation the process which he applied to points on which his own mind was clear, but on which the Church has not spoken. In graver matters, his method was more cautious. In every question which involved doctrine, his first care, after ascertaining the precise language of the Sacred Text, and comparing it with every corresponding passage, was to collect with laborious industry the comments of every Father, both of East and West, who had handled the passage; to com- pare, and if possible harmonize, their interpretations ; 128 or, where that was impossible, to count up the authorities on each side, and then dutifully to accept the decision of the greater number. It was remarked, perhaps not unjustly, by a flippant critic, that this exegetical method seemed to be founded on Mr. Pickwick's precept " Where there are two mobs, shout with the largest." Of course, in questions of vital doctrine, the absolute unanimity of patristic teaching made this balancing process unnecessary, and even in questions of less than vital importance the agreement is often so general as to be practically conclusive. Where such agreement exists, Burgon considered it the end of controversy. No divine [he said in his farewell sermon at Oxford] who deserves the name, however well furnished he may be, will ever think of interpreting in defiance of the ascer- tained mind of antiquity. I am saying that where the ancients have spoken unequivocally, he finds it impossible to set up his own imaginations in opposition to their emphatic teaching. Thus Burgon's method was, in the first place, to ascertain exactly what the Sacred Text says, and, that done, to accept such statement as the literal record of actual fact. Secondly, in all places where doctrinal meaning is involved, to appeal to Catholic consent ; and then, when those fundamental duties were discharged, to indulge to the full his love of type and symbol. The objects of his search were, first the literal, then the dogmatic, and then the mystical sense of every passage. In mystical interpretations he frankly revelled. With a minute knowledge of the Sacred Text and an unfailing recollection of parallel passages, a strong sense of the picturesque and the poetic, and an inex- haustible knowledge of the best patristic and mediae val comments, he was able to trace types, allusions, paral- lelisms, and forecasts which would escape the notice JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 129 of nine readers out of ten, and to draw the most graceful and interesting, if fanciful, lessons from names and numbers and figures and forms and colours, and from every minutest detail of the material and verbal medium through which the Divine Author of the Bible has been pleased to work. Thus the foundation of Burgon's theology was what every sound divine's should be the Bible as accepted and interpreted by the Universal Church. No one was a keener champion of the supreme claims of the Written Word ; but, at the same time, no one more vigorously opposed the notion that every man is at liberty to make his own theology. For working purposes he referred enquirers to the Book of Common Prayer, which not only in its dogmatic statements, but in its general tone and spirit, most compendiously represented the mind of primitive Christendom. Burgon was an English Churchman to the backbone ; he gave the devotion of his heart and the service of a lifetime to the Church of England " as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross." His horror of Romanism, as the corruptio optimi, was almost fanatical ; and his feeling towards Dissent, as a rebellion against Autho- rity, was angry and contemptuous. Even within the precincts of the Church of England his sympathies were by no means all-embracing. The Evangelical school offended him by its indifference to Sacramental doctrine, and by its external slovenliness. He dreaded the Romanizing tendencies which he thought he per- ceived in Ritualism, and he severely denounced resist- ance to Episcopal control. His own doctrinal position was the via media of a day gone by. He clung tenaciously to the doctrines of Apostolic Succession and Baptismal Regeneration ; held Bishop Bull's theory of 9 130 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Justification and Sanctification ; taught a doctrine of the Real Presence which guarded itself very carefully against material imaginings ; and insisted strongly on the " medicinal " or " occasional " view of ministerial absolution. In externals, he had a vehement distaste for what he termed " solemn foppery," but he loved a restored church and a surpliced choir, a vase of flowers on the Holy Table and a chalice studded with jewels. Nothing was too rich or too beautiful for God's house ; and, in the service of the sanctuary, he aimed at perfection in all the parts, and the utmost reverence of spirit and demeanour. This, indeed, was the inevitable product of his inmost heart and mind. A more genuinely pious man, a more devout and humble-minded Christian, we have not known. It is true that after all he was "frankly human," and that certain foibles of character were never wholly vanquished in him. But they were as the dust of the balance when weighed against his deep and awful sense of the majesty and goodness of God ; his fervent devotion to and reliance on the Person and Work of our Divine Lord ; his consuming zeal for the Bible, the Church, and the ordinances of the Gospel ; and the life-long devotion with which, in various fields of effort, he " laboured to promote the glory of God and the present and future welfare of mankind, remembering always that solemn account which we must one day give before the judgment-seat of Christ." There are [wrote his friend and biographer, Dean Goulburn] still the " seven thousand in Israel," " the remnant according to the election of Grace," who value the inspired volume of Holy Scripture above all earthly treasure, and whose simple childlike faith in its testimonies is proof against all the suggestions of its fallibility thrown out by the (so-called) Higher Criticism. In the hearts of all such persons the memory of John William Burgon will be embalmed for ever. JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 131 The supreme object of his life was, as we have seen, the establishment and defence, against assaults from whatever quarter proceeding, of the Inspired and Written Word of God. His consuming labours in that great cause were not permitted, as far as the author's consciousness and the rewards of earth are concerned, to be crowned with success. But the life-long toil and zeal bestowed on it have assuredly not been thrown away, and we may confidently believe that as, in life, " his work was before him," so now " his reward is with him." ARCHBISHOP MAQEE 1 fTlHE " mealy mouth " of British biography, at which _L Carlyle justly scoffed, is now a thing of the remote past. The sage's own life was exhibited by Froude in a fashion which had nothing " mealy-mouthed " about it. Bishop Wilberforce was drawn by his son's hand with a fidelity unapproached till that time. Mr. Reginald Wilberforce's performance again has been surpassed by the monumental candour of the artless Mr. Purcell. To this " later manner," as the critics would call it, of biography-writing, Canon Macdonnell has made an excellent contribution. His object has been simply to present his friend, Archbishop Magee, as he was in life to let us see at once his powers and his weaknesses, his genius and his limitations. Like Mr. Sampson Brass drawing up the description of Mr. Quilp, when that worthy was supposed to be drowned, Canon Macdonnell might say of his handiwork : " This is an occupation which seems to bring him before my eyes like the ghost of Hamlet's father, in the very clothes that he wore on work-days. His wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before me like visions of my youth." For the Canon and the Archbishop were life-long friends. They corre- sponded regularly with one another for fifty years, and the Archbishop's share of this correspondence, reinforced by his letters to other friends, practically 1 The Guardian, 1896. 132 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 133 makes the book. 1 Indeed, the biographer has carried self- repression to an inconvenient length, for he leaves the letters to tell their own tale, and has been sparing of ex- planatory footnotes, almost to the point of niggardliness. William Connor Magee was born of clerical parentage and archiepiscopal descent on December 17, 1821. On his mother's side he had Scotch blood in his veins. His birthplace was Cork, and he was educated at Kilkenny College and Trinity College, Dublin. As a boy he hated games, and read omnivoroasly, and when barely thirteen he showed a most precocious talent for rhetorical declamation. At college he was much what he had been at school. He read largely, but desultorily. He disliked mathematics, enjoyed classics, and excelled in divinity. He took the leading part in the restoration of the famous Historical Society, which had been dis- solved by authority as a seminary of revolution, but was revived in the more peaceful semblance of the Oxford and Cambridge Unions. His amusements were chess, whist, and fishing, and the last-named con- tinued to be his favourite refreshment to the end of his life. Of that life the leading dates are as follows : In 1844 Magee was ordained Deacon, under letters dimissory, at Chester, and became Curate of St. Thomas's, Dublin, being ordained Priest the following year. Some signs of incipient lung-trouble made it desirable for him to seek a better climate, and in 1849 he took a curacy at St. Saviour's, Bath. In 1851 he became minister of the Octagon Chapel in that city, and in the same year he married his cousin, Anne Smith. In 1860 he was appointed minister of Quebec Chapel, London, but left it in 1861 to become Rector of Enniskillen. In 1864 he was made Dean of Cork, and in 1866 Dean 1 "The Life and Correspondence of William Connor Magee, Archbishop of York." By John Cotter Macdonnell, D.D. 134 of the Chapel Royal, Dublin. In 1868 he was .un- expectedly raised to the See of Peterborough, vacant by the death of Dr. Jeune. In January, 1891, he succeeded Dr. Thomson in the archiepiscopal See of York, and on the 5th of the ensuing May he died. Such are the outward facts of Archbishop Magee's life. A perfectly frank disclosure of its inward part- its basis, its motives, its principles, its aims, its theories is given in these two volumes of confidential letters ; and the impression which that disclosure produces upon the reader is exactly the same as the impression pro- duced by personal contact with the Archbishop in life. Probably every Churchman who ever met him in society, or heard him on the platform, or even " sate under him " in the pulpit, must have felt that he was the most unecclesiastical of ecclesiastics. There have, alas ! been many prelates whose hold on the funda- mental truths of the Church's faith has been infinitely weaker ; but men of that stamp have generally tried and often successfully to veil their essential scepticism under the solemn plausibilities of an official language and demeanour. Sanctimonious humbug of that sort would have stunk in the nostrils of Archbishop Magee. What he was, and what he thought, and what he felt, that he was willing that all the world should know ; and, confident in the strength of his own convictions, he paid scant regard to the flaccid nerves or feeble brain-processes of those mild pietists, male and female, whose ideal of a bishop is a kind of mincing demigod. I am conscious [he wrote] of my defects for my high office lack of dignity, impulsive speech, too great fondness for sharp and sarcastic utterances, impatience of dulness and folly. Magee spoke, thought, and acted like a thorough- going man of the world, who was also a thorough- going Christian with keen humour, strong opinions, ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 135 remorseless logic, and a legal bent of mind. It would be absurd, according to worldly standards, to say that a man who reached the highest place but one in his profession had mistaken his vocation ; but one cannot help feeling that Magee would have been even more at home in the House of Commons or on the Woolsack than in Convocation or on an episcopal throne. The secular turn of his mind is evinced by his outspoken desire for promotion, his keen sense of the value of money, his faith in law and legal processes and in the religious value of Establishment. From Bath he wrote in 1858 : I am, I fear, a fixture here for life, fishing always in my little glass bowl of an Octagon for such gold and silver fish as can be coaxed into it. I see no way out of Bath, much as I long and seek for it. When the offer of Quebec Chapel comes, it is to be considered " as a clear and marked promotion, and likely to lead to more." In 1863 :- My chances of promotion of any degree, never very great, diminish yearly. ... I am fixed in Enniskillen for my natural life. When Dean of Cork, he writes, with reference to a rumour that he would be raised to the Irish Episcopate : As to what you say of promotion, I am trying to put all thoughts of it out of my head, and to settle contentedly down to 500 a year and six children. In 1866, just after he had been appointed Dean of -the Chapel Royal, the Government were beaten on an amendment to the Reform Bill, and resigned. There was reason to believe that the See of Meath would soon be vacant, and that it would be conferred upon Magee. He writes on June 20 : Celeres quatit pennas. My little fortune has shaken her 136 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH wings, and flown away with the Ministry and the 7-pounders. ... So here I am stranded fairly ; iny little cock-boat has gone down with bigger ships. I only wish my 7 9s. of office fees had not gone down in her ! On August 1, 1866, he writes : The Bishopric of Meath would, I believe, have been mine, had Dr. Singer's death taken place just three weeks sooner than it did. Three weeks of an expiring, and seemingly useless, life lay between me and all that the bishopric implies. The goal of a life of severe toil and effort was in view ; and now it is indefinitely remote, if not absolutely and certainly beyond my reach. In 1867 he wrote :- The Tories will not promote me ; the Whigs will leave no Church to be promoted in. So there is an end of it. But in 1868 he wrote to Disraeli, asking for some minor appointment in England ; and in reply obtained the information that his request could not be granted, because he was already nominated to the See of Peterborough. In 1879, he wrote about Dr. Lightfoot's appointment to the See of Durham : Happily for me, I am not of a sanguine temperament, and never, from the first, had serious expectations of the appointment. In 1891, when he received the offer of York, he approached the consideration of it : Setting aside, as far as I could, all thoughts of increased dignity and income. So much for Magee's desire for promotion and appre- ciation of money, both frankly human and not the least blameworthy. Closely allied with this business- like temper was his zeal for Establishment, which he regarded, not only as a blessing to the State, but as a ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 137 guarantee of order, sanity, orthodoxy, and comprehensive tolerance, in the national religion. Irish Disestablish- ment was the haunting dread of his earlier manhood ; we shall see in due time his attemps to stave it off, and to defeat it when the struggle came to close quarters. But, when once the fate of the Irish Church was settled, English Disestablishment became his favour- ite bugbear. By a rough-and-ready process of reasoning he lumped it together with socialism, democracy, and revolution generally, and he rather grotesquely assumed that Mr. Gladstone was to be the leader and champion of these allied abominations. In 1866, during the debates on Lord Russell's Reform Bill, he writes : Gladstone's speech was the inauguration of an ultra-demo- cratic career, taken up as much from pique and passion as conviction. He and Russell and Bright are an ominous conjunction. In 1874 : Gladstone, turned Radical and backed by all the unbelief and all the High Church Ritualistic Radicalism in the country, is a very awkward element in the future. In 1879 : The British Constitution is very dear at the money. Free institutions are becoming unworkable. The revolutionary party in the House received its leader last night in the person of W. E. Gladstone. . . . What bearing this will have on coming domestic legislation it is not difficult to foresee. Dis- establishment comes nearer by a great deal in consequence of it, and, moreover, Disestablishment by Gladstone the Radical, and not Gladstone the Liberal. Marry ! this is miching mallecho, and means mischief. After the General Election of 1880 : The Liberal party will then be Radical, pure and simple, and headed by Gladstone. Then comes the last struggle 138 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH between Church and Democracy, and there is no doubt which will win. In the same year : This Disturbance Bill will go very near to evicting the Ministry, or would do so were it not that Gladstone has still his trump-card to play a new Reform Bill and a dictatorship afterwards for the term of his natural life. After the General Election of 1885 : This means Irish revolution first, and then an embittered struggle between the revolutionary and Conservative forces in England and Scotland, the revolution winning and being merciless after the bitterness of the fight. I give the Church of England two Parliaments to live through, this one now coming, in which she will be merely worried and humiliated ; the next, in which she will be assailed and disestablished in the Commons ; the third, in which the Peers will give way and the thing is done. . . . Say ten years for all this. Now, please put this letter by, and let us read it, if spared, ten years hence, on the Lake of Como, whither we shall have gone to spend our few remaining disestablished years. After this singular collection of gloomy views and unfulfilled prophecies, it is pleasant to read in 1890 : I had an immensely interesting two days at Judge Bowen's with G. O. M. ; but how could I tell you the hundredth part of the conversation of a man who talked incessantly from 9 o'clock a.m. to 11 o'clock p.m. on every conceivable subject. Assuredly I spent those two days in the company of the most amazing old man in Europe. We said above that Irish Disestablishment was the haunting dread of Magee's early manhood. He foresaw a day of reckoning for the intolerable mischief of Orange bigotry, of uneducated Evangelicalism, of blind and unreasoning hostility to everything that did not utter the current shibboleths of Puritanism. He saw that the utter negation and abandonment of all distinctively Church ideas was destroying the Church's reason for ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 139 existence and preparing men's minds for the fatal question, " Why cmnbereth it the ground ? " Staunch Establishmentarian as he was, he was no Erastian. He believed, like Archbishop Whately, in the separate existence, rights, and duties of the Church as a spiritual society, and he laboured to restore such synodal action as would enable the Church to examine her own affairs, speak her own mind, and set her own house in order. But before these prudent counsels could obtain a hearing, the General Election of 1868 took place, and the Irish Establishment was doomed for ever. The last desperate device of the Establishmentarians had been to hold the English Church Congress at Dublin in the October preceding the election, and Magee's opening sermon on the apt text, " They beckoned unto their partners which were in the other ship that they should come and help them," won him the Bishopric of Peterborough. And now begins a most interesting passage in his life. The Biography of Bishop Wilberforce produced the impression of a sudden and unaccountable change in the attitude of Bishop Magee towards the Disestablish- ment of the Irish Church. It appeared that, whereas, when he learned the result of Mr. Gladstone's appeal to the constituencies, he gave up the Establishment as a lost cause, and counselled the hopelessness of further resistance, he had himself headed and championed that resistance by the most impassioned speech which was delivered against the Second Reading of the Bill. The Bishop's letters of this period should be carefully studied in conjunction with the contemporary Journals of Bishop Wilberforce and the Biography of Archbishop Tait ; and it will then be seen that Magee fully recognized the conclusive character of the national verdict ; that he hoped nothing from prolonged resistance ; that he urged his Irish friends to agree with their adversary 140 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH quickly, and make terms with Mr. Gladstone before it was too late. At the same time he hated the Bill with all his heart ; and, when his Irish brethren declined all compromise and arrayed themselves for battle, he threw himself with all his energies on to their side, and fought his hardest for a cause which yet, in his reason, he believed to be hopeless. The immense success of Magee's speech on the Second Reading and bis own natural aptitude for affairs marked him out at once as a Bishop who would have to take a prominent part in the Parliamentary business of the Church. He said of himself that he was better suited for the haute politigue of the Church than for some other Episcopal duties. He was a consummate orator, a born debater, a master of organization and machinery ; and, though he disliked the House of Lords, and felt that the Bishops were in a false position there, he was not afraid of his audience. Thus he became, what for good or for evil is increasingly rare, a Parliamentary Bishop, and as such he was brought into very close relations with Archbishop Tait, who seems to have desired to use him as a fighting lieutenant. But nothing in these volumes is more remarkable than the want of sympathy between the two men, or the Bishop of Peterborough's shrewd insight into the faults and limitations of his chief. The Life of Archbishop Tait gave what may be called the Domestic Chaplain's view of its hero. As such it was natural and becoming, and, from its own standpoint, true. But let us see how the matter presented itself to a very clever man, trained in the rough-and- tumble of the world, and promoted by the sheer force of his own genius to the front rank : The Archbishop's Scotch caution amounts to a disease, with odd outbreaks, at intervals, of impulsiveness. And he is, besides, so utter an Erastian that any move of his for ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 141 increased power for the Bench will be of a kind generally distasteful even to moderate Churchmen. In 1874, with reference to the Public Worship Regulation Act : The Archbishop has turned the Ganges into our garden, and I fear it will sweep away other things than the Ritualistic weeds. . . . Evidently we are entering on a great crisis, and alas ! we do not trust our pilots either of Cantuar or York. The Bishops are sore at the way the Archbishop has over- ridden them in the conduct of the Bill. . . . We sorely need a strong and yet a gentle hand at the helm of the Church, and the Archbishop has neither of these now. In 1876 : The Archbishop so entirely believes in Parliaments, and so entirely ignores the clergy, that he is becoming, with all his noble qualities and great practical sagacity, a great peril to the Church. He regards the clergy as a big Sixth Form, and acts accordingly. We are drifting, and getting nearer and nearer to our Niagara ; Cantuar at the helm, quite satisfied that a good strong Erastian wind from St. Stephen's is carrying us steadily and safely along. It is certainly a misfortune at this moment to have two Primates nearly alike in Church views, and singularly alike in their want of imagination, and therefore of power of sympathy with others, or anticipation of events. In 1877 : He [Tait] will never be a leader; and his office is not powerful enough to make him a ruler who is not something of a leader too. In 1879 : The laity are astride of them [the Bishops] and the clergy, and they will hold their place. Cantuar likes this ! He said so to me lately. He is infatuated for laity and Parliament, and will one day have a rude awakening. In 1880 : When will the Archbishop of Canterbury give up driving, 142 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH and take to leading, the Church ? More and more I am con- vinced that the Episcopate under his government is letting the Church drift on the breakers, when a strong hand on the helm might have saved her. On the Amendments to the Burial Bill : On these points Cantuar may be trusted. It is just in such lesser points, involving caution and canniness, that he shines. In 1881 : A. Cantuar managed his little speech for the Queen Anne's Bounty Bill admirably. He muddled it up so judiciously that no one knew exactly what it meant. On the Archbishop's death : He never could endure opposition well, but on the other hand he never bore malice. He was a good man, and in some respects a great one. Of course the political affairs with which Archbishop Magee mainly concerned himself were those which affect the Church. In the general field of secular politics he seems to have been a moderate Conservative of the Utilitarian type, abhorring democracy, and regarding his own countrymen with that singular mixture of in- tellectual admiration and practical mistrust which is the characteristic of the educated Irishman. In his whole moral and mental constitution he belonged to his early time, and was completely out of touch with the sentimental ethics and poetical economics which play so large a part in the thought of to-day. And as in the social and political fields, so in that of theology. Magee belonged essentially to what Mr. R. H. Hutton so well described as " the Hard Church." He seems never to have been troubled by a single doubt. He saw the fundamental facts of the Christian revelation with intense clearness, and regarded all who had a ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 143 wider vision as visionaries, and all who saw less as wilfully blind. We do not learn how he established his premisses ; but, those granted, his deductions from them were of irrefragable force. " Logic," he said, " is as real a fact as steam " ; and he would have seen nothing but nonsense in the wisdom of St. Ambrose Non in dialecticd complacuit Deo salvumfacere populum Suum. We are quite unable to understand why Magee was ever reckoned as Evangelical, and he himself shared the inability. In 1867 he wrote : I fear to the end of my days I shall be reckoned amongst the Evangelicals ; why, I cannot imagine. Probably the good people who originally brought him to Bath thought that any Irish clergyman was neces- sarily of that school, and so took him on trust ; but we think that the Simeon Trustees displayed the truer theological instinct when they declined to present him to one of their livings. He was strongly opposed to Romanism and Puseyism, and in his earlier days, at any rate, held no High Church doctrine. But, eloquent and forcible and convincing as he was in the pulpit (and he avowed that he was much more a preacher than a pastor), he had absolutely none of that " unction " which is the true note of Evangelical preaching ; nor, as far as one can see, of that passionate zeal for the salvation of the individual soul which is the Alpha and Omega of all Evangelical ministrations. He was stoutly opposed to Calvinism. He was not the least afraid of Biblical criticism (the first preferment in his gift was bestowed on Dr. Westcott). He confessed himself quite unable to " howl the Gospel." He had nothing but sneers for the " sweet young clergyman of the Simeonite type." The preaching of an aged Low Churchman reminded him 144 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH of a cracked spinnet. Truly this is not the language of Evangelicalism. Of his famous sermon before the Church Congress at Dublin, the Evangelical Bishop of Cork declared that "it had not Gospel enough in it to save a torn-tit," and the preacher thought the criticism " delicious." On the other hand, Magee had an unbounded contempt for Ritualism in all its forms and phases, though after the Ridsdale Judgment he conformed, as a matter of obedience, to the use of the cope in his cathedral. His notion of liturgical reform seems to have been such a reconstruction of the rubrics as should make ceremonial impossible ; but he was shrewd enough to see that any attempt to meddle with doctrine must rend the Church in twain. His own views of such matters as Orders and Sacraments are nowhere clearly set forth, but he wrote in 1867 : I have just refused going to a meeting of " Evangelical " clergy at Southport, to give an address on the Church of England doctrine of the Sacraments. Oh my ! if I had gone and said my say, in how many little pieces should I have been sent home to my sorrowing wife and bereaved orphans ! His general tone would appear to have been what is characterized as " Broad-Low." All the more remarkable is his letter in 1883 on Prayer for the Departed : What an unspeakable comfort and refreshment to mourners on earth was lost to us when we were entirely deprived of it. It is so natural, so entirely innocent, it does bring those who are gone so near again, it does so realize for us the oneness of the great Kingdom of Christ in all time and place, that I for one have always lamented its loss, and had one grudge the more at the Church of Rome for so spotting that part of the robe of worship with the flesh that we had to tear it all away. We have intentionally forborne to enlarge on the ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 145 Archbishop's wit, humour, and sarcasm. They flash and sparkle in his letters as freely and as naturally as they did in his conversation ; and it is to be remarked that his jokes, like those of Sydney Smith, were never mere appendages, but always form part of the texture of the argument, and help to establish the point for which he is contending. It would, therefore, rob them of half their merit to tear them from their context, where they can be read and enjoyed by every admirer of this brave, brilliant, and high-minded man. 10 CARDINAL MANNING 1 r. PURCELL has given us, in his Life 2 of Cardinal Manning, a peculiarly fascinating, be- cause a perfectly candid, biography. He is entitled to the gratitude of everyone who is interested either in the Cardinal's remarkable personality, or in the practical working of the system by which the Church of Rome operates at home and abroad. I do not propose to enter into the dispute between Mr. Purcell and those who have assailed him in the Nineteenth Century and elsewhere, beyond saying that, so far as I have the means of judging, the biographer has effectually justified himself against his critics. In Chapters I. to XI. of his First Volume, Mr. Purcell narrates Manning's parentage, early surroundings, and education ; the development of his character ; his tastes, inclinations, and his secular ambitions ; the dislocation of all his plans by his father's failure in business ; the religious influence brought to bear upon him by his Evangelical friends ; the gradual substitution of spiritual for worldly aspirations ; his entrance into Holy Orders ; the happiness of his short married life ; his growing absorption in the duties of the sacred ministry ; his aloofness from the Oxford Movement ; his independent line of ecclesiastical action; the gradual concentration of all his heart and mind on the Unity of the Church. 1 The Commonwealth, 1896. 1 " Life of Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster." By Edmund Sheridan Purcell. 146 CARDINAL MANNING 147 The beauty and desirability of Unity and its neces- sity to an ideal condition had long occupied a leading place in Manning's thoughts. He dealt with it in his first published sermon on " The English Church : its Succession and Witness for Christ," preached at a Visitation, in Chichester Cathedral, in 1835. Again and again he returned to it in his Archidiaconal Charges. In 1842 he elaborated his views about it in a formal treatise, " affectionately inscribed " to his friend Mr. Gladstone. The main part of the book is occupied with the theory of Unity as set forth in Holy Scripture and the Fathers, and a strong enforcement of its moral and theological importance. It is only in the last twenty pages that the author grapples with the practical difficulties of the subject,, and compares the ideal of Unity with the actual condition of Christendom. In these pages he substantially reproduces the argument of Bramhall, and justifies, while he minimizes, the Anglican claim to independence of Roman control. This part of the book is sketchy and superficial ; and critics have wondered how so keen an intellect as Manning's could have been satisfied with such inadequate handling of an urgent problem. Nearly fifty years after the publication of the book, its venerable author placed it in my hands, and told me the circumstances under which it was written. In 1838 Mr. Gladstone brought out his famous book on The State in its Relations with the Church, and Manning, while fully appreciating his friend's desire to serve the Church of England, thought that he based his advocacy on mistaken grounds, and attributed too much value to her alliance with the State. To supply a more spiritual view of the Church of England as part of the Universal Church, and to assert her claims on higher ground than that of legal establishment, were the objects which Manning proposed 148 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH to himself. His theory of Church and State, and of the relations of Anglicanism to " the Holy Church Universal," was perfectly clear in his own mind ; and all went on swimmingly till he approached the con- sideration of things as they actually were, and tried to square his theory with the facts. " Then," he said, " it all broke down, and I could not get through the last chapter." It was a significant failure ; but its full significance was not yet clear even to Manning himself. He thought that the difficulty of reconciling the Anglican position with the doctrine of One Catholic and Apostolic Church was a misfortune which we owed to our unhappy divisions. It marred the logical symmetry and com- pleteness of the Anglican position, but it suggested as yet no disloyal or distrustful thoughts. Duties were ours ; events were God's. Difficulties would vanish in His own good time ; and in the meantime we must put up with the intellectual annoyance of a theoretical inconsistency. These main outlines of Manning's Anglican life were sufficiently well known. Mr. Purcell has filled-in the picture with a vast number of interesting and novel touches. Few people probably knew that Manning's devotion to Caroline Sargent was not his earliest love- affair ; few realized the keen struggle that went on in him between conscience and the cravings of ecclesiastical ambition ; few his growing mistrust of, and alienation from, his wife's brother-in-law, Samuel Wilberforce. Nobody, as far as I know, was prepared for what we find in his secret correspondence with Robert Wilberforce, namely, that, from the time of Newman's secession, Manning, whose public utterances led men to regard him as the mainstay and champion of the Anglican position, was grievously afflicted with misgivings about the character and claims of the Church of CARDINAL MANNING 149 England. Reviewing this correspondence, Mr. Pnrcell says : The letters to Robert Wilberforce give a clear and connected history of the changes in Manning's religious opinions, the gradual growth and remorseless strengthening of his doubts as to the character and position of the English Church ; the dra wing of heart and intellect towards the Church of Rome ; and the development of a belief, fatal to Anglicanism, in the unity and infallibility of the Church. It was not the Gorham Case which shattered Manning's faith in the Church of England, for before the Gorham judgment was pronounced or formulated he had utterly lost all belief in Anglicanism as forming a part of the Church of Christ. The discovery of this fact is by far the most important result of Mr. Purcell's researches into the hidden records of Manning's Anglican days. But it is with the Second Volume that the intense interest of the narrative begins. Manning was received into the Church of Rome on Passion Sunday, April 6, 1851, and was ordained Priest on the ensuing Trinity Sunday. He then entered as a student of the Academia Ecclesiastica at Rome ; and the first chapter of the Second Volume is devoted to the musings and self- commnnings of the neophyte beginning life again at forty-three, amid new and strange surroundings. On March 28, 1852, he writes in his private journal : I am now more detached, isolated, cut round about, without future, or thought of home, or desire in life, than ever. God alone and the great Forty Days are all I desire, till faith is swallowed up in sight. The one visible, infallible, imperish- able kingdom in which, in 1833, I believed in confuso, I have found am in it, and am its servant. Wonderful grace carrying me through all. If after this I perish, I perish indeed. God be merciful to me a sinner. This is the genuine utterance of Manning's spiritual part ; but man is composite, and accordingly, as time goes on, we find the old Adam in Manning's nature 150 reasserting itself. In 1854 he writes in his journal, " I am conscious of a desire to be in such a position as 1 had in time past " ; and, even without this frank admission it would be easy enough to perceive, as we pursue the narrative of his Roman life, that the characteristics which had marked him ever since his school-days at Harrow the love of prominence, the taste for rulership, the determination to be aut Ccssar aut nullus were still strong and active within him under the changed conditions of his new career. But the difference is this. Inclinations which, in his Anglican days, he had regarded as snares to be shunned were now providential leadings to be duti- fully followed. He felt an inborn capacity for rule and administration, and a natural love of doing that which he did supremely well. But in Anglican days he was haunted by the fear that ecclesiastical office and pre-eminence among his fellows would, by their very suitableness to his aptitudes and tastes, insensibly deafen him to that voice of conscience which even then seemed to be whispering, " Come out of Her, that ye receive not of Her plagues." It used to be currently believed, and Bishop Wilber- force's diary sanctioned the view, that Manning left the Church of England because he saw no chance of being a bishop here that an Anglican mitre would have kept him in the Church of England, and that the remote prospect of a Roman one lured him across the border. It is satisfactory to see, in the history of his refusal of the Sub-Almonership offered him by Archbishop Harcourt, and the reasons which dictated it, the working of an exactly opposite spirit. Among his reasons for refusing, he mentions : That anything which complicated my thoughts and position may affect the indifference with which I wish to revolve my CARDINAL MANNING 151 mind cm the great issue. Visions of a future certainly would. ... I am afraid of venturing out of the Church into the Court. It is a /Aera/foo-is cts dXXoycvets, the first point in the line, and therefore involves the whole principle. ... I would fain simply deny myself as an offering to Him Who pleased not Himself, and perhaps, in a distinction and an honour having worldly estimation, such a denial is better for me, than in money and the like. And again, after the decision is made, he writes : The associations of the world came about me, and made me feel that I had played the fool and lost a great opportunity. I cannot deny that in the region of the world, even of the fair, not irreligious, view of self-advancement, ... I have made a mistake. But in the region of counsels, self -chastise- ment, humiliation, self-discipline, penance, and of the Cross, I think I have done right. Yet great humility alone can keep me from being robbed of all this. To learn to say No, to disappoint myself, to choose the harder side, to deny my inclination, to prefer to be less thought of, and to have fewer gifts of the world ; this is no mistake, and is most like the Cross, only with humility God grant it to me. But when once Manning had crossed the Rubicon, all this was changed. Henceforward there was no fear, no misgiving, no self-distrust. If a call to higher place or greater power came, it came from God, and must be obeyed without question or delay. At each successive step in his ecclesiastical advancement, this feeling is uppermost ; and, indeed, as years went on, it seems to have been accompanied by something very like a desire that a still more important call should come. Manning had what has been called " the ambition of distinctiveness." He felt that he had a special mission, which no other man could so adequately fulfil, and that was to establish and popularize in England his own robust faith in the cause of the Papacy as identical with the cause of God. There never lived a stronger Papalist. 152 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH He was more ultramontane than the Ultramontanes. Everything Roman was to him Divine. Italian archi- tecture, Italian vestments, the Italian mode of pro- nouncing ecclesiastical Latin, were precious in his heart, because they visibly and audibly implied the all- pervading presence and power of Rome. Rightly or wrongly, he conceived that English Romanism was practically Gallicariism ; that it minimized the Papal supremacy, was disloyal to the Temporal power, and was prone to accommodate itself to its Protestant and secular environment. Against this temporizing spirit he set his face like a flint. He believed that he had been appointed to Papalize England. In Cardinal Wiseman lie found a superior after his own heart, and they worked in perfect accord for an end equally dear to both. But Wiseman was old and feeble, and Manning was forced to look forward. As long as Wiseman ruled Catholic England, Manning could shape its policy ; but there was danger ahead. Wiseman had appointed as his coadjutor with right of succession Dr. Errington, a man of old English family, and tainted, in Manning's view, with the characteristic faults of English Catholicism. If Erring- ton should succeed Wiseman in the Archiepiscopate, a substantial alteration in policy was to be apprehended ; and quite certainly Manning would no longer be able to " shape the whispers of a throne," as he had so long shaped them in the ultramontane sense. The danger was imminent, and Manning's course was obvious. Dr. Errington must be dispossessed of his right of succession. Now, as always, Manning, willing the end, willed the means ; and a careful study of the methods by which, single-handed, he carried his point, will disclose a fertility of resource, a tenacity of purpose, an intrepidity, and a rernorselessness which would have been remarkable in the fiercest conflicts of political or commercial life. CARDINAL MANNING 153 It is charitable to hope that, in Manning's case, they were sanctified by the sincerity with which he identified his own purposes with the Will of God ; but the im- pression which this part of the narrative leaves on the mind is that of Mr. Chamberlain in a cassock. Errington was duly shunted, but, somehow or other, Manning was not installed in his place ; and so, when Wiseman died, and the Archbishopric became vacant, there arose a fresh necessity for prompt, energetic, and persistent agitation. The wrong successor might be Appointed after all, and the machinations which had dislodged Errington might prove to have been labour in vain. So the indefatigable Manning sets to work again, this time in close alliance with his friend Mousignore Talbot, who lived in the Vatican, and had constant access to Pius IX. Papal Infallibility could be absolutely trusted iu the region of faith and morals, but in that of adminis- trative action it needed a little judicious wire-pulling, lest its decisions should go astray. Cardinal Wiseman died on February 15, 1865. Mr. Purcell remarks, in a significant footnote : Between the 24th of February and the 18th of March, there is a break in the correspondence between Dr. Manning and Mgr. Talbot. Either no letters were exchanged during those weeks of suspense and expectation, or the correspondence has not been preserved. I incline to the latter hypothesis. Anyhow, from March 18 to April 30, the correspondence is brisk, animated, and profoundly interesting. Never before, I should fancy, has the Protestant world been allowed so clear a view of the inner working of Vaticanism ; but I am not writing for controversial purposes, and I willingly leave this episode to those who will know how to make the most of it. On April 30 Pius IX., 154 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH overriding the choice of the Chapter of Westminster, appointed Manning Archbishop ; and the faithful Mgr. Talbot, writing from the Vatican, thus comments on the event: My policy throughout was never to propose you directly to the Pope, but to make others do so ; so that both you and I always can say that it was not I who induced the Holy Father to name you, which would lessen the weight of your appointment. This I say, because many have said that your being named was all my doing. I do not say that the Pope did not know that I thought you the only man eligible ; as / took care to tell him over and over again what was against all the other candidates; and in consequence he was almost driven into naming you. Surely the electioneering correspondence of the Caucus, or the most privileged communications of the Tammany Ring, never produced a more deliciously frank avowal of the wire-puller's spirit and methods. The same principle which I have indicated as under- lying Manning's views about ecclesiastical preferments emanating from the Vicar of Christ, governed all his public policy and all his private dealing. The cause of the Pope was the cause of God ; Manning was the person who could best serve the Pope's cause, and therefore all forces which opposed him were in effect opposing the Divine Will. This seems to have been his simple and sufficient creed, and certainly it had the merit of supplying a clear rule of action. One of the parts of Manning's policy which, I suppose, will be new to most Protestants was his steady opposition to all Religious Orders, and especially the Society of Jesus ; his dealings with which form the only subject on which Mr. Purcell has practised suppression. 1 Viewed in the light of the principle stated above, this opposition was 1 See "Hindrances to the Spread of the Catholic Church in England," Manning's Life, vol. ii., chap, xxvii. CARDINAL MANNING 155 reasonable enough. Religions Orders are extra-episcopal. The Jesuits are scarcely subject to the Pope himself. Certainly neither the Orders nor the Society would, or could, be subject to Manning. A power independent of or hostile to his authority was inimical to religion, and must, as a religious duty, be checked, and if possible destroyed. Exactly the same principle animated his dealings with Cardinal Newman. Rightly or wrongly, Manning thought Newman a half-hearted Papalist. He dreaded alike his way of putting things and his practical policy. Newman's favourite scheme of establishing a Roman Catholic college or institute at Oxford, Manning regarded as fraught with peril to the faith of the rising generation. The scheme must therefore be crushed and its author snubbed. I must in candour add that these diiferences of opinion between the two Cardinals were mixed with and embittered by a sense of personal dislike. This surely breathes in Newman's graphic letter (of which Manning grimly remarked that it " was in terms which made a reply hardly fitting on my part ") : " My dear Archbishop, I do not know whether I am on my head or my heels when I have active relations with you." Nor was Manning at all backward in reciprocating these compliments. When Newman died, there appeared in a monthly magazine a series of very un- flattering sketches by one who had known him well. I ventured to ask Cardinal Manning if he had seen these sketches. He replied that he had, and thought them very shocking ; the writer must have a very unenviable mind, etc. ; and then, having thus sacrificed to propriety, after a moment's pause he added, " But if you ask me if they are like poor Newman, I am bound to say a photograph." It was, 1 suppose, matter of common knowledge that 156 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Manning's early and conspicuous ascendency in the counsels of the Papacy rested on the intimacy of his personal relations with Pius IX. ; though it is not necessary to give literal credence to that account of those relations which Bishop Wilberforce, in his diary, reported from my lamented cousin Odo Russell. But it is news to most of us that Manning, as Mr. Purcell seems to hint, wished to succeed Antonelli as Secretary of State in 1876, and to transfer the scene of his activities from Westminster to Rome ; and that he attributed the Pope's disregard of his wishes to mental decrepitude. The point, if true, is an important one ; for Manning's accession to the Secretaryship of State, and permanent residence in Rome, could not have failed to affect the development of events when, two years later, the Papal throne became vacant by the death of Pius IX. But Deo aliter visum. It was ordained that Manning should pass the evening of his days in England, and that he should outlive his intimacy at the Vatican, and his influence on the general policy of the Church of Rome. With the accession of Leo XIII. a new order began, and Newman's elevation to the Sacred Purple seemed to affix the sanction of Infalli- bility to principles, modes, and methods against which Manning had waged a Thirty Years' War. Henceforward he felt himself a stranger at the Vatican, and powerless beyond the limits of his own jurisdiction. It is Mr. Purcell's opinion that this restriction of exterior activities in the ecclesiastical sphere drove the venerable Cardinal to find a vent for his untiring energies in those various efforts of social reform in which, during the last ten years of his life, he played so conspicuous and so useful a part. If this be so, though Rome may have lost, England was unquestionably a gainer. It was during those ten years that 1 was honoured CARDINAL MANNING 157 by his friendship. The storms, the struggles, the ambitions, the intrigues, which had filled so large a part of his middle life, lay far behind. He was revered, useful, and, I think, contented in his present life, and looked forward with serene confidence to the fiual, and not distant, issue. As I close Mr. Purcell's fascinating book, and once again compare the character which he has drawn with that which I remember, the words rise unbidden to my lips, JEcce, Sacerdos Magnus. Here was a man who was a priest in every fibre of his being ; who was utterly devoted to the Will of God, and to the Church, which, for him, was the organ of that Will ; who served it through a long life of absolute and calculated sacrifice ; and who now enjoys his everlasting reward in the company of "just men," once like himself, encompassed with human infirmity, but now, through grace, " made perfect." FOR a son to attempt his father's biography is indeed to court disaster ; and that Mr. Arthur Benson has avoided it is due to a very rare power. This is indicated by his own words : If the attitude I have adopted may seem almost too detached or critical, I honoured and loved my father too much to be misunderstood by any who knew what our relations were. We may extend this just self-judgment far beyond the circle of those who knew the son and his father. Every reader of the book, 2 if only he has moderate sympathy and discernment, will see that the author's filial instinct is a master-passion, and that the power which has enabled him to be as good a biographer as he was a son is, as he himself would say, " detach- ment." He has an idol we all have our idols his is his father. He stands in front of it and worships it, and all the time sees its defects, and even calls upon the world to notice them. Perhaps there are stains in the marble and rough corners in the sculpture, but the statue as a whole is glorious, and the wor- shipper's faith is courageous just because it is absolute. In the first sentence of his book Mr. Benson tells us that, unlike most people of his name, our late Arch- 1 The Manchester Guardian, 1899. * "The Life of Edward White Benson, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury," By his son, Arthur Christopher Benson, of Eton College. 158 ARCHBISHOP BENSON 159 bishop was not a Jew. He was a Yorkshireman, descended from a long line of yeomen or " dalesmen," and the family was well-to-do until the inevitable spendthrift appeared. Then the usual results ensued, and the spendthrift's son found his way into business at Birmingham, where he married, and became, in 1829, the father of Edward White Benson, afterwards Arch- bishop of Canterbury. The boy was educated by the famous Prince Lee, Head Master of King Edward's School, Birmingham, and had among his school-fellows J. B. Lightfoot and B. F. Westcott. From school Edward Benson went up as a sizar to Trinity College, Cambridge. His father had died while he was still at school, leaving a widow and family slenderly provided for. When Edward Benson was about half-way through his career at Cambridge his mother died, and her children were found to be virtually destitute. Then a guardian angel appeared in the shape of an old Fellow of Trinity, who, having noticed young Benson's aptitude and dili- gence, resolved that his University career should not be ruined, and generously undertook his maintenance until he should be able to support himself. In 1852 Benson came out eighth in the First Class of the Classical Tripos and Senior Chancellor's Medallist. He then took an assistant mastership at Rugby under Dr. Goulburn, and was presently elected Fellow of Trinity. In 1854 he was ordained Deacon, and in 1856 Priest. In 1858 he was elected Master of the newly-created Wellington College. He married his cousin, Mary Sidgwick, in 1859. In 1873 he left Wellington for the Chancellor- ship of Lincoln, to which a canonry was attached. In 1877 he was made by Lord Beaconsfield first Bishop of Trnro. In 1882 he was chosen by Mr. Gladstone to succeed Archbishop Tait at Canterbury. In 1896 he died. 160 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Dr. Benson's appointment to Wellington was due to Dr. Temple, then Head Master of Rugby, who recommended him to Prince Albert. Benson excelled as a courtier ; and the Queen, always well inclined towards her husband's favourites, eagerly concurred in, if she did not suggest, his elevation to the Episcopate. Of what determined his selection for Canterbury his biographer professes ignorance, but it is an open secret. Mr. Gladstone wished to place Dean Church, whom he thought the greatest of English Churchmen, on the vacant throne. But the Dean's refusal (in advance) was so absolute that the offer was never definitely made. Mr. Gladstone then thought of Bishop Harold Browne, but he was too old, and, after all-round consideration, he decided on the Bishop of Truro. His reasons were two : first, that it was desirable to appoint a man of whom it might be reasonably conjectured that he would have a long tenure ; and, second, that Bishop Benson had given his proofs of capacity and rightmindedness in organizing a new diocese and building a cathedral. "All had been done on ecclesiastical lines." The appointment was extremely unpopular with the Liberal party. The Bishop was known to be a very high Tory, and suspected of being a very High Churchman ; and, to make bad worse, he had just given his name to the Tory committee at a by-election for the University of Cambridge. Some mischief-maker eagerly reported this circumstance to Mr. Gladstone, who received it very characteristically. " Is that so ? then it is very much to the Bishop's credit. A worldly man, or an ambitious man, or a self-seeking man would not have joined a Tory committee when Canterbury was vacant and I was Prime Minister." Of Archbishop Benson's rule at Lambeth, the chief events were the Lincoln Judgment, which vindicated ABCHBISHOP BENSON 161 moderate Ritualism ; that movement for the defence of the Establishment which did such untold harm to the Church by identifying her with a political party ; and a refusal to enter into informal correspondence with the Pope about Anglican Orders, which subsequent events proved to have been eminently wise. So much for the main outlines of a life which, though eminently prosperous, was scarcely eventful. A much more interesting study is the man himself. And here photography comes to our aid,'and the portraits with which the book abounds powerfully confirm and illustrate the letterpress perhaps, indeed, it would be more true to say that the letterpress illustrates the portraits. These show a noble forehead, from which unusually long hair is dragged back, deep-set and far-looking eyes, a strongly- shaped and trenchant nose, a wide mouth, and a chin of abnormal development. Every feature tells its tale an imperious will, a violent temper, a strong sensuous- ness ; dominated by a romantic idealism and a true spirituality ; the whole combined with a perceptible love of pose and effect. If this is what the portraits suggest, the letterpress tells us that it is a true suggestion. Benson was a troublesome child and a passionate boy. When he was a schoolmaster, his punishments were often excessive. His devoted disciple Canon Mason described with unpleasing unction his mode of caning a liar. His biography gives instances of harsh and severe sayings to people who could not reply. Again, he was essentially masterful. He saw clearly what he wanted, was im- patient of contradiction or opposition, and generally attained his objects by the sheer intensity with which, willing the end, he also willed the means. Then, again, his nature was (as Milton says that poetry should be) sensuous. Though his actual life was of ascetic sim- plicity, yet the things of sense, and of all the senses, 11 162 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH yielded him acute enjoyment. He loved flowers and sunshine, jewels and marbles, bright colours and pine- scented air, a well-ordered ceremonial, a gallop on a good horse, a " plain but perfect table." " I always think that good claret tastes very like a good creature of God " is a characteristic saying reported by one of his disciples ; and Bishop Westcott remarks rather ruefully, " He was even able to look upon the splendid shows of society without feeling the distress or anxiety which they bring to many." The love of pose and the striving after effect were cognate elements. Nature had given him a striking appearance. From early manhood he filled ceremonious parts ; he was perfectly aware that his natural man became them, and he never forgot for an instant either the part or what was due to it. He held high debate on the length to which he should let his hair grow ; he lavished time and thought on the design for his signet- ring and the precise shade of purple for his cassock. But all this belongs to the lower part of the face, and to its environment. As we look at the upper part, and look at it apart from its background, the elements of moral grandeur become visible. There we see the ideal- ism, the poetry, the romance, so often allied with the better sort of sensuousness which, indeed, is only a keen faculty of physical perception. There we see the look of high purposes and noble dreams " admira- tion, hope, and love." We detect that unmistakable reality of spiritual devotion which was, before and above all else, the characteristic of the man. This biography tells no tale of sudden conversion from evil to good, from darkness to light, but rather the gradual development of the anima naturaliter Christiana into the " measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." No one ever had a more unwavering grasp on the central dogma of the Christian Revelation, or a ARCHBISHOP BENSON 163 more passionate enthusiasm for the Christian Kingdom. Witness after witness tells us of his gradually-acquired mastery over temper and petulance, his increasing con- trol over his tongue, his growing devotion to the in- teriora of his sacred office. All these were steps towards a " predestined perfection " ; but the root of the matter was in him from the beginning. From his very earliest years he had shown a Samuel-like love of private prayer and of the Divine sanctuary. As a boy he furnished himself a little oratory ; as an undergraduate at Cam- bridge he observed the Canonical Hours. Architecture, ritual, vesture, hymnology, every form and aspect of Christian antiquity, were dear to him, and all was studied in enthusiastic subordination to that priest- hood which was the ideal as well as the occupation of his life. Theologically, Benson was not exactly what the world thought him. He intensely loved ornament and ceremony, posture and gesture, but he loved them eclectically, and applied them in practice as he felt that circumstances and edification demanded. Thus at Wellington College, though he used the mixed chalice and took the ablutions, he celebrated in the afternoon and stood at the north end of the Holy Table. He spoke of the Holy Communion as the Mass, but he condemned Father Goulden for teaching the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. He commended the Departed to God at the altar, but his doctrine of Eucharistic Sacrifice seems to have been something peculiar to himself. He believed intensely in the Apostolic Succession, but he is understood to have favoured the recognition of Presbyterian Orders. He was enthusiastic about monkish ideals, but assigned stalls in his private chapel to his daughters. In short, though he loved expressive rites and beautiful words 164 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH and long-descended graces of worship, it is difficult to rank him as a Catholic theologian, or even as, in the conventional sense of the term, a High Churchman. He was, in truth, a law unto himself. It would perhaps be incorrect, in view of the determined courage with which he set np his archiepiscopal court and publicly ignored the rulings of the Privy Council, to call him an Erastian. But his devotion to the principle of Establishment was a monomania, and every link which bound the Church to the State was precious in his eyes. It would even seem as if he resented the fate which decreed that he should be called to Lambeth by Mr. Gladstone, from whose policy he so profoundly dissented ; and he appears to have regarded the Queen's civil wish that he should accept the offer as being really his Divine call to the Primacy. In fact, the Archbishop's view of the relations between the Church and the State was closely akin to those which Mr. Shorthouse set forth in " John Inglesant " : "The Church of England as established by the law of England offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come." But the very mention of John Inglesant's name suggests, by way of contrast, one of the Archbishop's most marked characteristics. Artist, antiquary, scholar, aesthete, he was no visionary, no dilettante, no mere praiser of an unreturning past ; but, on the contrary, the most practical of men. From the days of boyhood and early manhood, when iron necessity stimulated hia industry and curbed his whims, down to the last night of his strenuous life, he was pre-eminently a worker. All the qualities of the best workman were his belief in his vocation, pride in his task, the resolute deter- mination to do it as well as it could be done, absolute concentration on the work in hand, and a fiery industry which consumed the whole of every day and trenched ARCHBISHOP BENSON 165 cruelly on times of rest. As far as the biography reveals his life, it is difficult to lay one's finger on an idle hour. It is a splendid record of life-long energy for great causes and high, though perhaps mistaken, ideals. It would be forced and unreal for those who strongly dissented from his theory of the public good to say that Arch- bishop Benson always succeeded in " rightly dividing the word of truth " ; but beyond all question he was " a workman that needed not to be ashamed." THEODORE TALBOT 1 JUST twenty years have passed since the death of a man whose life conspicuously illustrated the grace and power of Christian Socialism, though, so far as I know, the phrase never crossed his lips. Theodore Mansel Talbot was born in 1839. He was the only son of Mr. Christopher Talbot, of Margam, a man of great possessions and position in South Wales, who sat as a Liberal for Glamorganshire from 1830 till 1890, and was Father of the House of Commons. Theodore's mother, Lady Charlotte Talbot, a daughter of Lord Glengall, died when her son was only seven years old. He was brought up at home, and taught by private tutors under the careful superintendence of his father, himself a man of high attainments in mathe- matics and physical science. At the age of eighteen he went up to Christ Church. He hunted, he debated (taking always a vehemently Liberal line), he cultivated music, he practised Freemasonry, and he read sufficiently hard to obtain a Second Class in the Final Mathematical School. On going down from Oxford, he threw himself with great energy into the Volunteer movement, be- coming successively Captain, Major, and Lieutenant- Colonel of his county corps. He was an admirable shot, a strict disciplinarian, and a thorough master of drill. He took a farm of his father's, and worked it on commercial principles, not using it as a toy, but carefully studying 1 The Commonwealth, 1896. 166 THEODORE TALBOT 167 to make two ends meet. His letters on agricultural topics, and those connected with the business and finance of the county, show a keen interest in local affairs, and the clear judgment which comes of practical experience. But, after all, farming was scarcely the pursuit best adapted to the impetuous and daring spirit of Theodore Talbot. As heir to his father's immense possessions, he had been brought up to no profession. Without occupation he would have been miserable, and his zealous temperament found its vent in hunting. He first tried his hand with a pack of harriers in Glamorganshire ; then he took the Ledbury hounds ; and in 1873 he organized a fresh country in the neighbourhood of his home, and undertook the mastership of the newly-formed pack. He showed considerable powers of organization, forming a Hunt Club, laying out fox-coverts, and establishing earth- stoppers' funds, etc. He also purchased foxes, and arranged a sort of breeding-den in a cave in the Yale, where at one time there were fifty foxes taken from the hills. He was a martinet in the field ; and, though ordinarily quite indifferent to all matters of personal appearance, was scrupulously particular about his own turn-out for hunting, and that of those who hunted with him. He was keenly solicitous for the physical welfare of his poorer neighbours; and finding that there was no resi- dent doctor in the neighbourhood, he himself guaranteed the stipend of a competent practitioner. The material development of his father's vast estates of course afforded all connected with them constant employment and interest ; and Theodore Talbot predicted as long ago as 1872 that the Rhondda Valley would become an industrial centre of the first importance, and would return a Member of its own to Parliament. For him- self, however, he persistently declined Parliamentary honours ; he might, indeed, have consented to stand, 168 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH had it been an unmistakable duty to do so, but it was a prospect from which he instinctively shrank. No doubt some feeling of disgust at the hollowness and insincerity of Parliamentary and political life was the repelling influence here ; but his whole character and temperament was the antithesis of an ordinary M.P., and he felt his sphere of usefulness to be elsewhere. That sphere was found to lie in a very unexpected quarter. From his early days Theodore Talbot had been of a devout and thoughtful temperament. He had a high conception of his duty towards God, keen sympathy with the sufferings of his fellow-men, and an abiding sense of responsibility for the gifts of life, health, activity, wealth, position, and social influence. He told an intimate friend that he had always had an ideal of a church or religious community in his mind, but he had never seen it realized until Providence led him to St. Alban's, Holborn. That church, its work, its services, and its ministers, were destined to exercise a dominant and enduring influence over Talbot's heart and life. The history of the parish, and the processes by which its high perfection of spiritual and material organization was evolved out of a chaos of sin and misery, are now pretty generally known. 1 This was not the case when, in the London Mission of 1869, Theodore Talbot made acquaintance with the Rev. Arthur Stanton, of St. Alban's, who became thenceforward his most intimate friend. Through this friendship he was drawn to St. Alban's Church, and in its parochial work he found his true vocation, and developed the most characteristic and most beautiful parts of his noble nature. From this period he practically disappeared from 1 See p. 79, THEODORE TALBC' 11 169 society. When he was in London, his time was spent in the slums of Holborn instead of the drawing-rooms of Belgravia and the clubs of Pall Mall. He joined the St. Alban's Parochial Guild, of which the object was to bring young working-men and lads together in a real brotherhood. He stood god-father for the street-arabs at their Baptism ; he would sit up all night nursing a sick child ; he carried the dead to burial ; he fed the hungry, reasoned with the sceptical, and taught the ignorant in the Sunday Schools. He walked in procession with his Guild in the Parish Church, and freely spent his money and his time on the adornment of the sanctuary to which he was so deeply attached. It is recorded of him that once, when the child of some poor parents lay dead in the house, and, owing to its being outside the parish, the undertaker had refused to be at the trouble to bring the little coffin to the church, Talbot, with friends of the Guild, went and fetched it himself to the church, so that the sorrow- ing parents might not be deprived of the consolation of that last Eucharist. After the early Communion, he would often bring back some of the ragged lads he found in the church or about, and give them breakfast, and try to bring them under the influence of one of the Guilds. One day, when Talbot was kneeling in church during the Holy Communion, he saw one of these little urchins pounce upon a trap which had been set for the benefit of the proverbial church-mouse, and secrete it in his pocket. As soon as they got out of church, Talbot collared the offender and demanded restitution of the mouse-trap, which the little urchin handed over with the tearful protest, " If I'd a-knowed it belonged to you, Guv'nor, I wouldn't a' ' pinched ' it." On his father's estate in Wales, Talbot laboured 170 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH earnestly in the same cause ; promoting the restoration of neglected churches, and the improvement of Divine wor- ship, and in all possible ways strengthening the hands and co-operating in the work of earnest-minded clergy. On the restoration of his own Parish Church he bestowed infinite pains ; and, just as the workmen began the process of dismantling, he said to the Vicar, " Let us begin by demolishing the Squire's and Parson's pews : there must be no vested interests here." Though he was so keenly devoted to the Church, he never wavered in his Liberalism. Indeed, he called him- self a Radical, and on religious grounds, and in the interests of the Church herself, he was an advocate of Disestablishment. He had wonderful sympathy and love for the working- man. He loved him for the sake of the Divine Workman of Nazareth. That was his Liberalism a pure, unselfish, disinterested love of the poor and helpless. All this exuberance of outward eifort was only the expression of an inward spirituality as vivid and intense as ever animated a human life. He had in a singular degree the gift of a child-like faith in the Unseen, in the Fatherhood of God and the mysteries of the Mediatorial Kingdom. From the Fatherhood of God, he learned the Brotherhood of man. The Vicar of Margarn writes : His was not the condescension of the rich towards the poor, which expects in return a slavish adulation, but a real brotherly feeling towards every man because he was a Chris- tian. No man realized more than he did the great universal brotherhood of mankind. Had he been spared, he would have devoted himself to the service of his fellow-men. And the real spring of all this was his devotion to the glory of God. His philanthropy, his zeal for the Church and for the Catholic Faith, sprang from this. I remember standing with him in, the ruined Chapter-house of Margam Abbey, and THEODORE TALBOT 171 speaking together of what he hoped might some day be done, when he suddenly but quietly exclaimed, " I only live for God's glory." I verily believe he would have sacrificed every- thing, if convinced that God's glory demanded it. His progress in the spiritual life was steady and manifest. He gradually learned to control the impatience of a natu- rally quick temper, to submit to rebuke, and to humble himself before those whom he had wronged, not least gladly when they were socially his inferiors. Thus, alike in his inward character and in his outward life, he showed the reality of a living faith. He bore constant and enthusiastic witness to what he believed to be the truth. He cared passionately and laboured ceaselessly for the spiritual and material welfare of his brother-men ; and, while utterly free from all taint of worldliness and conformity with worldliness, he looked forward with serious anticipation to the great work which seemed to be in store for him, whenever the process of nature should make him master of his vast inheritance in South Wales. In view of these great responsibilities, his friends often urged him to give up hunting, or at any rate to ride less recklessly. The same thought seemed to cross his own mind, for he once said, in reference to his hunting, " I sometimes think I am not justified in risking my life so much, in view of all the responsibility that lies before me here." The words were only too true. At the beginning of the hunting season of 1875, he had a fall which injured him severely. He was laid up for some months, but at the very end of the season obtained the doctor's permission to have one more day with the hounds. Jumping a small ditch towards the end of the day, he received a slight con- cussion of the spine, and from this injury he never recovered. He became hopelessly paralyzed, and was carried to his father's house in London, where he 172 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH endured three months' of intense and increasing suffering. His patience was exemplary. He lived in and by prayer. He repeatedly received the Holy Communion, always with the greatest faith and fervour. Every preparation in his sick-room that might honour the advent of the Blessed Sacrament was scrupulously attended to. His devotion to the Sacrament of the Altar was supreme. He revelled in the thought of all the honour that was done to that Mystery ; and the last Corpus Christi Day of his life, when he lay waiting for death, he made the clergyman who attended him promise that no Catholic rite should be omitted in his last agony. As an English Churchman, he believed he could live as a Catholic ; and, as he had lived, so he wished to die. On June 17, 1876, Mr. Stan ton wrote to a friend : Dear Theodore Talbot is, I fear, dying. Pray for him as such. No words of mine can describe this heart-breaking calamity. He is simply at peace with God. The day before his death was St. Alban's Day, and his heart was at St. Alban's Church. " I have been think- ing about all you will have done," he said. " Give my love to all the dear priests, and wish them all happiness and prosperity at St. Alban's." This was the message sent by the dying man, whose own happiness never dimmed as the loss of all earthly joy became imminent; whose faith and love flamed up as life was flickering in the socket. On the early morning of June 18, he fell asleep in the Lord, his last words being, " Let God's will be done in me." He died in the Everlasting Arms. All felt that faith blessed him to the very last. In speaking sub- sequently of his illness and death, his father, who did not share his theological tendencies, mentioned the fact that struck him most ; THEODORE TALBOT 173 The unruffled serenity of that faith which stood by him, and made him happy to the last, when all earthly happiness was gone. The life had been hid with Christ in God, and death was swallowed up in victory. To those who remember and regarded him, some echo of his life, its surroundings, and its aspirations may come back in a record of how he lived and how he died. For in these days of shallow intellectuality, of callous indifference, and selfish materialism, an example of chivalrous manliness and an intense feeling of brotherhood, combined with a religious control that coloured all a life, is as rare as it is beautiful. 1 1 From "Recollections of Theodore Mansel Talbot and his Time," by Sir Baldwyn Leighton, Bart. HENRY GARY SHUTTLE WORTH l notices of the late Professor Shuttleworth which JL appeared immediately after his death were, almost inevitably, engrossed with his life and work in London. I have been asked to contribute a few recollections of his earlier manhood. It is necessary to look back over twenty-eight years ; but to do so requires no effort. The impressions of a man's first term at Oxford are not effaced until the whole tablet is blotted ; and among those impressions my first sight of St. Barnabas' church, people, and worship stands out with peculiar clearness. The church was opened on October 19, 1869. Bishop Wilberforce consecrated it. It was almost his last act as Bishop of Oxford, and he characteristically noted in his diary : " Disagreeable service. Acolyte running about. Paste squares for bread, etc., but the church a great gift." Three years later, a boy fresh from Harrow, and less sensitively Protestant than the good Bishop, not only thought " the church a great gift," but enjoyed the " acolyte running about," and found the whole service the most inspiring and uplifting worship in which he had ever joined. My impressions of it are as clear as yesterday's the unadorned simplicity of the fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light and colour round the altar ; the floating cloud of incense ; the expressive and unfussy ceremonial ; the straight- 1 The Commonwealth, 1901. 174 HENRY GARY SHUTTLEWORTH 175 forward preaching ; and, most impressive of all, the large congregation of men, old and young, rich and poor, undergraduates and artizans, all singing Evangelical hymns with one heart and one voice. It was, if ever there was on earth, congregational worship ; and I, for one, have never seen its like. The people's pride in the church was very characteristic : they habitually spoke of it as " our Barnabas." The clergy and worshippers were a family, and the church was a home. I went up to Oxford in October, 1872. Very shortly afterwards I found my way to St. Barnabas, being led thither by a Harrow friend, one Charles Gore, Scholar of Balliol. The church was keeping its Dedication Festival. The service was Solemn Evensong ; and the Lessons were read by an undergraduate, whose name, as I learned, was Shuttleworth. He was just 22 years old, ruddy like David, and of a cheerful countenance, with blue-black hair and vivacious eyes. Alike in face, utterance, and movement he was singularly alert and vigorous. He read dramatically, and with a great deal perhaps too much of facial play, but thoroughly as if he meant what he read, and entered into it, and intended his hearers to enter into it too ; and all his movements and gestures in the choir suggested a man who was intensely interested in his business, and would have it done as well and as accurately as it could be done. Such was Henry Shuttleworth as I first saw him. Our acquaintance began that evening, and very soon ripened into friendship. He had already gone out of college, and was living in the funny little Clergy-House of St. Barnabas a sort of six-roomed cottage with a back-kitchen ; bright with high spirits and joyful work. Of its other inmates, much as I liked and respected them, nothing need now be said. My business is with 176 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Shuttleworth. Somehow, schoolboy slang rises naturally to the lips as I attempt to describe one who was still at heart a schoolboy. He was a bit of a "Know-all." There was nothing in the world that didn't interest him ; nothing about which he had not at least some information ; nothing on which he had not a formed opinion. He had what may be called the journalistic mind the knack of seizing the salient points, and of saying, whether by instinct or by acquisition, the exactly right thing about each fresh topic as it arose. As a matter of fact, he was already a practising journalist, and habitually contributed articles to one of the local papers. He was not a specially good scholar, and not at all a profound student ; but he had the happy knack of reading so as to assimilate and apply what he read ; and no one excelled him in the art of beating out his gold very thin. Music was his special gift : there he was thoroughly at home ; there he was an authority at once a performer and a critic. I doubt if he had any taste for pure theology. He went in for the Theological School ; but that was only because his intensely practical nature preferred to read what he could turn to definite account the moment he had taken his degree. Even then, though he was a red- hot Ritualist, the authors to whom he most inclined were not Newman or Faber, but Maurice and Kingsley. There was a vigorous strain of Liberalism in his nature, which rebelled against trammels and was impatient of grooves. In politics he was a Christian Socialist, or Social Democrat on Christian lines. Like Arthur Stanton, he " knew no Radicalism, except what he had sucked in from the breasts of the Gospel." His Liberalism, like Theodore Talbot's, was " a pure love of the poor and helpless," founded on personal de- votion to the Divine Workman of Nazareth. All HENRY GARY SHUTTLEWORTH 177 his opinions political, religious, social were beliefs. He was absolutely confident in his own judgment. He called no man master ; and I cannot recall that, in those distant days, I ever heard him express a doubt. At that time there was a good deal of " Roman Fever " in Oxford. Most of us took it more or less severely. Some succumbed ; many barely recovered ; some had it very slightly. Shuttleworth seemed absolutely proof against the infection. Nothing Roman had the slightest attraction for him. He felt safe, happy, and confident where he was ; and he was, then as later, profoundly convinced that the Church of England is the Society which is commissioned by God to proclaim His Message to the English people. As a companion he excelled. He was enthusiastic, buoyant, light-hearted, sanguine. His health was perfect, his activity untiring, his spirits always at the highest pitch. Pain and weakness and fear and failure were to him unknown and unthinkable strange contrast to the experience of his last year on earth. Half an hour in his company was a certain cure for low spirits or morbid fancies. He was religious without being superstitious ; and lived from hour to hour in the unclouded sunshine of Our Father's realized favour. My recollection is that, after he went to live at St. Barnabas, he mixed very little in the general life of the University. He gave himself, body and soul, to the Church and parish, his very devotion surrounding them with a halo of romance which the aspect of the locality would scarcely suggest. I fancy that I was the undergraduate of whom he saw most ; and never to be forgotten by me are our long rambles over Hincksey and by the Upper River. There is nothing in Heaven or earth which we did not discuss. We had our schemes for setting the universe right, our far-reaching 12 178 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH plans of life, and oar keen delight in present enjoyments. Shuttleworth used to flare up into contagious enthusiasm over a fine bit of literature (two such occur to me as I write Raskin's Inaugural Lecture and Miss F. Skene's paper on the Martyrdom of the Archbishop of Paris). He revelled in the physical beauties of Oxford and its setting. His sense of the ludicrous knew no bounds except those of kindness and charity. But the basis of his whole nature, the root of all his activity, was his Arthur-like devotion to our Divine Master. Be it remembered that at the time of which I am writing he was still a layman ; but he had been called, like Samuel, in his cradle, and had worn the Lord's ephod from his earliest boyhood. He was born in a Tractarian vicarage, and, after graduating as chorister and altar-server, he had passed on into the active and zealous performance of whatever ministries are possible to a layman. His ambition was to be a perfect Parish Priest, and he spared no pains in equipping himself for the work. His speciality was his gift for dealing with boys and young men. To them he had a genuine devotion ; on them he expended all the riches of his nature. He played their games ; he invited them to his rooms ; he lent them books ; he corresponded with them in absence ; he lived with them on the terms of the frankest equality ; and yet all the time he contrived and some of us who have tried it and failed know how difficult this is to steer clear of spoiling them, or making them forward and conceited, or losing his natural dignity, or lowering his social standard to theirs. And, indeed, it was not easy for boys or anyone else to take a liberty with Shuttleworth. The " natural man " in him had a hot temper, and it blazed out into a sudden flame at the touch of impertinence or incivility HENRY GARY SHUTTLEWORTH 179 The boys were bis parish. His influence on them was wholly good. His manly and cheerful piety was the sworn foe of effeminacy and sickliness. I remember, as if it was yesterday, the infinite pains and tact with which he drew back a lapsed lad to Confession and Communion ; the pleading letter in which he urged one who had been unjustly treated to kneel down before the Crucifix, and consider his grievance in the light of the Passion ; his urgency with myself when I had written a sarcastic letter which he wished and compelled me to destroy. In this connexion I would urge Mr. Mowbray to reprint the " St. Barnabas Tales," which Shuttleworth wrote for the amusement of the St. Barnabas boys, and which reveal his ideals and aims and methods far more illuminatingly than any words of mine. Shuttleworth took his degree in the summer of 1873, and, true to his lifelong purpose, was ordained Deacon in the following Advent, and Priest a year later. But to a nature so trained, to a life so ordered, the entrance on the Holy Ministry made little outward change. His social, educational, and parochial work went on just as before, though of course some fresh cares were added. His preaching vigorous, unconventional, passionately earnest, exuberantly rhetorical was very popular. Soon his musical accomplishments won him a Chaplaincy at Christ Church, and, though he remained a Curate of St. Barnabas, he ceased to reside in the parish. A year later came his removal to London ; and then the develop- ments which resulted from his connexion with St. Paul's. The story of his ministry during these last twenty-four years has been described by others more closely con- versant with it than I was. But I am persuaded that those who knew his work, whether at Oxford or in London, will feel that they hear his very voice speaking 180 to them in the words with which he concluded the Three Hours' Service at St. Barnabas, on Good Friday, 1875:- When the hour comes for us to close the last chapter of life ; the winding-up of all things, the rush of unknown dark- ness on our spirits, the awful wrench from all we have loved on earth oh ! brethren, I ask you and I ask myself, fear- fully and humbly, what will then be finished ? When it is finished, what will it be? A life of self -gratification and sin ? A life of mere money-seeking ? An unfinished, in- complete, imperfect life ? Or will it be, Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to dol They are words worthy of a workman who never spared himself in the task to which he had set his hand. Farewell, true friend of all these years, bright comrade, gallant soldier. May we meet once more, and meet for ever, in the Eternal Blessedness ! ION KEITH-FALCONER 1 Not surely a week since we saw him, Health brimming in feature and limb ; Let me try to imagine and draw him, Ere fancy and feature are dim. Tall, eager, a face to remember, A flush that could change as the day ; A. spirit that knew not December, That brightened the sunshine of May. verse, from an elegy on another Harrow boy, J_ has been running in my head ever since the Editor asked me to write my recollections of the school-days of Ion Keith-Falconer. But, alas ! it is a great deal more than " a week " it is fall ten years since I saw him last, and more than a quarter of a century since our friendship began. Ion Grant Neville Keith-Falconer was the third son of the eighth Earl of Kintore. He entered Harrow School in September, 1869. He boarded at the house of one of the classical masters the well-known and much-respected Mr. A. G. Watson ; and it was there at a a breaking-up supper," on the eve of the Christmas 1 The Sunday-School Magazine, 1896. The Hon. Ion Grant Neville Keith- Falconer was born July 5, 1856. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Jeremie Septuagint Prizeman, 1876. Graduated B.A. as First Class in the Theological Tripos, and Hebrew Prizeman, 1878. Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar, 1879. First Class in the Semitic Languages Tripos, 1880. Married Gwendolen Bevan, 1884. Appointed Lord Almoner's Reader in Arabic at Cambridge, 1886. Died of fever, on a missionary journey, at Sheikh Othman, in Arabia, May 11, 1887. 181 182 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH holidays of 1869 that I first set eyes on Keith-Falconer. I see him now, in mental vision, exactly as I saw him then. He was tall for his age thirteen and looked older than his years; long-limbed, loosely built; with a great crop of fair, almost golden, hair ; rosy cheeks ; and blue, dreamy, distant-looking eyes. His features were irregular ; but his brow was nobly formed, and he had then, as in after-life, " that look of habitual meditative abstraction from objects of mere personal vanity or desire which is the peculiar stamp of culture, and makes a roughly-cut face worthy to be called the human face divine." The arrangements of Harrow School make it difficult for boys who board in different Houses to see much of one another ; and if, in addition to being in different Boarding-Houses, they are also in different " forms " or school-classes, they scarcely cross one another's paths. I had been two years in the school when Keith-Falconer entered it, and I was not at that time a member of Mr. Watson's House, though I was present as a guest at the supper where I first saw my future friend. For the next year, therefore, we saw very little of one another ; but at the beginning of 1871 I entered Mr. Watson's House as a boarder, and remained there for the rest of my school-life. By that time Keith-Falconer had reached the Sixth Form, in which I was, and from that date our intimacy began. As members of the same Form and House, our intercourse was of necessity close and continuous. At lessons, at games, at meals, in daily and hourly walks to school and back again, in preparation of work, in country rambles, at the Scientific Society, at the Debating Society, in all our various forms of duty and pleasure, we were incessantly in one another's company. No two people in the world could have better opportunities of watching one another's ION KEITH-FALCONER 183 conduct and appraising one another's characters, and in what I now set down I speak that which I know and testify that which I have seen. In the first place, Ion Keith-Falconer was a very fine creature, physically. The look of delicacy which he had worn in earlier years completely disappeared. He was extremely tall, but in no sense overgrown, for his chest and limbs developed in harmony with his height, and he gave abundant promise of being what he became a magnificently-formed man. Strong and vigorous as he was, I do not think he excelled in school games. I have an impression that at his previous school (in Scotland) he had missed that early initiation into cricket and football which so largely determines sub- sequent proficiency. And I fancy also that his mind young as he was, was imbued with the belief that " bodily exercise profiteth little " ; or, as the Revised Version has it, " is profitable for a little " a slightly more complimentary view, but equally incompatible with that all-consuming absorption in competitive athletics which is the Moloch of Public Schools. In after-years, as some of my readers probably recollect, Keith-Falconer became a famous cyclist, and won inter- University honours in that capacity ; and it was in exact accordance with the fine balance of his nature, and his early habit of weighing and discriminating, to throw himself more earnestly into a bodily exercise of visible utility than into the all-absorbing rivalry of an idle game. Intellectually, Keith-Falconer was not quite in tune with his surroundings at Harrow. The spirit of the place, so far as it recognized intellect at all, was classical. Some spasmodic attempts were indeed made to stimulate and reward intellectual effort in other fields, but the high road to honour and promotion lay through 184 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH the Classics, and for classical languages and literature Keith-Falconer had no taste. That remarkable aptitude for Oriental languages which brought him so much honour in his University course, and, indeed, went far to determine the complexion of his life, was as yet undiscovered ; and, if it had been discovered, Harrow offered no means of developing it. Of the subjects recognized by the school-curriculum, Mathematics and German were the two in which he most excelled ; and he took an active and an interested part in the discussions and researches of the School Scientific Society. As regards the intellectual quality of his conversation and companionship, it will probably surprise those who know him only through the strangely one-sided bio- graphy compiled by the Rev. Mr. Sinker, to learn that his most marked characteristic was his sense of humour. I have never known a human being who more intensely loved a joke. My first sight of him was, as I said above, at a supper-party, and after supper there was speech-making of the festive and humorous character befitting such an occasion. Even now I fancy that I can see Keith-Falconer leaning back on his chair, as he abandoned himself with child-like whole-heartedness to the wholesome fun of a happy after-supper speech. And so all through our intercourse, whatever tickled his sense of humour overcame him utterly. Laughter was a sort of intoxication to him. He lost all self-control in his paroxysms of infectious mirth. A word or a nudge was enough to set him off a glance at a ludicrous object, or a whispered phrase from one of his dearly- loved American humourists. And if the time and place rendered joking unsuitable or even perilous ; if we were ranging ourselves in order for House-Prayers, or conning our Juvenal under the austere eye of our unsmiling tutor, the very sense of incongruity redoubled the ION KEITH-FALCONER 185 temptation, and Keith-Falconer gave himself up, an unresisting prey, to the demon, or the angel, of pure fun. But be it borne in mind that this spirit of humour was never marred by the slightest touch of what was profane or unclean or unkind. At a wicked joke Keith- Falconer could not have laughed, and for the best of reasons it would have been no joke to him. For he was, from first to last, outwardly and inwardly, in his whole mind and soul and spirit, a loving child of God, and a single-hearted servant of the Lord That bought him. " Called and chosen and faithful " might well have been his motto. I know not when or how the Divine Voice first reached him, but it was probably in his earliest years. His father was well known for his evangelistic labours, and his home was conspicuously stamped with the Christian character. Anyhow, when I first came to know him, he was not merely a Christian, but, if such a word is permissible in such a context, an accomplished Christian. He had, in full perfection, a child's confidence in his Father's Love and Goodness, and the intuitive peace of an unclouded faith. All this he had, but he had more than this. He had a reason for the hope that was in him. He had faced diffi- culties, and thought out problems, and weighed and compared differing and sometimes conflicting views of religious truth. With a boy's zeal and light-hearted- ness, he combined a man's reasoned and resolved con- viction. He was an Evangelical to his heart's core. He belonged, by deliberate choice, to the Free Church of Scotland. When the time came round for the Con- firmation in the School Chapel, he declined to be confirmed, alleging that he could find no Scriptural authority for the rite. Still, he was absolutely free from religious uncharitableness, and was genially 186 tolerant of ecclesiastical opinions (like my own) which he did not share. His heart and life were, as far as human eye could see, of unsullied purity. In his presence all evil things seemed to shrink away ashamed. His character and influence in his House were powerful for good, and he was the more influential because he never courted popularity. He was a good, brave, wholesome, manly-minded boy, doing his daily duty with unostentatious exactness, keen to improve his time and talents, eager to engage in any harmless fun or recreation, but, at all times and in all things, a loyal and loving soldier of the Lord Jesus. His Christian life was continuous and complete. What he was in boyhood, that he was in manhood. An artist who met him at a country-house described him as " that beautiful young giant, with his angel face and roars of laughter." His powers developed year by year. Intellectual distinction, social popularity, domestic happiness all were his. And he laid the mall down at the call of Christ, and followed the Master's voice whithersoever it led him. " The three highest titles that can be given to man are those of Martyr, Hero, Saint ; and which of the three is there that in substance it would be irrational to attach to the name of" Ion Keith-Falconer ? MRS. GLADSTONE 1 Her thoughts were detached from the world, and only visited it, with an interest like that which Guardian Angels take for their charge, in behalf of those friends with whom she lived in love, or of the poor whom she could serve and comfort. Thus passed her life, enjoying, from all who approached her, an affection enhanced by reverence ; insomuch that, when her friends sorrowed for her death, which arrived at a late period of her existence, they were comforted by the fond reflection, that the humanity which she then laid down was the only circumstance which had placed her, in the words of Scripture, " a little lower than the angels." SIR WALTEB SCOTT. OIK STEPHEN RICHARD GLYNNE, eighth Baronet, k3 of Hawarden, married in 1806 the Hon. Mary Neville, daughter of the second Lord Braybrooke, by Catherine Grenville, sister of the first Marquis of Buck- ingham. This alliance is worth noting in connexion with the present subject, inasmuch as the historic house of Grenville had, directly or in its ramifications, supplied England with four Prime Ministers. Lady Glynne, while still a young woman and an extremely handsome one, was left a widow, charged with the care of two sons and two daughters. These were Sir Stephen Glynne, ninth and last baronet ; the Rev. Henry Glynne, for many years Rector of Hawarden ; Catherine, who became Mrs. Gladstone ; and Mary, wife of the fourth Lord Lyttelton. Lady Glynne, whose whole time and thought were bestowed on her children, lived with her daughters at Hawarden Castle ; but there were regular 1 The Times, 1900. 187 188 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH visits to London, and occasional journeys undertaken for health or education. One winter was spent at Hastings ; and, in the next house to that occupied by Lady Glynne and her daughters, two young Royal cousins, Prince George of Cambridge and Prince George of Hanover, were living with a private tutor. The acquaintance thus begun ripened into mutual regard, and to the end of her life Mrs. Gladstone had no warmer friend and admirer than the Duke of Cambridge. Some ten years ago the present writer was dining in company with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone in a private hotel in York Street, St. James's. Mr. Gladstone, after glancing round the drawing-room, asked Mrs. Gladstone if she had ever been in the room before or had any recollection of it, and, on her answering in the negative, he said, " Think again. Don't you remember Lady Theresa Lister's musical parties in this room, and a young Member of Parliament whose singing you ad- mired ? " Those musical parties, and others like them, were responsible for much. Mr. Gladstone, who became Member for Newark in 1832, had been a friend of Sir Stephen Glynne at Oxford, and had stayed with him at Hawarden in 1835. He often met Lady Glynne and her daughters in London, and in the winter of 1838-9 he fell in with them travelling in Italy. At Home he became engaged to Miss Glynne, and on July 25, 1839, the wedding took place at Hawarden. At the same time Miss Mary Glynne was married to the fourth Lord Lyttelton. Tradition relates that one of the villagers of Hawarden, seeing the two bridegrooms together, and struck by the " aristocratic pallor " of Mr. Gladstone's face, exclaimed, " Well, there is no mistaking which is the lord ! " Sir Francis Doyle, who officiated as Mr. Gladstone's Best Man, thus beautifully apos- MRS. GLADSTONE 189 trophized Mrs. Gladstone, in a poem on " The Sister Brides " :- High hopes are thine, oh ! eldest flower ! Great duties to be greatly done ; To soothe, in many a toil-worn hour, The noble heart which thou hast won. Covet not then the rest of those, Who sleep through life unknown to fame ; Fate grants not passionless repose To her, who weds a glorious name. He presses on through calm and storm Unshaken, let what will betide; Thou hast an office to perform, To be his answering spirit-bride. The path appointed for his feet Through desert-wilds and rocks may go, Where the eye looks in vain to greet The gales, that from the waters blow. Be thou a balmy breeze to him, A fountain singing at his side ; A star whose light is never dim, A pillar, through the waste to guide. This bright ideal of wifely duty was fulfilled to the letter. By 1839 Mr. Gladstone had been twice in office, and it was certain that, when the Tories came in again, he wonld hold a more important post. " Look well at that young man," a friend had said to Miss Glynne, " he is going to be Prime Minister " ; and, in giving her hand to the Member for Newark, the " answering spirit-bride " knew well the arduous voca- tion which lay before her. It is recorded that at the very outset of their married life her husband, forecasting his probable career, gave her a choice of two alternatives : to know nothing, and be free from all responsibility ; to know everything, and be bound to secrecy. Who 190 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH can doubt which alternative was chosen ? Fifty years later Mr. Gladstone said to a friend, " My wife has known every political secret I have ever had, and has never betrayed my confidence." One exception, which delightfully illustrates this general rule, is too pretty to be omitted. In Mr. Gladstone's early days of Cabinet office his young wife dropped a word in the presence of some of his colleagues which implied that she knew some matter of confidential importance. Immediately realizing that she had made a slip, she left the room and wrote a penitential note, which she sent in by a servant. Instantaneously came back the reply in some such words as these : DEAREST C., Don't blame yourself. I 'don't blame you. It is the only little mistake you ever made. Your affect. W. E. G. In more recent years Mrs. Gladstone's friends have found a peculiar enjoyment in watching her while she was undergoing the operation of being " pumped." The smile was so childlike and bland ; the look of ignor- ance so sunny and convincing ; the discomfiture of the pumper so palpable and so complete. " Well, Mrs. Gladstone, what is Mr. Gladstone going to do about the House of Lords ? or the Irish Church ? or the Sudan ? " or whatever the topic of present interest might be. " Well, I wonder. Don't you ? What do you think he ought to do ? " and the questioner retired as wise as he came. No one would have called Mrs. Gladstone a highly- educated woman. As a girl she had lived out of doors, in the saddle, on the water, on the hills, in the archery- field, and in whatever form of athletic exercise that iron age permitted to young ladies ; and her married life, full of public and private interests, had left her MRS. GLADSTONE 191 no leisure for reading. But she had that much better gift than education an immense natural shrewdness, concealed by a simplicity of manner which completely deceived superficial observers. She was entirely superior to affectation, and, when she did not know a fact or understand a question, she was eager to ask for informa- tion, and then she took the point with singular readiness and hit it off in some quaintly-humorous phrase. A sense of humour was, indeed, one of her most marked traits. She saw the absurdities of situations, speeches, characters, and appearances with peculiar keenness, and could scarcely keep her sense of amusement under control. She was peculiarly intolerant of bores and prosers, dealers in solemn commonplace, " sedentary weavers of long tales " ; and her skill in extricating herself from their meshes without hurting their self-esteem amounted to genius. Like many geniuses, she was, in the petty concerns of life, untidy and unmethodical ; and this quality, playing round the social duties of a Premier's wife, not seldom landed her in difficulties. But here, again, her mother-wit always came to her aid, and Mr. Gladstone once proudly said to the present writer, " My wife has a marvellous faculty of getting into scrapes, but an even more marvellous faculty of getting out of them." Mrs. Gladstone's manner was full of grace and charm. The genuine amiability of a completely unspoilt nature showed itself in every word and look. Her husband's friend, Hope-Scott, has left it on record that in old days she was a potent canvasser, and no one entered more naturally into the frolics of the young or the little interests of the poor. But she was also essen- tially grande dame. Her walk and bearing as she passed the Royal presence at the Drawing-room were long the admiration of those whose duty obliged them 192 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH to stand by the Throne or in the " General Circle " ; and in her habits, manners, and style of speech she was a great lady of the old school. This quality gave a peculiar effectiveness to her dealings with pertness, forwardness, or undue familiarity ; and, when she thought it her duty to administer a snub, no one snubbed so aptly. It was impossible for the subject not to feel the process, and equally impossible for him (or her) to rebel against it. But these exercises of social discipline were rare ; and, for the rest, Mrs. Gladstone diffused geniality, good temper, and cheerfulness wherever she went. Few women of her generation had so wide a circle of attached friends. She was an indefatigable letter-writer, and her correspondence, accumulated through sixty years, contained letters of the highest interest from the most famous personages, Royal, political, and ecclesiastical, of the present reign. But it was in the home that she excelled. She had been a devoted daughter and sister ; she was to the last an exemplary mother and head of a family ; and, when we think of what she was as a wife, Mr. Gladstone's words about the Queen's marriage may, with perfect exactness, be applied to his own : " Even among happy marriages it was exceptional, so nearly did the union of thought, heart, and action both fulfil the ideal and bring duality near to the borders of identity." From the earliest days of their married life, Mrs. Gladstone made her husband's health, not always so robust as in later years, her prime care ; and her skill and watchfulness in this regard drew from him the characteristic compliment, " My wife is no inconsiderable physician." An even more valuable contribution to his happiness (if not to his success) was the sedulous care with which she warded off whatever might tend to disturb the " vulnerable temper and impetuous moods " which, forty years ago, MRS. GLADSTONE 193 he acknowleged as his own. Their married life was one long honeymoon ; and though, indeed, fully charged with solemn interests and issues, it had also a jocose and genial side which was inexpressibly attractive. No one who ever heard it will forget the quaint enjoyment with which Mr. Gladstone, grasping his wife's hand, used to sing the refrain of his favourite " Fiddler's Song " : A ragamuffin husband and a rantipoling wife, We'll fiddle it and scrape it through the ups and downs of life. The slightest sketch of Mrs. Gladstone's character would be glaringly incomplete, if it disregarded her religion. This was not a mere aspect or attribute of her character : it was the basis of her nature and the mainspring of her life. Her views were those of the traditional High Anglican school, which she illustrated in its characteristic graces of reverence, gravity, and unobtrusive devotion. But her heart knew no dis- tinctions of sect. She " walked in wisdom toward them that are without," and her life-long works of mercy were literally all-embracing. The House of Charity in Soho, the Newport Market Refuge, the Woodford Convalescent Home, the House of Mercy at Clewer, the Orphanage at Hawarden, are only a few of the good works with which she was intimately connected. On the occasion of her Golden Wedding, Cardinal Manning wrote : I have watched you both out on the sea of public tumults from my quiet shores. You know how nearly I have agreed in William's political career, especially in his Irish policy of the last twenty years. And I have seen also your works of charity for the people, in which, as you know, I heartily share with you. There are few who keep such a Jubilee as yours : and how few of our old friends and companions now survive ! We have had a long climb up those eighty steps 13 194 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH for even you are not far behind and I hope we shall not " break the pitcher at the fountain." I wonder at your activity and endurance of weather. May every blessing be with you both to the end ! On the same occasion Mr. Gladstone said, " It would not be possible to unfold in words the value of the gifts which the bounty of Providence has conferred upon me, however unworthy I may be, through her." And in his will he wrote, " I desire to be buried where my wife can also lie." It was the tribute of a grateful love nobly earned and richly given. Mr. Gladstone's political career awaits the verdict of history ; but, wherever he is remembered, there will also be remembrance of that pure and courageous spirit which was the guiding-star of his fortunes and the Good Angel of his house. BISHOP WESTCOTT 1 FTIHERE will be plenty of panegyrists to describe _L Dr. Westcott as critic and author, professor and bishop. Comparatively few people remember him as schoolmaster. I look back over three-and-thirty years, and recall him as I first knew him at Harrow, with his " puny body," anxious forehead, and faint voice, one of the few noticeable and interesting figures in a profes- sional society dominated by convention and commonplace. The great majority of our masters I think we honestly contemned, or at best regarded with a good-humoured tolerance. But there was a kind of mystery about Westcott which was distinctly impressive. He was hardly visible in the common life of the School. He lived remote, aloof, apart, above. It must be presumed that the boys who boarded in his House knew something of him, but with the School in general he never came in contact. His special work was to supervise the composition, English and classical, of the Sixth Form ; and on this task he lavished all his minute and scrupulous scholarship, all his genuine enthusiasm for literary beauty. But, till we reached the Sixth, we saw Westcott only on public occasions, and one of these occasions was the calling-over of names on half-holidays, styled " Absence " at Eton and " Bill " at Harrow. To see Westcott performing this function made one, even in those puerile days, feel that the beautifully-delicate 1 The Pilot, 1901. 195 196 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH instrument was eminently unfitted for the rough work of mere routine on which it was employed. We had sense enough to know that Westcott was a man of learning and distinction, altogether outside the beaten track of schoolmasters' accomplishments ; and that he had performed achievements in scholarship and divinity which great men recognized as great. " Calling Bill " was an occupation well enough suited for his colleagues for Huggins or Buggins or Brown or Green but it was actually pathetic to see this frail embodiment of culture and piety contending with the clamour and tumult of five hundred obstreperous boys. It was not only as a great scholar that we revered Westcott. We knew, by that mysterious process by which school-boys get to know something of the real, as distinct from the official, characters of their masters, that he was a saint. There were strange stories in the School about his ascetic way of living. We were told that he wrote his sermons on his knees. We heard that he never went into local society, and that he read no newspaper except The Guardian. When Dr. Liddon, at the height of his fame as " The man of '66," came to Harrow to preach on Founder's Day, Westcott would not dine with the Head Master to meet him. He could not spare three hours from prayer and study ; but he came in for half an hour's conversation after dinner. All that we saw and heard in Chapel confirmed what we were told. We saw the bowed form, the clasped hands, the rapt gaze, as of a man who in worship was really solus cum Solo, and not, as the manner of some of his colleagues was, sleeping the sleep of the just, or watching for the devotional delinquencies of the Human Boy. Various incidents, trifling but significant, went to confirm the same impression. When Westcott cele- BISHOP WESTCOTT 197 brated the Holy Communion in the Parish Church, he always took the Ablutions, though they were not custom- ary there ; and, after celebrating in the Church in the early morning, he remained for prayer and worship at the late Celebration in the School-Chapel. But it was as a preacher to the boys that he made the deepest impression. His sermons were rare events ; but we looked forward to them as to something quite out of the common groove. There were none of the accessories which generally attract boyish admiration. No rhetoric, no purple patches, no declamation, no pretence of spontaneity. The voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible ; the language was totally unadorned ; the sentences were closely packed with meaning ; and the meaning was not always easy. But the charm lay in distinction, aloofness from common ways of thinking and speaking, a wide outlook on events and movements in the Church, and a fiery enthusiasm all the more telling because sedulously restrained. I remember as well as if I heard it yesterday a reference in December, 1869, to "that august assemblage which gathers to- morrow under the dome of St. Peter's," and I remember feeling pretty sure at the moment that there was no other schoolmaster in England who would preach to his boys about the Vatican Council. But by far the most momentous of Westcott's sermons at Harrow was that which he preached on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 1868. The text was Ephesians v. 15 : " See then that ye walk circumspectly." The sermon was an earnest plea for the revival of the ascetic life, and the preacher endeavoured to show " what new blessings God has in store for absolute self-sacrifice " by telling his hearers about the great victories of asceticism in history. He took first the instance of St. Antony, as the type of personal asceticism ; then that of St, 198 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Benedict, as the author of the Common Life of Equality and Brotherhood ; and then that of St. Francis, who, "in the midst of a Church endowed with all that art and learning and wealth and power could give, reasserted the love of God to the poorest, the meanest, the most repulsive of His children, and placed again the simple Cross over all the treasures of the world." Even " the unparalleled achievements, the matchless energy, of the Jesuits," were duly recognized as triumphs of faith and discipline ; and the sermon ended with a passionate appeal to the Harrow boys to follow the example of the young Antony or the still younger Benedict, and prepare themselves to take their part in reviving the ascetic life of the English Church. It is to a congregation like this that the call comes with the most solemn and the most cheering voice. The young alone have the fresh enthusiasm which in former times God has been pleased to consecrate to like services. . . . And if, as I do believe most deeply, a work at present awaits England, and our English Church, greater than the world has yet seen, I cannot but pray every one who hears me to listen humbly for the promptings of God's Spirit, if so be that He is even now calling him to take a foremost part in it. It is for us, perhaps, first to hear the call, but it is for you to interpret it and fulfil it. Our work is already sealed by the past : yours is still rich in boundless possibilities. It may readily be conceived that this discourse did not please either the British Parent or the Common Schoolmaster. A rumour went abroad that Mr. Westcott was going to turn all the boys into monks, and loud was the clamour of ignorance and superstition. Westcott made the only dignified reply. He printed (without publishing) the peccant sermon, under the title " Dis- ciplined Life," and gave a copy to every boy in the school, expressing the hope that " God, in His great Jove, will even thus, by words most unworthily spoken, BISHOP WESTCOTT 199 lead someone among us to think on one peculiar work of the English Church, and in due time to offer himself for the fulfilment of it as His Spirit shall teach." Those who remember that Charles Gore was one of the boys who heard the sermon may be inclined to think that the prayer was answered. Dr. Westcott's career at Harrow ended with two incidents, so characteristic that they should be re- produced : 1. He begged, as his parting request, that a weekly Celebration might be established in the School-Chapel. (N.B. Thirty-one years have passed, and it has not been established yet.) 2. In taking leave of the Sixth Form, he said that his best wish for them was that, whatever befell them in life, they might always retain " a firm faith in Criticism and a firm faith in God." RICHARD HOLT HUTTON l essays 2 are sure of a warm welcome, for they _ remind us of an old friend. That friend was not solely the essayist R. H. Button but the dear old Spectator itself, as we knew it, and loved it, and laughed at it for so many years. Our reasons for reading it were various. One man read it because he agreed with it on political or moral issues, such as the Eastern Question or Vivisection ; another, because he was in- terested by its romantic tales of logical lap-dogs and conscientious cats ; some, because it was an excellent compendium of the week's sayings and doings ; others, because with its mysterious High Churchmanship there was blended an aroma of far-distant free-thought, from which the timid Anglican might " snatch a fearful joy " without compromising his orthodoxy. But all these reasons were merely subsidiary. What made the Spectator beloved alike of the Philhellene and of the Animals' Friend, and even of the ordinary reader who had no special cult or hobby, was the fact that it was the utterance of a mind absolutely original. Whatever subject it handled, from Impaled Bulgarians to the Credibility of Miracles, was certain to be pre- sented in a new and unlooked-for aspect. The essays which compose this book are stated in the preface to 1 The Church Beview, 1899. 3 " Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought." By the late liichard Holt Hutton 200 RICHARD HOLT HUTTON 201 be " published as they appeared " ; but one change has most properly been made. The editorial " we " has given place to the personal " I." It is no disparagement to the able and accomplished persons who were associated with Mr. Hntton in the editorship of the Spectator, to say that one cannot by the utmost stretch of the imagination conceive these essays as proceeding from any pen but one. Alike in their striking excellences and in their exasperating faults, they are Mr. Button's, and his alone. The style is pre-eminently characteristic of the man tangled, untidy, ungraceful, disfigured with " trailing relatives " and accumulated epithets ; and yet all the time conveying the sense of some real and even profound thought striving in vain to express itself intelligibly. As the style, so the substance. " The Spectator" wrote Matthew Arnold in 1865, "is very well, but the article has Hutton's fault of seeing so very far into a millstone." And, two years later, " The Spectator has an article in which Hutton shows his strange aptitude for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick." Both were sound criticisms, and both are amply illus- trated in the volume before us. When Mr. Hutton addressed himself to a deep topic of abstract speculation, he " saw so very far into " it that even his most earnest admirers could not follow the visual act. When he handled the more commonplace subjects of thought or action with which ordinary men concern themselves, he seemed to miss the most obvious and palpable points. For an example of the former process we may refer to Essay XXXV. of this collection, in which he sets himself to explain the glorious inexplicabilities of F. D. Maurice : for an example of the latter, to Essay XXX., in which he confesses himself unable to dis- tinguish between adoration of the Consecrated Elements 202 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH in the Eucharist and adoration of Onr Lord present in the Sacrament under the form of Bread and Wine. On this point, he might have profitably taken counsel with Dr. Johnson, who, when Bozzy asked him if he justified the idolatry of the Mass, replied, " Sir, there is no idolatry in the Mass. They believe God to be there, and they adore Him." The distinction between worshipping bread and worshipping God would not seem, even to the natural man, far-fetched, and it would be obvious to anyone who had even a smattering of theology ; but, in truth, Mr. Hutton was not, and did not profess to be, a theologian. He was a philosophical thinker, with a natural bent towards the abstract and the mystical a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian. He saw things invisible to grosser eyes ; he heard voices not intelligible to ordinary ears ; and, when he was once fairly launched on such a speculation as that in Essay XX., on Personal Identity, he Found no end, in wandering mazes lost. But the very quality of aloofness from his fellow-men, which made it impossible for him to be the exponent of a system or the founder of a school, made him a peculiarly interesting friend. In homely phrase, you never knew where to have him ; he was always breaking out in a fresh place. He was as full of splendid gleams as a landscape by Turner, and as free from all formal rules of art and method. He was an independent thinker, if ever there was one, and as honest as he was independent. In his belief truth was the most precious of treasures, to be sought at all hazards, and, when acquired, to be safeguarded at all costs. His zeal for truth was closely allied with his sense of justice. His mind came as near absolute fairness as is possible for RICHARD HOLT HUTTON 203 a man who takes any part in live controversies. He never used an unfair argument to establish his point, nor pressed a fair argument unduly. He was scrupu- lously careful in stating his adversary's case, and did all in his power to secure a judicial and patient hearing even for the causes with which he had least sympathy. It is, I suppose, common knowledge that Mr. Hutton was born and brought up in Unitarianism, and that he emancipated himself from that most dismal of all forms of religion. I gathered that Mr. Maurice was the teacher to whom he owed most ; but I cannot suppose that an intellect so original and so self-reliant owed much to any human guide. I imagine that in his search for truth he " conferred not with flesh and blood." As far as I know he never made public the steps and stages of his great transition. In the result, they led him to the full and devout acceptance of the Incarnation ; and thenceforward he regarded all religious and moral problems, and all the practical issues which spring from them, in the light of that sublime and central truth. He was, indeed, a Christian through and through ; but among Christians it would be difficult to fix his exact place. He admired the Established Church, and conformed to it. He accepted " The Sacramental Principle " (Essay XXX.) because he held that " the spirit is spiritualized through the Divine influence acting on the body as well as the spirit." He justified Prayer for the Departed (Essay XXXI.) because he thought it part and parcel of the general doctrine of Prayer. He repudiated Ritualism, because he could not understand the " moral logic " of Ritualists ; but his aesthetic sympathy with some prettinesses of Romanism led to a mild flirtation with a Popish Chapel, and thereby to a rumour that he had joined the Church of Rome from which, as he 204 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH himself said, lie was preserved (like Dr. Johnson) by "an obstinate rationality." But, after all, the value and the interest of this book are not, in any strict sense, theological. It is valuable and it is interesting because it vividly recalls to the mind (and by its admirable frontispiece to the eye) a man unique in his mental formation, his excellences, and his influence. By the incessant writing of some forty years Mr. Button enforced the fundamental truth of human redemption through God made Man on the attention of people to whom professional preachers speak in vain, and he steadily impressed on the conscience of his fellow- Christians those ethical duties of justice and mercy which are the characteristic fruits of their creed. It was a high function, excellently fulfilled. BROADLANDS I HAVE grouped four notices under this one head ; for Broadlands was the home of Lady Mount-Temple, and it was the " Broadlands Conference " of 1879 which first gave me the privilege of knowing Mr. Jukes and Mr. Gurney. GEORGINA, LADY MOUNT-TEMPLED was the youngest and the most beautiful of several beautiful sisters daughters of Admiral Tollemache and sisters of the first Lord Tollemache of Helmingham. She was married in 1848 to the Hon. William Cowper, who assumed the name of Temple on succeeding to the estates of his step-father, Lord Palmerston, and was the author of the famous " Cowper-Temple clause." Mr. Cowper- Temple, during his long career in Parliament, was an enthusiastic supporter of all social reforms, and more especially of Temperance. When in 1880 Mr. Gladstone made him a peer, he took the title of Mount-Temple, from one of his Irish properties, and thereby inspired Lord Honghton to run about town saying, " Do you know the precedent for Billy Cowper's title ? It's in ' Don Juan ' : And Lord Mount Coffee-house, the Irish peer, Who killed himself for love with drink last year." Lady Mount-Temple was one of the most remarkable 1 The Manchester Guardian, 1901. 205 206 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH women of her time. She had, besides an almost fault- less beauty, an extraordinary dignity of presence and bearing, which was the outward and visible sign of a nature singularly noble and elevated. Ruskin described her as " eminent in her grace above a stunted group " of Roman worshippers. He tells us in " Praeterita " how he spent the winter of 1840 in pursuing her a fair English girl, who was not only the admitted Queen of beauty in the English circle of that winter in Rome, but was so, in the kind of beauty which I had only hitherto dreamed of as possible, but never yet seen living : statuesque severity with womanly sweetness joined. I don't think I ever succeeded in getting nearer than within fifty yards of her ; but she was the light and solace of all the Roman winter to me, in the mere chance glimpses of her far away, and the hope of them. The dominant note of Lady Mount-Temple's character was her passionate indignation against cruelty and in- justice. She had a genuine love of the outcast and down- trodden, a chivalry of spirit which always instinctively allied her with the weaker side, with " lost causes and forsaken beliefs," and which made her the champion of people whom the world casts out of its synagogue, and of enterprises which it regards as offensive insanities. Her husband shared to the full her zeal for social service ; and, as this zeal was allied with an absorbing interest in religious, ethical, and psychological problems, the result was that their beautiful home Broadlands, near Romsey was the scene of strange gatherings. Thither came the High Priestess of the Shakers when she was evicted from her dwelling for refusing to pay rates, and Pearsall Smith the American evangelist, and Richard Booth the inventor of the Blue Ribbon, and Lord Shaftesbury, and Archbishop Benson, and Burne-Jones, and Antoinette Sterling, and preaching negresses, and Ritualistic curates, and vegetarians, and clairvoyantes, BROADLANDS 207 and " spiritual wives " ; all these have I met in that beautiful house, amid an unequalled environment of Italian pictures and of gardens where the saints seemed to walk under trees of Paradise by the crystal river. It is almost impossible to avoid transcendentalism when one thinks of Broadlands and the company which gathered in it. I do not think that the host and hostess would have harboured a vivisector, for cruelty was the one sin with which they could make no terms. But with this sole exception it mattered not how low one had sunk in social disgrace, how far one had wandered from the paths of sane thinking and the jog-trot customs of the world ; the doors of Broadlands were always open wide, and the wanderer passing through them found himself in a circle where the stately traditions of the vieille cour were mingled with an openness of mind to which no conceivable aspect of truth was unwelcome, and a largeness of heart to which no experience of humanity appealed in vain. In that atmosphere nothing that was mean or base or cruel, could live. Truth and love, "mercy and self-sacrifice, were the vital air. Of that strangely unworldly society unlike anything in the whole of my social experience Lady Mount-Temple was the soul and the sun. Since 1888 she had been a widow, and death has come as a merciful deliverance to a soul too sensitive to know happiness in a world where others suffered. THE death of Lady Mount-Temple 1 is an event of which the general world took very slight notice ; but in the hearts of those who knew her it has awakened thoughts too deep for tears. She was a woman on 1 The Pilot, 1901. 208 whom Nature had lavished gifts beauty, grace, intellect, character, position, influence ; but all these were quali- fied should we not rather say enhanced ? by a sympathy with suffering so keen that she could never be happy in a world where others were miserable. To her all the cruelties and tyrannies that are done under the sun, all the pangs and tears of a groaning and travailing creation, were Desperate tides of the whole great world's anguish, Forced through the channels of a single heart ; and the problem of pain was one of the unsearchable mysteries of God. To know the truth about Him, and to lessen the load of earthly suffering, were the two objects to which her long life was unbrokenly devoted. Nothing like a biography of Lady Mount-Temple (nor of her husband, who predeceased her in 1888) will be attempted here. But perhaps it may be worth while to recall a curious phase of religious life which was identified with their name. This was the " Broadlands Conference." The idea was borrowed from the American camp-meetings, and the first Conference was held in July, 1874, at Broadlands the beautiful home near Romsey which Mr. Cowper-Temple inherited from his step-father, Lord Palmerston. The order of proceedings was something like what follows. Mr. and Mrs. Cowper-Temple (to use the name by which they were known till 1880) invited a large number of friends and acquaintances, male and female, who had this much in common that they were interested in religious enquiry and nothing more. A few weeks before the Conference began a syllabus of subjects for consideration was circulated among those who had accepted the invitation. On Monday evening BROADLANDS 209 the gathering assembled ; the house at Broadlands was filled to the attics, and many of the guests overflowed into the inns of Romsey. On Tuesday morning there was an early Celebration in Romsey Abbey. For those who preferred non-Sacramental religion, devotions were provided in the house. After breakfast we had Family Prayers and expositions. At eleven the whole company assembled in a glorious grove of beeches on the lawn, where a rostrum and seats had been arranged. Lord Mount-Temple presided with infinite grace and devout- ness, and the Conference began. Let me enumerate only a few people who attended it Mr. Russell Gurney, Mr. Andrew Jukes, Bishop Wilkinson, Father Corbet of Stoke, Basil Wilberforce, Theodore Monod, Pearsall Smith, George Macdonald, Arthur Stanton, Alfred Gurney, Canon Body, Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, Lord Radstock, Ion Keith-Falconer, Roden Noel, and Edward Clifford. To these must be added Lady Gainsborough, Lady Waterford, Lady Ashbnrton, Mrs. Charles, Miss Yonge, Miss Ellice Hopkins, Miss Marsh, Antoinette Sterling, Mrs. Sumner, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Pearsall Smith, and Mrs. Russell Gurney. It will be readily perceived that in this society there was a considerable variety of religious opinion ; and among the orators I recall (without naming them) a Jew who had been converted by studying the Law of Sacrifice, a negress who had been a slave, and a working printer who taught that sin was a disease. The debate was animated, amiable, and desultory. No one kept to the prescribed subject. Everyone had his own gospel, and preached it. Every- one agreed immensely with the last speaker, and forth- with proceeded to launch some entirely different theory of his own. There was no quarrelling, and the mutual admiration was perfectly sincere. After luncheon the Conference was resumed, and we went on debating till 14 210 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH tea-time. In the evening there was a mission-service in the Park, and the day was wound up with Family Prayers and more expositions. The next day and the next exactly the same order was pursued, and then, after farewell services and meetings, the Conference broke up. A religious newspaper, reporting the spiritual exercises of the week, concluded its notice with this characteristic touch, " We are informed that the noble host's income is not less than 30,000 a year " ; and the luxurious appliances of the " Broadlands Retreat " made capital fun for people accustomed to the more austere regimen of Cowley or Keble. And yet, though it was so very easy to laugh at them, the Broadlands Conferences had their own special grace and value. They brought together people who certainly would never have met elsewhere. They enabled Ritualists to understand the vital element of Evangelical religion. They showed Evangelicals that Ritualists were not necessarily slaves of the husk and the letter. Even more usefully still, they opened the eyes of orthodox religionists to the mysterious workings of the Divine Spirit of Truth in regions far beyond the precincts of all recognized Churches. I look back through the vista of years upon the scene in which the Conference assembled, and see the over-arching trees, the glowing garden, the river gliding softly through the quiet green lawns. All is pervaded and beautified by the presence of the loved and honoured lady who on Monday last was laid to rest beside her husband in the cemetery at Romsey. Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella. A FEW years ago, when the question was asked, " Has the prophetical gift ceased out of the Church ? " the BROADLANDS 211 answer was, " Not so long as Mr. Jukes is alive." 1 And now Mr. Jukes is dead, and the Church of England has lost one of the most interesting characters that have adorned it in these latter days. Andrew John Jukes was born in 1815, the son of an Indian Civil Servant. When he was twelve, he entered Harrow School, under the mastership of Dr. George Butler, afterwards Dean of Peterborough. Among his school-fellows were Edward Munro, of Harrow Weald ; Frederick Faber, of the Oratory ; Hugh Pearson, of Sonning ; Sir Henry Acland, of Oxford ; and George Butler, Canon of Winchester. From Harrow, Andrew Jukes went into the army, but he soon found a better use for his life. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1842, having in the pre- vious year won the Hulsean Prize for an essay on the Principles of Prophetical Interpretation. Immediately after taking his degree he was ordained Deacon, and a Deacon he remained till the end of his long life. His only curacy was at St. John's, Hull, where he worked from 1842 to 1844. An intense and ardent spirituality was from first to last the keynote of his nature, and he revolted from the legal bondage of an Established Church. For a moment he hovered between Plymouthism and Rome, and then cast in his lot with the Plymouth Brethren. One of the characteristic principles of that strange but spiritually- minded sect is its repudiation of a stated ministry. Accordingly, Mr. Jukes discarded clerical dress, dropped the title of " Reverend," and removed his name from the Clergy-List. For many years he lived withdrawn from the world, and wholly immersed in sacred study. These things [he wrote in the preface to one of his books] were not first shewn me by the Fathers, but opened in solitary 1 The Pilot, 1901. 212 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH communings with the Word of God ; yet I am thankful to see that I am in the same great circle, and in the same spirit, with the Church of other days. All his writing was full of one thought the spiritual significance of the Literal and the Material, as dis- closed to the enlightened understanding of the Church in all ages. His first book was " The Law of the Offerings, considered as the Appointed Figure of the Various Aspects of the Offering of the Body of Jesus Christ." Then came " The Characteristic Differences of the Four Gospels, considered as revealing Various Relations of the Lord Jesus Christ " ; " The Mystery of the Kingdom, traced through the Books of Kings " ; and " The Types of Genesis, as revealing the Development of Human Nature within and without." All these books ran through many editions, and, by cumulative force, they led a large number of earnest Protestants, while retaining all their devotion to the letter of Scripture, to look below the surface of it into the deeps of spiritual significance. Meanwhile, a momentous change was proceeding in Mr. Jukes' mind, and he made it known in a book called " The Second Death and the Restitution of all Things," published in 1867. A thought [he wrote], conceived but not expressed, is at best only an unborn child, not only without any influence on the world, but of whose very existence the world may be unconscious ; but once brought forth, it becomes part of the living, working universe, to work there its appointed season, and possibly to leave its mark for good or evil on all successive time. The eventual victory of Divine goodness over evil was a thought which had " long been growing in the writer's heart, hidden at first and unconfessed." Now he was con- strained by an overmastering sense of his duty to truth BROADLANDS 213 to make his convictions known. There was no levity about the mode of the disclosure nothing hurried, or casual, or premature. " The writer feels the solemn responsibility of dissenting on such a question from the current creed of Christendom " ; and he is only impelled to open the subject by "his most assured conviction that the popular notion of never-ending punishment is as thorough a misunderstanding of God's Word as the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and that the one as much as the other conduces directly to infidelity, though both equally claim to stand on the express words of Scripture." When writing of the current creed of Christendom, Mr. Jukes laid all possible stress on current. He found himself at variance with the popular doctrine of the time, but he was earnest in contending for what one of his most attached disciples, Alfred Gurney, of St. Barnabas', Pimlico, called " our Catholic Inheritance in the Larger Hope." He stoutly maintained that the Universal Church had never asserted the doctrine of endless torment. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed knew nothing of such a doctrine ; and some of the greatest of the Fathers repudiated it. As regards the Greek Fathers, even so conservative a divine as Dr. Bright held that Mr. Jukes had made out his case. The publication of " The Restitution of All Things " was a turning-point in the writer's life. The Plymouth Brethren, or at least the vast majority of them, cling desperately to the doctrine of endless torment; and Mr. Jukes found himself gravely and increasingly out of sympathy with them. Before long, he returned to communion with the Church of England. He resumed his clerical garb. His name reappeared in the Clergy List. He applied for, and exercised, a preacher's license in the dioceses of London and Rochester. His later books were more avowedly written from the standpoint 214 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH of churchmanship. Their spirit is sufficiently indicated by their titles: "The Sabbath ( and the Lord's Day," " Pharisaism and Self-sacrifice : being some Thoughts on Schism and its Remedy," and " Try the Spirits : being a Reply to Socinian, Arian, and Sabellian Objections to the Doctrine of the Trinity." His treatise on " The New Man and the Eternal Life " is thought by some of his disciples the most valuable of all his writings. At private gatherings for sacred study and devotion Mr. Jukes was a most welcome guest. His intimate familiarity with the heights and depths of Scripture, his wide acquaintance with patristic writings, and his poetic faculty of spiritualizing whatever he touched made him the most interesting expositor I have ever heard. He was, indeed, a scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven, who brought forth out of his treasure things new and old ; and these productions not seldom caused amusing perplexity to miscellaneous gatherings of Low Churchmen and Nonconformists, who had expected quite a different type of teaching. His appeal to the semper, ubique, ab omnibus was loyal and constant ; and I can remember after more than twenty years two sayings which at a Broadlands Conference fell on astonished ears : (i) They found the Lord in Bethlehem, the House of Bread. We who were at the early Celebration in Roinsey Abbey this morning realize what that means. (ii) Remember that Rome preserves, amid accretions and distortions, the whole body of revealed truth. THE Rev. Alfred Gurney * (son of the Rev. J. Hampden Gurney, formerly Vicar of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square) was born in 1843, and was from 1879 to 1898 Vicar of the famous Church of St. Barnabas, Pimlico. He was a 1 The Manchester Guardian, 1898. BROADLANDS 215 man who shrank from publicity. He was quite unknown in the world, and not widely known even among Church- people. He was eminently not one of those who strive and cry and make their voice heard in the street. Alike as a preacher, a poet, and an essayist, the audience to which he spoke was fit, but few. Those who knew him intimately knew that he possessed a rare combination of gifts and graces, crowned by the most genuine and child-like humility. Theologically, he was a Catholic of the mystical school, delighting in the symbolic beauty of finely-ordered worship, but delighting much more in the spiritual contemplation of eternal verities. He com- bined a robust hold upon dogmatic truth with a spirit of reverent yet courageous speculation, which led him far beyond the beaten track of traditional divinity. His treatise on " Our Catholic Inheritance in the Larger Hope " is an attempt to reconcile the doctrines of Universalism with the definitions of Orthodoxy. In all he wrote and in all he said ; alike in his sermons, his letters, and his ordinary conversation ; even in his voice, appearance, and manners, it was evident to the most casual observer that he realized the invisible world with a keenness only vouchsafed to pre-eminent saints. Indeed, it might be said of Alfred Gurney, if it could be truly said of any child of Adam, that he was too good 'for this world, and that for him death was merely the transition to a higher state of being. One more distinctly human touch should not go unrecorded. Mr. Gurney was the master of great wealth, and it was used with an unostentatious generosity to which I have rarely, if ever, known a parallel. To the destitute, the bereaved, and the overworked he was an earthly Providence. Talium est regnum Dei. "THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN " ! THDWARD KING, Sixty-first Bishop of Lincoln in Jj succession to Remigius, was born in 1829. His father was Archdeacon of Rochester ; but he is by descent a Yorkshireman, and those who speculate in matters of race and pedigree may be inclined to attribute to this fact his shrewdness of judgment and his love of a horse. He was privately educated till he went to Oriel College, Oxford, the nursery of the Catholic Revival. The Provost of Oriel, when Edward King was an undergraduate, was the famous and formidable Dr. Hawkins (who first taught Cardinal Newman the office of Tradition in the Christian system). Being, like other great and good men, burdened with an over-exacting conscience, Dr. Hawkins never let slip an opportunity of criticism or rebuke. Thus it is narrated that, at the end of King's first term, the Provost called him up to the High Table in the College Hall, and, after inspecting the Chapel Register, said, " It would appear, Mr. King, that you have attended Divine Service in the College Chapel twice a day, every day since the commencement of the term." King modestly admitted that it was so, and probably expected a word of praise. Bnt he did not know the Provost, who promptly said, " Beware, Mr. King, of 1 Misericordia, 1901. 216 THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 217 letting your religion degenerate into a routine. Yon can go." Happily, Oriel contained at that period other spirits more sympathetic to the devotional instincts of young men, and pre-eminent among the tutors was the Rev. Charles Marriott (1811-1855), both Saint and Scholar, of whom a brother-Fellow said that " he seemed to move in a spiritual region out of the reach of us ordinary mortals." Marriott was a man who exercised a religious influence of the most potent kind upon undergraduates with whom he was brought in contact. One of his favourite pupils was King, whom he used to call " a royal fellow " ; and King, in turn, has put it on record that, " if I have any good in me, I owe it to Charles Marriott." The outward events of the future Bishop's life were few and unexciting. He took his degree in 1851, and was ordained Deacon in 1854, and Priest in 1855, by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. His first curacy was at Wheatley, near Oxford, where he remained till 1858, and in that year he was appointed Chaplain and Lecturer of the Theological College at Caddesdon. In 1863 he became Principal of the College ; in 1873 he was made, on Mr. Gladstone's recommendation, Begins Professor of Pastoral Theology at Oxford ; and in 1885 he was chosen, on the same recommendation, to succeed Bishop Wordsworth in the See of Lincoln. He was consecrated in St. Paul's Cathedral on St. Mark's Day, 1885, the sermon "A Father in Christ" being preached by his life-long friend, Dr. Liddon. Each of the earlier positions which Bishop King filled developed in him some special faculty, for which his later offices gave full scope and play. As a curate at Wheatley, he learned the ways and thoughts and wants and troubles of the Agricultural Labourer, and those who 218 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH have had the happiness of attending him at Confirma- tions in Lincolnshire say that he is never so truly himself as when addressing the ploughboys and carters on their duties and temptations. In this connexion it is worthy of remark that, though in general politics he is a stout Tory, the Bishop was a keen supporter of Mr. Gladstone's Act extending the Parliamentary suffrage to the labourers. " They must be taught to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven by being citizens of the kingdom of England." Then, again, Dr. King's fifteen years' experience of dealing with the young men preparing for Holy Orders at Cuddesdon gave him a unique fitness for the Pro- fessorship of Pastoral Theology at Oxford ; and this was recognized by Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, whose son, the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, had been trained under Dr. King at Cuddesdon. The appoint- ment created great scandal in puritan, latitudinarian, and worldly quarters, for King was known to have sympathies with Ritualism. It is believed that Arch- bishop Tait wrote a letter of remonstrance to Mr. Gladstone, and received such a reply as did not tend to prolong the correspondence. " A High Churchman of the Old School" (time-honoured synonym for all that is dull and prejudiced and reactionary) wrote : It is impossible not to feel the greatest distrust of the newly-appointed Pastoral Professor at Oxford. His only re- commendation seems to have been the success which he has had at Cuddesdon, mainly by his personal influence, in training priestlings under the auspices of two Bishops of Oxford. At the Leeds Congress, he is reported in the Times of October 12th, 1872, as exhorting his hearers not to shrink from the discipline which the Church offered them in Confession and Absolution. What will Pastoral Theology become in his hand&? Well, that wistful question may now be answered by THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 219 saying that it became, instead of a dry system of perfunctory lectures, a living, moving, and effective power. Of course, the Professor's immediate duties were concerned with the candidates for Holy Orders ; but his influence extended to a far wider circle. Men who, with no thought of taking Orders, were in earnest about religion, found themselves drawn by an irresistible attraction to the private lectures which he gave in his house in Christ Church. Those lectures dealt, not with disputed points of doctrine, but with the deepest (and often the most secret) facts of moral and spiritual experience. His power of sympathy amounted to genius, and gave him an almost miraculous insight into human hearts. He combined the keenest spirituality with a sanctified common-sense which good people sometimes lack. He spoke to us of our past lives, of our future prospects, of our present temptations, of our besetting sins, with an intimate penetration engendered by long experience in personal contact with souls. He told us truths about ourselves which were part of our consciousness, but which we believed to have been hidden from all except ourselves. It was the same when he preached before the University. There was no rhetoric, no straining after effect, no parade of learning, no attempt to be startling or novel or para- doxical. There was the bowed head, the searching gaze, the exquisitely sympathetic voice, which " made you squirm," as one undergraduate said which " felt like cold water down your back," as another put it. There was the clear statement of theological truth, so gently worded that even controversial questions like Confession were touched without offence or jar. There were plain and urgent lessons of moral duty from which one might shrink, but which one could not gainsay. And every now and then there was some keen phrase about our 220 experience, past or present, which, once heard, was never forgotten. " Some of us look back to-night to old school-friendships, when Satan was transformed into an Angel of Light." That was a shaft which still sticks in memory, after a lapse of more than five-and- twenty years. While labouring incessantly for the undergraduates who were his prime care, Dr. King did not forget his obligations to the city of Oxford. He often preached in the parish churches, and was particularly kind to St. Barnabas, then in the heyday of its ritualistic youth. His addresses on the Three Hours, delivered there on Good Friday, 1874, form one of the very few books which he has published. Dr. King's professorial residence at Christ Church was the scene of a bright and constant hospitality. His house was kept by his truly .beautiful and venerable mother ; and a story used to be current which, even if not true, so exactly illustrates his character that it must be reproduced. Mrs. King was, as became her age, a lady of the old school, and she made it a boast that she found no difficulty in getting or keeping good servants, although she had never departed from the scale of wages which prevailed in her earlier days. The truth was that, when she offered a new cook 20 a year, Dr. King used secretly to add the promise of another 20, saying, " But don't tell Mrs. King, for she likes to think that things are still as they were when she was young." Thus happily passed the twelve years of the Pastoral Professorship, and those who loved Oxford could not help feeling a pang of regret when they learned that an influence so human, so winning, so potent for good, was to be removed from the University, just when it seemed to be most needed. And yet, at the same THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 221 time, there was a widespread satisfaction that there should at length be numbered among the Bishops of the Church of England a man who not only upheld the Catholic Faith in its entirety and its precision, but who also had constantly ministered its consolations in Holy Absolution, and had expressed it in the visible forms of ceremonial worship. Once enthroned in the Chair of St. Hugh, the new Bishop threw his whole soul into the work of the diocese. He began by selling a vast and rambling country-house, in which his predecessors had lived, and established himself in the city of Lincoln, close to that exquisite minster which is the glory of the See. He disappeared almost completely from old scenes and old associations. He went occasionally to London for the meeting of Convocation, or for special sermons at the churches of old friends ; but his time and thought and energy were given to his diocese. He came like a good angel of hope and encouragement to isolated parishes and disheartened priests, preaching to the labourers in language which they could understand ; and, while he urged the claims of the Faith and the treasures of the Church, he so phrased his teaching that the stiff'er Church-folk regarded him as "nowt but an old Methody." Early in his Episcopate, a young man was* condemned to death at Lincoln for the murder of his sweetheart. The chaplain of the gaol, new to his work, broke down under the terrible duty of preparing the murderer for death ; and the Bishop, hearing of his distress, took the duty on himself. The guilty man was an absolute heathen. He had been a fisher-lad from Grimsby ; his whole life had been passed at sea, and he was as ignorant of religion even of right and wrong as a South Sea islander. The Bishop baptized him, con- firmed him, and gave him his first and last Communion 222 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH in the condemned cell. On the night before the execu- tion he slept in the prison, and on the fatal morning walked by the culprit to the scaffold, praying with him and supporting him till the drop went down. This was of a piece with all the Bishop's actions. He gave his sympathy and assistance to all earnest work, not excluding that of the despised Ritualists ; and his attitude towards these last involved him in the anxieties and ignominies of the " Lincoln Trial " of 1889. At this time of day there is no need to retrace in detail the steps of that litigation. It is enough to say that the result was to establish the legality of the Mixed Chalice, the Eastward Position, the singing of the Agnus, the Ablutions, and the Altar-Lights. On the morrow of the Judgment, Mr. Gladstone said in a letter to the present writer : " Pray make my kindest and best respects to the Bishop. I hope, and incline to think, that some principles of deep moment have gained a ground from which they will not be easily dislodged." The Judgment had indeed been in the main highly favourable to the Catholic contention ; but, in the course of it, the Bishop was admonished so to stand at the Altar that the manual acts of the Consecration should not be concealed from the people, and to abstain from making the Sign of the Cross in the Absolution and Blessing. Having submitted himself to the judgment of the Archbishop's Court, the Bishop felt bound to obey these admonitions, and he has always done so, both in church and in his private chapel. Of late years the Bishop has been more and more engrossed by his diocese. He is undoubtedly and deservedly the most popular man in Lincolnshire not only with the clergy and the squires, but also with the artizans of the city and the labourers of the Fens. THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 223 And that this is so was the universal testimony of the goodly company who lately subscribed for a portrait of their Diocesan, and presented it by the hands of the Lord Lieutenant of the county. Ecclesiastically, there is some reason to believe that the Bishop is a little perturbed by what he believes to be insubordination and extravagance on the part of some of the younger Ritualists. But these misgivings are almost inseparable from advancing years, and are no more liable to censure than grey hairs or furrowed brows. Nothing can ever alter or impair the devoted and grateful love, with which those who in any stage of life have been brought under his influence, regard their spiritual father, Bishop Edward King. In him they see not only the power, but the beauty and the attractiveness, of the Christian character ; and, as they contemplate his life, they seem to learn something of what St. Paul meant when he spoke of " the meekness and gentleness " * of the Divine Master. 1 8ia TTJS TrpadrT/roy KOI firieucdas rov Xpiarrov. ZACHARY MACAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS l TjWERYONE who loves Evangelical religion and Jj reveres the memory of " the Clapham Sect " will thank Lady Knutsford for her handiwork. 2 In another chapter of this book I give my Recollections of the Evangelicals as they were between 1850 and 1870. Lady Knutsford describes them in an earlier stage of their development, and at a time when they were keeping alive the flame of spiritual religion amid an almost universal deadness. The influence of those great days still lives, for, as Mr. Gladstone wrote in 1879 : The pith and life of the Evangelical teaching, as it consists in the reintroduction of Christ our Lord to be the woof and warp of preaching, was the great gift of the movement to the teaching Church, and has now penetrated and possessed it on a scale so general that it may be considered as pervading the whole mass. One of the most conspicuous and most admirable figures among the older Evangelicals was Zachary Macaulay. I do not propose to trace in detail the history of his career. He was, in the copious but not exaggerated language of his epitaph (written by Sir James Stephen) 1 The Pilot, 1900. 2 " Life and Letters of Zachary Macaulay." By his grand- daughter, Viscountess Knutsford 224 ZACHARY MACAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS 225 A Man Who, throughout a protracted life, Devoted all the resources of a comprehensive understanding and All the energies of an affectionate Heart, To the diffusion of Christianity, and The relief of human wretchedness : Who, during forty successive years, Partaking in the counsels and the labours, Which, guided by favouring Providence, Rescued Africa from the woes, And the British Empire from the guilt, Of Slavery and the Slave-Trade ; Meekly endured the toil, the privation, and the reproach, Resigning to others the praise and the reward. The same testimony was borne by Sir Henry Taylor, who, describing William Wilberforce, said : A winning amenity of manner, peculiar grace and fervour in conversation, and an easy eloquence in public speaking, planted him the foremost of his party in the eyes of mankind, and placed his name in the title-page (as it were) of a great cause. But Mr. Zachary Macaulky was the man who rose and took pen in hand at four o'clock in the morning. Macaulay was born in 1768 and died in 1838. He had been all his life a leading figure in Evangelical society ; and it is to some of the characteristic traits of that society, as displayed in Lady Knutsford's delightful book, that I propose to call attention. Mr. Henry Thornton, the author of the famous " Family Prayers," returning with his family from Yorkshire through Leicestershire, and finding that he had a day to spare, turned out of the road, and stopped his carriage at the house of Mr. Babington (Zachary Macaulay's brother-in-law) to ask if they could stay for the night there. They were warmly welcomed by the host, but Mr. Thornton still pressed to know if it was quite convenient to receive such a large party unexpectedly. "No, 15 226 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH indeed," replied Mr. Babington, " it is very inconvenient, and I cannot imagine how we shall contrive to take you in, but the pleasure of seeing you is so great that we shall gladly submit to the inconvenience." This uncompromising zeal for truth led the Evan- gelicals to be extremely candid in dealing with the faults of their friends. Zachary Macaulay had a friend who preached rather above the comprehension of his hearers. " This is an error his academic education exposes him to, but he tries to correct it, and I take care to remind him of it whenever I find him soaring out of sight." In this unsparing frankness Henry Thornton was supreme, and Zachary Macaulay seems to have received the same kind of discipline as he administered. " Mr. Thornton's letter, in which were only eight lines, was long enough to give me the satisfaction of knowing that he had nothing particularly to blame ; a negative, but from Henry Thornton no mean, praise." An officer who casually met Macaulay in society was so rash as to ask him whether there was any wickedness in swearing " a practice, he said, which harmed no one." The excellent Macaulay jumped at the opening, and subse- quently "feared he might have been offensively strong on the subject." Certainly his admonitions, as recorded by himself, do not lack plainness, and four days later he is able to record that : My success with the swearing gentleman has been more than I supposed. I find he swears no more, and am told by his companions that he has become exceedingly restless and uneasy about that and other matters. A sick man whom Macaulay exhorted to repentance said he could not fix on any particular sins : I was at no loss, however, to remind him of numberless particular sins, of the commission of which I myself had been a witness. I set them before him with all their aggravations. ZACHARY MACAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS 227 A young lady " showed some very striking marks of a vain mind " ; whereupon this untiring censor " had some very serious conversation with herself and her father. The young lady did not altogether relish my plain but, I am sure, friendly expostulation." A few days later the damsel had realized that Mr. Macaulay spoke the words of truth and soberness, and " had by this time got rid of her monstrous, misshapen dress, and reverted to the use of plain and simple attire, and her lowly looks were, I hope, no fallacious indication of a humbled mind." An admirable characteristic of the Evangelicals was their systematic liberality. Henry Thornton was in the habit of devoting two-thirds of his income to charitable purposes, " while others of the band of friends even exceeded this proportion." The right use of money was, indeed, one of the practical forms in which the Evan- gelicals expressed their tremendous and abiding sense of personal responsibility : May we both feel daily more and more how entirely subordinate all things else should be to the great considera- tion of saving our own souls and the souls of those entrusted to our care. May we feel the weight of our responsibility in this respect more and more, and labour and strive to be found of God in peace when He comes to call us hence. And thus, in comparing his two most intimate friends, Macaulay writes : Wilberforce has stronger and more lively views of the beauties of holiness and of the Saviour's love ; but Thornton has a more uniform and abiding impression of his accountable- ness to God for every moment of his time, and for every word he utters. It was long ago pointed out by Lord Macaulay that the vivid, and in other respects accurate, picture of the Clapham Sect in " The Newcomes " is in one respect erroneous. Thackeray makes out that the Claphamites 228 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH were Nonconformists. As a matter of fact, they were con- vinced and resolute Church-people. They were willing to join with Nonconformists in all works of secular benefi- cence, such as the abolition of the Slave-Trade ; and in such religious efforts as the Bible Society, where the specific principles of Churchmanship were not involved. But " they had a strong belief that the Church's Missions stood on a different footing, and that their duty lay in insisting upon native Christian communities being united to that Church of which they were members, and to which they professed a warm attachment." Hence arose the Church Missionary Society. The great Charles Simeon used to say, "The Bible first, the Prayer-book next, and all other books in subordination to those." And, in a similar spirit, Zachary Macaulay eulogizes his favourite " Prayer-book and Homily Society." He finds that nothing so conduces to the stability of converts from heathenism as the use of " the language in which the martyrs of the Anglican Church breathed out their souls before the Throne of Grace." At a meeting for the Society, " we had a Chinese Missionary and a South American Missionary all testifying with one consent to the extraordinary acceptableness of our Liturgy when it was made known. One is almost led to conceive a hope that this same Church of ours may literally in time become the Catholic Church, and not the less, therefore, because that Church which arrogates to itself the name of Catholic is about to be relieved from all Civil pains and penalties." In vivid contrast with these high conceptions of Anglicanism, we catch a horrid glimpse of a Baptist lady who lived at Clapham a kind of Uitlander among the Evangelical Church-folk who on Christmas Day sat at her window ostentatiously knitting, when the congregation of the Parish Church was dispersing ; and, ZACHARY MAGAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS 229 according to local rumour, made her Christmas dinner off roast veal and apple-pie, as a protest against the beef and plum-pudding of Orthodoxy. Undenominational religion, that " Moral Monster," was held by Zachary Macaulay in just abhorrence : There is something very plausible in Mr. Lancaster's pro- posal of a society established on general Christian principles; but who shall fix what are those general principles of Christianity which, as essential verities, must be made the system of a basis of instruction ? By " general Christian principles " Mr. Lancaster has left room to conjecture that he may have meant something which might coalesce as well with Deism as with Christianity. What right have those to be considered Christians who deem it unnecessary to introduce into their plans of education any reference to the salvation purchased for us by the Blood of Christ ? One of the most curious features in all Evangelical memoirs is the unique and extraordinary position in Evangelical society which was occupied by Mrs. Hannah More. Her admirers placed her writings in the very first rank of literature, sacred or profane ; and beyond question her books sold capitally. She was extolled as " one of the most truly Evangelical divines of the whole age perhaps of any age not Apostolic." Bishop Porteus recommended her writings in his charges and sermons ; and she was universally recognized as having a special mission to the highly- placed and influential. Macaulay reports that she is staying with the Bishop of London, and " has a duchess to convert while she stays in these parts." In writing to her, he says, " I am glad to find that the Bishop of Bristol courts your correspondence. I would it might tend, poor man, to quicken him in his spiritual course." And the good lady, duly responsive to these amenities, announces that she has received a letter from " our Princess Elizabeth, now Princess of Hesse-Homburg," 230 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH so flattering that she could not send it. " It is gratify- ing, however, as to the piety of her own mind. I have also a very pions letter from Princess Sophia Matilda." I find it difficult to tear myself away from the society of these excellent people ; but time and space forbid me to prolong this paper. Let me conclude with two extracts from Zachary Macaulay's writings, in which the essential spirit of Evangelical religion speaks with characteristic, and, to me, most moving, voice. In 1798 he wrote : I know, and God knows, how miserably poor and defective I am, and how little I merit commendation, even for those parts of my conduct which may have the most splendid exterior. Alas ! it is not praise we want ; it is pardon. And forty years later he wrote in his will : I desire, with all humility and deference, to commend to the mercies of my God and Saviour the soul which He hath redeemed by His precious Blood, and in some feeble measure, I trust, restored to His image which sin has so miserably defaced and polluted. On His mercy alone I place all my hope that my transgressions may be pardoned. And then, after deprecating posthumous panegyric, he adds : I desire to live in the affections of those dear friends and relations whose attachment formed one of the main consolations of my chequered and sinful life, but I should feel anything beyond this to be so wholly unmerited as to be a reproach to my sincerity. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 1 I AM an Evangelical born and bred. And I speak of " Recollections " because the type of Evangelicalism which I knew in my youth seems to have perished from the earth. Whether the new type is an improve- ment on its predecessor I do not presume to say. I merely recall the past, and describe that which I have seen and known. Let me put in the very forefront of my description the happiest and deepest of all my impressions. The Evangelicals were the most religious people whom I have ever known. I was brought up among the spiritual descendants of the men and women who constituted the Clapham Sect, and attended Henry Drummond's Prophetical Conferences at Albury ; who had seen, in the French Revolution, the first Reform Bill, and the first invasion of the cholera, unmistakable signs of that Great Tribulation which is appointed to precede the Second Coming of the Lord ; and who went to their graves in utter disappointment because, through lack of faith, they were to share the common lot of Adam's sons instead of remaining alive to meet the Lord in the air. The fathers were gone, the children survived ; and they in turn were the parents of the generation to which I belong. To those parents I look back with loving 1 and grateful reverence, and I recall an abiding senge I * The Pilot, 1901. 231 232 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH u of religious responsibility, a self-sacrificing energy in works of mercy, an evangelistic zeal, an aloofness from the world, and a level of saintliness in daily life, such as I do not expect again to see realized on earth. Be it borne in mind that Evangelicals of this type were not Calvinists. They believed that Christ's salva- tion was offered to all ; and that to secure an interest in it was the one object worth considering in human life. But they looked with dark misgiving on the actual state of the world. They were haunted by the awful question, Lord, are there few that be saved? And all their evangelistic zeal, in private and in public, derived its vivid intensity from the ever-present thought of " a mysterious eternity of anguish reserved for those who put from them through life the proffered salvation, and do final despite to the Spirit of Grace." When once the great object of life had been secured when once the individual soul had "closed with the offer of God in Christ," and had " acquired a saving interest in the Blood of Jesus " - a high standard of holiness in living was required, or, rather, was regarded as inevit- able. Reliance on " Good Works " was of course impossible. No work of man could justify him with God. But the Evangelicals were no Antinomians. Good Works were not meritorious, but evidential. A disposition towards them, a persistence in them, was evidence to oneself and to one's neighbour that one was really converted. The Converted Man could have no pleasure in sin ; the Converted Man must desire to work for God's glory and the salvation of his fellows. This view of life produced some admirable results. Every- thing, down to the minutest details of action and speech, was " considered with reference to eternity." Daily duty was done as " in the great Taskmaster's eye." Money was regarded as a sacred trust, and people of RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 233 good positions and comfortable incomes habitually kept ; their personal expenditure within narrow limits in order that they might contribute more largely to objects which they held sacred. The Evangelical idea of the relation between faith and works cannot be better expressed than by this verse from a favourite hymn : Chosen, not for good in me ; Waken'd up, from wrath to flee ; Hidden in the Saviour's side ; By the Spirit sanctified ; Teach me, Lord, on earth to show, By my life, how much I owe. Aloofness from the world was also regarded as in- evitable. " The friendship of the world is enmity with God," and Christians must be " a holy nation, a peculiar people." But, when it came to practice, it was found difficult to maintain this tenet consistently. All Evan- gelicals agreed that worldliness was wicked, and that a worldly man was in a bad way. But they took different views as to what constituted worldliness. There were shades and distinctions of view among the very elect. All, I think, would have condemned gambling, horse-racing, and card-playing. I can remember that when, at a children's party, I had won money at " the race-game," it was impounded for the beneBt of missionaries. But I also remember Bezique being sanctioned for the use of an invalid. The Opera and the Theatre were held in horror ; but the German Reeds' Entertainment was permitted, because it was performed by daylight, and the scenes were called " illustrations." Ball-going was condemned ; but certain palliatives were admitted. In some families square dances were allowed, while round dances were forbidden. In others you might go to balls, provided that you came down to il 234 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH prayers at eight next morning. An invitation to the Queen's Ball was obeyed by families who would have thought an after-dinner dance in Mrs. Footer's back drawing-room an unpardonable worldliness. Again, with regard to field-sports. No one condemned shooting ; but some thought hunting wicked a dis- tinction not altogether clear in principle. My father was an inveterate fox-hunter, and our vicar, who was a fine horseman, said, with marked expression, " I too should like to hunt, if I could hunt with a field of saints." These slight inconsistencies of excellent people really do not deserve much criticism ; but a less admirable feature was the extraordinary severity with which the abstainer from each particular amusement condemned the non-abstainer. I fear it must be admitted that the Evangelicals rated the law of truth higher than the law of charity. The word " abstainer," which I used a moment ago reminds me of a marked difference between those days and these. We had no Blue Ribbon. Teetotalism was looked upon with suspicion, if not disfavour. It was regarded as being a subtle form of " works," and tending to self-reliance and self-righteousness. I can- not remember that at my father's house 1 ever saw a water-drinker. Debarred from wordliness, the Evan- gelicals went in for comfort ; and the pleasures of the table were among the few which everyone could enjoy with a good conscience. Our house was much frequented by clergymen, Anglican and Nonconformist ; and, though I never saw one who suffered from the characteristic weakness of Mr. Stiggins, I have often encountered the gastronomical instinct of Mr. Chadband. " I am not ashamed to confess that I am an alimentary man " is a clerical confession which lingers pleasantly on the RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 235 ear. The occasions which brought these eupeptic divines together were " High Teas " before meetings of religious societies, such as the Bible Society and the London City Mission, where differences between Establishment and Dissent were disregarded. When the late Master of the Temple was asked if the Inner and the Middle Temple had any connexion with one another, he replied, " As our dear Dissenting friends would say, they meet in their common Master." But the annual crown of meetings was that of the Church Missionary Society, from which the dear Dissenting friend necessarily stood aloof, but which drew a great gathering to hear a gifted " Deputation." What then ensued has been described by the hand of a master : The missionary appeared on the platform ; he was hailed with enthusiasm. He repeated a dialogue he had heard between two negroes behind a hedge ; the approbation was tumultuous. He gave an imitation of the two negroes in broken English ; the roof was rent with applause. And again : The orator (an Irishman) came. He talked of green isles other shores vast Atlantic bosom of the deep Christian charity blood and extermination mercy in hearts arms in hands altars and homes household gods. He wiped his eyes ; he blew his nose ; he quoted Latin. The effect was tremendous. The Latin was a decided hit. Nobody knew exactly what it was about, but everybody knew it must be affecting, because even the orator was overcome. Dickens wrote these words in 1835, but they describe with precision the missionary eloquence to which I have listened between 1860 and 1870. It was about the latter year that I heard the Depu- tation from the Parent Society involve himself very delightfully in extemporaneous imagery. He had been explaining that here in England we hear so much of 236 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH the rival systems and operations of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Church Missionary Society that we are often led to regard them as hostile institutions ; whereas if, as he himself had done, his hearers would go out to the mission-field and observe the working of the societies at close quarters, they would find them to be in essential unison. "Even so," he exclaimed, " as I walked in the beautiful park which adjoins your town to-day, I noticed what appeared at a distance to be one gigantic tree. It was only when I got close to it and sat down under its shade that I perceived that what I had thought was one tree was really two trees as completely distinct in origin, growth, and nature as if they had stood a hundred miles apart." Such is the force of Rhetoric, that no one in the audience (beside myself) noticed the infelicity of the illustration. The strict observance of Sunday was a marked characteristic of Evangelical religion. No hospitality could be given or accepted on that day. All kinds of games were forbidden, and all such exercises as riding and driving. The distinction between " Sunday books " and others was rigidly enforced ; but the mild pietistic fiction of the Sunday at Home was permitted. Meals were scrupulously regulated so as to allow of the servants going to church ; and in some houses, more rigorous than my home, there was no hot food on Sunday, except, I think, eggs at breakfast, and soup and potatoes at dinner. The Sunday menu, drawn by an illiterate artist, is still remembered in a family with which I am connected : SOUP. COLD BEEF. SALAD. COLD SWEATS. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 237 My home was in a country town of fifteen hundred inhabitants. Their spiritual needs were supplied by a Parish Church, an Independent Chapel, a Wesleyan Chapel, and two Baptist Meetings. But, as a child, I never saw the inside of the Nonconformist edifices. My family, though Evangelicals, were Church-people. The Parish Church had never been restored, but had been decorated by a former patron of the living, a refined nobleman who loved the arts. The east window was filled with stained glass, the central subject being the patron's coat-of-arms, with patriarchs and saints grouped round it in due subordination. Beneath the window, and between the Commandments, was a picture of the Holy Family (which, by the way, the donor's successor has quietly resumed and hung in his own gallery). The Holy Table was a table indeed, with legs and drawers after the manner of a writing-table. In these drawers the candles for the reading-desk and pulpit were kept ; and I have a clear vision of the clerk hitching up the red-velvet cloth and extracting the candles just before service on a winter afternoon. The chancel was long ; and one side of it was entirely engrossed by the patron's pew, which was enclosed in high walls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace, two wood-baskets, and two wash-leather gloves for the use of any chilly patrician who wished to mend the fire. The opposite side of the chancel was equally engrossed by a pew for the patron's servants, but they had neither wall nor curtain, fireplace nor wood-basket. The choir, male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ in a gallery at the west end. The whole church, of course, was pewed throughout and white-washed ; and on the capital of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing the arms of some family allied to the patron. The 238 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH largest and most vivid presentment of the Royal Arms which I have ever seen crowned the chancel- arch. Onr clerical staff consisted of a vicar and a curate. Our list of services was as follows : Sundays 11 A.M., Morning Prayer, Litany, Table-prayers, and sermon ; 6 P.M., Evening Prayer and sermon. There was Evening Prayer and a sermon on Thursdays, and a prayer-meeting in the schoolroom on Tuesday evenings. There were no extra services in Lent or Advent, nor on any Holy Days except Good Friday, when we had Morning Prayer, and Ascension Day, when we had Evening Prayer. The Holy Communion was adminis- tered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the I month, and on Christmas and Easter Days. Evening Communions on the third Sunday of the month were introduced about 1865 ; and the Athanasian Creed was discontinued about the same time. The Elements were always placed on the table before Morning Service began, and the words of administration were said once to a " rail-full." The black gown was, of course, worn in preaching, and I remember a mild sensation caused by the disuse of bands. The prayers were preached ; the Psalms were read ; and the hymn-book in use was the "Mitre" collection, succeeded in 1864 by "The Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal " a collection which I have never seen elsewhere. It would not be easy to describe the disinalness of the services ; and the preaching corresponded to them. This is curious, for Evangelical preaching generally was rousing and effective. I remember that one heard preaching of that type from strangers who occasionally " took duty " or " pleaded for societies " ; but our own pastors always expatiated on Justification by Faith only. I cannot recall any other subject ; and topical allusions and HECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 239 illustrations, whether from Nature or from books, were rigorously eschewed. Looking back, I find it impossible to believe that my parents enjoyed this preaching, or got any good from it. Bat they were satisfied. It was " the Gospel," and they asked for no more. I have often thought that our vicar must have been the very Lowest Churchman who ever lived. He was born in 1810, and died not long ago. He was a Cambridge man ; a thorough gentleman ; well-read ; wholly devoted to his sacred calling ; and fearless in his assertion of what he believed to be right. (He once refused to let Jowett preach in our pulpit, though the noble patron desired it.) He was entirely insensible to poetry, beauty, romance, and imagination ; but his mind was essentially logical, and he followed his creed to its extremest consequences. In Baptismal Grace, of course, he ' absolutely disbelieved. He prepared me for Confirma- tion, and his preparation consisted in trying to destroy my faith in the Presence and the Succession. He defined Confirmation as " a coming of age in the things of the soul." I perfectly remember a sermon preached on " Sacrament Sunday," which ended with some such words as these : " I go to yonder table to-day, not ; expecting to meet the Lord, because I know He will j not be there." I have seldom heard the doctrine of; the Real Absence stated with equal frankness. I turn from the church to the home, and from a rather austere clergyman to the gentlest, the wisest, the most winning of teachers. Oh that those lips had language ! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. What was Evangelical training in the home ? First and foremost we were taught "the Gospel Plan," which was, briefly, that all mankind were utterly sinful, and 240 therefore in danger of hell ; that God had provided deliverance in the Atoning Death of Christ ; and that, if only we would accept the offer of salvation so made, we were forgiven, reconciled, and safe. That acceptance was " Conversion." The word was constantly in use. " A converted character " was one who had " closed with the offer." An unconverted character was one who had not ; and that was the vital difference which divided the whole human family into two groups. Some people were held to have been "converted" in their infancy ; to others, the change occurred at various stages ; but a date could generally be assigned. With the einulousiiess of childhood, one envied one's con- verted elders, and wished to be converted too. The idea of conversion as a dateable event came so natu- rally to one that I remember telling a High Church visitor that such and such a year had been the year of my youngest sister's conversion, and the High Church- man replied, " I think, my dear, you must mean her Confirmation." But I didn't, for the excellent reason that she had been admitted to Communion without Confirmation. Such was the substance of our teaching ; the method was as follows. From our very earliest years we were taught the Bible, at first orally ; and later we were encouraged to read it, by gifts of handsomely bound copies. I remember that our aids to study were Adam Clarke's Commentary, Nicholl's " Helps to Reading the Bible," and a book called " Light in the Dwelling." Hymns played a great part in our training. As soon as we could speak we learned " When rising from the bed of death " and " Beautiful Zion built above " ; " Rock of Ages " and " Jesu, Lover of my soul " were soon added. The Catechism we were || never taught. 1 was confirmed without learning it. |l RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 241 It was said to be too difficult ; of course, it really was too Sacramental. By way of an easier exercise I was constrained to learn the " Shorter Catechism of the General Assembly of Divines at Westminster " ! We had Family Prayers twice every day. My father read a chapter, very much as the fancy took him, or where the Bible opened of itself ; and he read without note or comment. I remember a very distinct impression on my infant mind that the portions of the Bible which were read at Prayers had no meaning, and that the public reading of the words, without reference to sense, was an act of piety. After the chapter, my father read one of " Thornton's Family Prayers," and, indeed, the use of that book was a distinctive sign of true Evangelicalism. Some friends of ours tried extempore prayers, and one worthy baronet went so far as to invite contributions from the servants. As long as only the butler and the housekeeper voiced the aspirations of their fellows, all was decorous ; but one fine day an insubordinate kitchen-maid took up her parable, saying, " And we pray for Sir Thomas and her Ladyship too. Oh, may they have new hearts given to them I " The bare idea that there was room for such renovation caused a prompt return to the lively oracles of Henry Thornton. While we were still very young children, we were carefully incited to acts of practical charity. We began by carrying dinners to the sick and aged poor ; then we went on to reading hymns and bits of Bible to the blind and unlettered. As soon as we were old enough, we became teachers in Sunday Schools, and conducted classes and cottage-meetings. From the very beginning we were taught to save up our money for good causes. Each of us had a " missionary-box " ; and I remember another box, in the counterfeit presentment of a Gothic 16 242 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH church, which received contributions for the Church Pastoral Aid Society. An aunt of mine, bursting into unlooked-for melody, wrote for the benefit of her young relations : Would you like to be told the best use for a penny 1 I can tell you a use which is better than any Not on toys, nor on fruit, nor on sweetmeats to spend it, But over the seas to the heathen to send it. 1 wonder if this moving lyric is still to be found in Evangelical collections ? So far, all was well. We worshipped our parents, and loved our home, and took for granted all that we were taught. But the serpent was at the door, and the poison of Sacerdotalism entered through an unsuspected medium. Our parents were Christians ; therefore they gave us Bibles. But they were also Church-people ; therefore they gave us Prayer-books. And the Prayer- book did the mischief. I can remember our square pew, with its snug corners and comfortable cushions ; and the grating monotone of the vicar overhead, explain- ing for the thousandth time the Pauline doctrine of Justification. From such exercises juvenile flesh and blood needed some relief ; and, when I had done envying the publican's son at the other side of the aisle for the gilt buttons on his white waistcoat, and when the joy of pulling the hair of the vicar's daughters in the adjacent pew had palled, I turned to my Prayer-book for mental distraction. Morning and Evening Prayer, of course, one knew by heart, and, in sheer desire of finding something new, one strayed into the less familiar parts of the book, and thence arose surprises, perplexities, and enquiries. Every rightly-constituted child, I suppose, takes its difficulties to its mother ; and very soon I began to ask, " What is the Visitation of the Sick ? " RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 243 " What does Absolving mean ? Is it the same as the priests did in 'The Monastery' and 'The Abbot'?" " Ought a clergyman to read the service every day ? Why doesn't Mr. C. (oar vicar) do it ? " I feel confident that neither of my dear parents had ever read the Prayer-book through, and this placed them at a considerable disadvantage. The process of examination, once begun, went on rapidly ; and the enquirer's thirst for knowledge was stimu- lated by the obvious embarrassment of those whom he questioned. Some of the desperate shifts by which Authority sought to stifle Enquiry are vivid in my memory. The Absolution and the Baptismal Service did not mean what they said, but something quite unlike. Different parts of the Prayer-book were of different authority. The Rubrics were " bound up with the Prayer-book," but were not part of it. " Scripture must be read with Scripture," and our Lord, though certainly He said the Words of Institution, said also that He was a Vine and a Door. Here let a characteristic anecdote be inserted, from the annals of an Evangelical family, not my own. A young girl, through sheer nervousness, dropped the chalice at the Holy Communion. On returning home, her mother found her in tears, and, to comfort her, said, " I've often dropped my Prayer-book, but I never thought of crying about it." It is, however, only right to say that, whatever theories were entertained about the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, our preparation at home for our first Com- munion was most careful, earnest, and solemn ; and the manual put into our hands Ashton Oxenden's " Earnest Communicant " breathes a spirit of most fervent piety. Our whole training, indeed, illustrated the wise say- ing of Henry Drummond, the Irvingite Apostle, that 244 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH " religions people are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny." The constructive part of my early teaching has always been, and is, the bed-rock of my religions life ; but as time went on the negative dialectics seemed to wear a little thin. The enquirer was now at a Public School. Influences very unlike those of home began to sway his mind. He heard new and strange doctrines, and was beginning to feel his way toward Ritualism. By a strange irony of fate his only knowledge of Ritualistic teaching came through extracts from Ritualistic books, held up to reprobation in the Monthly Intelligencer of the Church Association. It was not likely that Evangelical parents would see a son falling into doctrinal error without a vigorous struggle to keep him right. Echoes of the old controversy come back on memory's ear. " Dr. Pusey has no moral sense." " A High Church layman may be honest, but a High Church clergyman cannot, for he eats the bread of a Protestant Church while he undermines its bulwarks." "Infidelity and superstition, those kindred evils, go hand in hand." "Baptismal Regeneration is a soul-destroying error " (because it was supposed to mean that everyone baptized in infancy, whatever his subsequent life, must be finally saved). " No sin which you have to confess could be so bad as the sin of confessing it." And, whatever the subject under discussion might be, it was briefly concluded in the saying, " It's all very well to talk, my dear, but there's one Mediator between God and men." Yes, in the insistence on that text, however oddly misapplied, there spoke what was best and most charac- teristic in Evangelical Religion the passionate zeal for our Lord's unshared prerogatives, and the profound conviction thatj in the supreme work of salvation, no RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 245 human being and no created thing might interpose between the soul and its Creator. Happy is the man whose religious life has been built on the impregnable rock of that belief. Sit anima mea cum Sanctis. May my lot be with the Evangelical Saints from whose lips I first learned the doctrine of the Cross. It is a pleasure to commemorate in this place the truly venerable lady through whom I am myself linked to the Earlier Evangelicals, and to the " Clapham Sect." Of that sect she was the last survivor. A tablet in the Parish Church of Clapham bears this inscription : BORN MARCH 10, 1797 DIED NOVEMBER 5, 1887 "She opened her mouth with wisdom" A CENTURY OF EVANGELICALISM 1 AS an Evangelical born and bred, I have found a special interest in Professor Handley Moule's new book on the Evangelical School in the Nineteenth Century. Everything that Dr. Motile writes is marked by spiritual fervour and literary grace. But fervour and grace will not produce history unless they are combined with knowledge ; and, in writing of Evan- gelicalism, Dr. Moule writes of that which he intimately knows. He belongs, indeed, to the second half of the nineteenth century, but he tells us that his father, an Evangelical clergyman, whose opinions he inherited, was born in 1801, and he is therefore qualified, partly by personal observation and partly by direct tradition, to describe the Evangelical school of the last hundred years. For the purposes of his survey Dr. Moule divides the late century into three periods. The first he calls " the period of Simeon and Wilberforce," and it closes about the time of Queen Victoria's accession. The second is "the period of Shaftesbury," and it lasts until the eighties. The third period " does not connect itself so much with great personalities as with a great institution," and that institution is the Church Missionary Society, which " within these twenty years has so greatly developed its resources, its energy, and its influence as 1 The Pilot, 1901. 246 A CENTURY OF EVANGELICALISM 247 to form a phenomenon of commanding import in our Evangelical history." With respect to Dr. Moule's first period, it may perhaps be suggested that he scarcely does justice to Charles Simeon's definite Chnrchmanship. One of that great man's watchwords was : " The Bible first, the Prayer-book next, and all other books and doings in subordination to both." It was even made a ground of reproach against him that he was " more of a Churchman than a Gospelman" Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, was a notable name among Simeon's followers ; and he used language about the Font, the Altar, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice which a later generation would have stigmatized as rank Popery. The bitterness of fratricidal controversy had not as yet checked the free expression of Evangelical Churchman ship. Dr. Moule's first period is crowded with great names. Henry Martyn can never be recalled by Churchmen of any type without the liveliest affection and reverence. Henry Venn was for years the wise autocrat of the Church Missionary Society, and Bishop Wilberforce wrote on the occasion of his death, " Once or twice he has smitten me hard when he thought I in any way wronged the C.M.S., but I no more resented it than I should have resented Sir Lancelot's chivalry for his Queen." Dr. Moule reckons the late Professor Birks as "one of the later Simeonites," although his Eschatological doctrines would scarcely have com- mended themselves to his great master. Birks died in 1880, and so, according to Dr. Moule's division of the century, he links the first to the third period. The second is dominated by Lord Shaftesbury, " dominated " is the right word. I regard my acquaint- ance with Lord Shaftesbury as one of the highest honours of my life ; and I always felt that he combined 248 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH in singular degree, the gifts which make a leader. He had an imperious will, a perfervid temper, unbounded enthusiasm, untiring industry. Any movement with which he was connected he controlled. He brooked neither opposition nor criticism. His authority was re- inforced by advantages of aspect and bearing, by a stately manner, by a noble and commanding eloquence, by high station, and by close relationship to an omni- potent Premier. But all these advantages were as nothing when compared with the power of his lifelong consistency. When he was a boy at Harrow, a brutal scene at a pauper's funeral (not, as Dr. Moule says, an act of cruelty to an animal) awoke his lifelong devotion to the cause of the poor and the helpless. Seventy years later, when he lay on his death-bed, his only regret was that he must leave the world with so much misery in it. From first to last he was an Evangelical of the highest and purest type, displaying all the religions and social virtues of the school in singular perfection ; and yet he left it on record that he had been more harshly treated by the Evangelical party than by any other. Per- haps the explanation is that those excellent people were only kicking against the pricks of a too-absolute control. Among the events of Lord Shaftesbury's period, Dr. Moule gives an interesting description of the mysterious "Revival" which in 1858 and the next few years spread from the United States to the North of Ireland, and to a large part of England. Among the effects of that Revival, as it reacted on the Church of England, was the development of the Parochial " Mission." Dr. Moule dates the institution of Missions from 1869 ; but in so doing he seems to ignore the Diocesan Missions, which as long ago as 1850 Bishop Wilberforce in- augurated in the populous centres of the Oxford Diocese, and worked for twenty years with admirable effect. A CENTURY OF EVANGELICALISM 249 In connexion with the subject of Missions, it is amazing to find that Dr. Moule has not a word to say about Aitken of Pendean, Twigg of Wednesbury, or the present Bishop of St. Andrews. Even if we put on one side missioners of the distinctively Catholic School, the three men whom we have named must be reckoned among the most powerful exponents of Evangelical truth in a form which arrests the attention of the care- less, the ignorant, and the ungodly. Is a staunch belief in Orders and Sacraments to be taken as excluding a man from the Evangelical ranks ? Towards the movement connected with the name of Mr. Pearsall Smith in 1874 Dr. Moule is far too indulgent. That movement was marked by spiritual disasters of which the nature can best be indicated by a characteristic saying which, after a quarter of a century, I recall with the shock of sudden pain : " The believer's conflict with sin is all stuff." Of the mission of Messrs. Moody and Sankey in 1875, Dr. Moule speaks generously, though not more generously than Dr. Liddon, who said, in his sermon before the University of Oxford on Whitsunday, 1876 : Last year two American preachers visited this country, to whom God had given, together with earnest belief in some portions of the Gospel, a corresponding spirit of fearless enterprise. Certainly they had no such credentials of an Apostolic Ministry as a well-instructed and believing Church- man would require. . . . And yet, acting according to the light which God had given them, they threw themselves on our great cities with the ardour of Apostles ; spoke of a higher world to thousands who pass the greater part of life in dreaming only of this; and made many of us feel that we owe them at least the debt of an example, which He Who breatheth where He listeth must surely have inspired them to give us. Dr. Moule's third period covers only the last twenty 250 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH years. Little need be said about it here, for the astonishing statistics of the Church Missionary Society's work daring that period are easily accessible. In such statistics it is impossible not to glory ; but the Society's actions in India and in Palestine have sometimes suggested that it has forgotten the first word of its threefold title. Dr. Moule concludes his interesting and valuable work with a devout aspiration for the Second Advent "the Eternal Morning, the Return and Triumph of our King." Hark what a sound, and too Divine for hearing, Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air ! Is it the thunder of the Lord's appearing? Is it the music of His people's prayer? Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices Shout to the saints, and to the deaf are dumb ; Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices, Glad in His coming, Who hath sworn, I come. The lively realization of that far-off Divine event was once a characteristic of Evangelical Churchmanship. Can Dr. Moule explain why so many of the most earnest believers in it wandered off into the devious tracts of Irvingism and Plymouthism ? THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 1 THE most interesting paths in the world are the by-ways of religion. Certainly the highways are interesting enough, with their majestic sweep across the wide landscape of history, their rapid ascents and descents, and their colossal milestones. Bnt the by- ways fascinate the curious wayfarer by a certain sense of mystery and elusiveness, and, where they run parallel to the main track, it is profitable to note how nearly they touch, and then, again, how widely they diverge (Pace mathematicorum dixerim). Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton have just published a " History of the Plymouth Brethren," by a certain Mr. Neatby, who seems to have been nurtured in that strange community ; and the narrative is profoundly interesting when read in connexion with the simul- taneous movements in other parts of the Christian body. It should be premised that " Plymouth Brethrenism " is in strictness a misnomer. The movement originated in Ireland, and only became associated in the public mind with Plymouth on account of some vehement con- troversies between the Brethren, of which in later years Plymouth was the centre. That Brethrenism, in spite of its interesting history and its high ideal, is now a practical failure, Mr. Neatby, no unfriendly commentator, seems constrained to admit ; and his theory of the matter may be profitably pondered 1 The Commonwealth, 1902. 251 252 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH in connexion with the very similar experiences of Irvingism, which was a creation of the same spiritual upheaval : Brethrenism is the child of the study of unfulfilled prophecy, and of the expectation of the immediate return of the Saviour. If anyone had told the first Brethren that three-quarters of a century might elapse and the Church be still on earth, the answer would probably have been a smile, partly of pity, partly of disapproval, wholly of incredulity. Yet so it has proved. It is impossible not to respect hopes so congenial to an ardent devotion ; yet it is clear now that Brethrenism took shape under the influence of a delusion, and that that delusion was a decisive element in all its distinctive features. The more closely one studies the private and social history of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the more keenly one realizes that it was a marked period of religious revival. This, according to Archbishop Howley (1766-1 848) and Thomas Grenville (1755-1846) was a reaction from the horrors of the French Revolu- tion, which drove terrified minds and anxious hearts to seek supernatural peace. Be the cause what it may, the results were manifest in several awakenings, separated from one another in time and place, but in- spired, apparently, by the same impulse, and marked in their beginnings by many of the same characteristics. In Germany, Herder (1744-1803) had earnestly preached the imminence of the Second Advent. Stilling (1740- 1817) proclaimed that the Eleventh Hour of the Christian dispensation had arrived. In South America the Jesuit who wrote under the name of " Ben-Ezra " elucidated the Patristic tradition about the Second Advent, and his teaching produced a profound effect on the mind of Edward Irving. In Russia, Schubert, Director of St. Peter's Theological College, announced in 1820 the arrival of the " Times of Refreshing " and the THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 253 separation between the children of God and the children of the world. In 1827 and 1828 a most remarkable revival took place among the Roman Catholic population of Carlshnld on the Danube, some 250 miles above Vienna. Stirred by the preaching of a young Mission Priest, the population thronged to Confession and Communion. This revival was attended by visions and prophecies, and, after some extraordinary vicissitudes, ended in a large adhesion to what is now called Irvingism, The movement which is known by that rather mislead- ing nickname took its rise in the Conferences for the Study of Prophecy which Henry Drummond, Banker and M.P., gathered round him at Albury between 1826 and 1830. The Reform Bill, the Cholera, and the Revolution in Paris were regarded as heralding the end of the world. Miraculous gifts were said to have been restored in the West of Scotland, and by 1835 the believers in these gifts and in the imminence of the Second Advent had become a separate sect, organized under twelve so-called " Apostles," and commonly known by the name of their most conspicuous teacher, the great Edward Irving. The Oxford Movement, as we all know, dates from 1833 ; but there had been some preparatory shaking of the dry bones as far back as 1826, and Hugh James Rose had bidden his fellow- churchmen " stir up the gift that was in them, and betake themselves to their true Mother." " Brethren- ism" belongs to the same period, but dates from an earlier point in it. How and why and with whom it began are questions on which its adherents have been sharply divided. It may be best to follow Mr. Neatby's method, and trace the history of some of the most conspicuous names associated with the movement. Anthony Norris Groves was born in 1795. He was a dentist in good practice, but early in life determined 254 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH to be a missionary, and offered himself to the service of the Church Missionary Society. With a view to taking Holy Orders, he entered at Trinity College, Dublin, and, during his visit to that city, he became acquainted with a small band of religious people who took refuge from the prevailing worldliness and Erastianism of the Irish Establishment in private gatherings for devotion and mutual instruction. In this circle a very high standard of personal piety and self- denial was exhibited, and "devotedness to Christ and union among all the people of God" were objects of special solicitude. In the spring of 1827 Groves took a decisive step. He came to the conclusion that " Believers, meeting together as disciples of Christ, were free to break bread together, as their Lord had admonished them ; and that, in as far as the practice of the Apostles could be a guide, every Lord's Day should be set apart for thus remembering the Lord's death, and obeying His parting command." What Groves thought right his friends in Dublin eagerly accepted. The weekly Breaking of Bread was begun in private houses, and has continued as the characteristic ordinance of Brethrenism till this day. An Eucharist without a priest sounds strange to Catholic ears ; but to " The Brethren " belongs the credit of having been the first to revive the weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper. In 1827, owing to a sudden loss of money, Groves was forced to retire from Trinity College. Imme- diately afterwards he came to the conclusion that he could not take Holy Orders, as he held all war to be unlawful, and therefore could not subscribe to the 37th Article. He then thought of going out as a lay- missionary under the C.M.S., but he would not go unless the Society allowed him to administer the Lord's Supper, which they naturally declined to do. Suddenly, in the THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 255 midst of his perplexities, it was borne in upon him, as a sort of revelation from Heaven, that ordination was under any circumstances superfluous. Every believer was at liberty to minister as the Holy Spirit led him, without human authorization. So the second charac- teristic of Brethrenism was affixed to it, and before long " Open Ministry " became its test of the standing or falling Church. One of the persons on whom Groves's example pro- duced the greatest effect was John Gifford Bellett. He was born in Dublin in 1795, and he was called to the Irish Bar. He was a man of profoundly religious temperament, and was drawn to Groves by similarity of thought and feeling about serious topics. It was to him that Groves first communicated his conviction about the Breaking of Bread, and in 1828 he unfolded to him his doctrine of Open Ministry. These are Bellett's own words : Walking one day with him, as we were passing down Lower Pembroke Street, he said to me, " This I doubt not is the mind of God concerning us we should come together in all simplicity as disciples, not waiting on any pulpit or ministry, but trusting that the Lord would edify us together by ministering as He pleased and saw good from the midst of ourselves." At the moment he spoke these words, I was assured my soul had got the right idea. ... It was the birthday of my mind as a Brother. Bellett was the most important figure in the Brethren- ism of Dublin, for he lived there permanently, whereas Groves only paid occasional visits. He was a man not only of deepest piety, but of the most sincere humility, and he used in after-days to say, " If I deserve any credit, it is that 1 early discovered what there was in John Darby." And so we are introduced to " the extraordinary man who, more than all his associates 256 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH put together, stamped the whole movement with his personal impress, and to whom is due nearly all the interest with which it has been invested, whether for the general public, or for the philosophical enquirer." John Nelson Darby was born in 1800, and died in 1882. He was of purely Irish blood, but born in London and educated at Westminster, from whence he went to Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Bar, but soon forsook it for Holy Orders, being- ordained to a curacy in Wicklow in 1825. He was a Puseyite before Pusey was heard of, and a Tractarian before the Tracts. In later years he wrote thus of his practice as a layman : " I fasted in Lent so as to be weak in body at the end of it ; ate no meat on week- days, nothing till evening on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, then a little bread, or nothing ; observed strictly the weekly fasts too. I went to my clergyman always, if I wished to take the Sacrament, that he might judge of the matter. I held Apostolic Succession fully, and the channels of Grace to be there only. I held then Luther and Calvin and their followers to be out- side. I was not their judge, but I left them to the uncovenanted mercies of God. I searched with earnest diligence into the evidences of Apostolic Succession in England, and just saved their validity for myself and my conscience. The union of Church and State I held to be Babylonish, that the Church ought to govern itself, and that she was in bondage, but was the Church." It is not easy, at this distance of time, to trace the gradual steps by which Darby departed from his early ecclesiasticism ; but it is certain that what chiefly disgusted him with the Established Church of Ireland was its unblushing Erastianism. Roman Catholic Emancipation was seen to be impending. The Archbishop of Dublin, Magee, delivered a charge denouncing Roman THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 257 Catholicism and claiming special protection and favour for the Established Church, on the ground that Romanism was opposed to the State, while the Established system was allied with it, or even subservient, to it. The clergy of Dublin followed suit, with a petition to Parliament in the same sense ; and Darby drew up and circulated a protest against their miserably low view of the Church and her claims. Bat this protest was of no avail. " The Establishment was everything with the church- men of that time, and the Church of God was nothing regarded." Meanwhile Darby laboured among the peasants of the Wicklow mountains with all the ardour of an apostle. " So ascetic was his life, so rigorous his self-denial, so unceasing his labours, that his Roman Catholic parishioners concluded that one of the old saints had risen again in his person." It was while he was serving this curacy that Darby became acquainted with F. W. Newman, then acting as tutor to some of Darby's nephews, and acquired an extraordinary though transient influence over that truly remarkable character. At the same time he imbibed, through his neighbour Lady Powerscourt, who had been an attendant at the Albury Conferences, some of Irving's theories about the interpretation of prophecy, and a strong conviction of the imminence of the Second Advent. From time to time he visited Dublin, where Bellett and some like-minded friends continued their private meetings for devotion of which we spoke above. It was at one of these that Darby for the first time joined in the Breaking of Bread in the winter of 1827-8. And in the latter year he resigned his curacy, though he did not forsake communion with the Church of Ireland till four or five years later. Time would fail to enumerate the names of all those with whom Darby was now associated. Edward Cronin 17 258 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH was a convert from Romanism, who could not join the Irish Church or any Protestant body because he objected to a Stated Ministry. John Parnell, afterwards second Lord Congleton, played an important part among the Brethren. He had transferred the religious gatherings in which Bread was broken from a private house to " a large auction-room in Aungier Street," Dublin, and by 1830 this meeting had become the recognized centre of the movement. " Brethrenism was indeed formed out of a variety of little meetings of more or less similar character, . . . but its history cannot be truly told without locating its original force in Dublin and in Aungier Street." 1830 may be taken as the year from which Brethrenism, as a permanent institution, dates. On that narrow stage there are few of the tendencies of universal Church history that have not been illustrated, and not many of its movements that have not been re-enacted in little. The Brethren sought to effect a fresh start without authority, precedent, or guidance beyond the letter of Holy Scripture. For them, essentially, the garnered experience of eighteen Christian centuries was as though it were not. Such an experiment in the hands of eminent men could scarcely fail to yield a considerable harvest of interest and instruction ; and it has actually shed, if I mistake not, a flood of light on many of the obscurities and incredibilities of the history of the Church. The sound of Brethrenism soon went forth into all lands. Groves carried the work to India, Miiller to Germany, Darby to the Canton de Vaud. Twenty years later Darby was organizing the Brethren in Germany. In 1871 he undertook a mission to Italy. In 1872 he was in the United States. In 1877 he made a descent upon New Zealand ; and in 1878 he was hard at work at Pau. However the honours of Foundership may be assigned, there can be no question about the dominant figure when we enter the period of expansion. THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 259 One figure stands out unmistakeably ; at times it fills the canvas. Brethrenism was destined to exercise a world-wide influence ; to establish itself as a force to be reckoned with in every corner of Christendom ; to give rise to a most voluminous literature ; and to establish, we may surely say, a strong prima fade claim to be heard at the bar of history for a long time to come. These destinies lay in the hand of one man. He had helpers of mark ; and there were in- dependent workers among the Brethren Miiller, Groves, Tregelles, and others who achieved great results in other lines of activity. But the maker of Brethrenism as a system its guiding and energizing spirit throughout, was John Nelson Darby. In the grandeur of his conceptions, in the irresistible vehemence of his will, in his consummate strategical instinct, in his genius for administration, and most of all in his immense personal ascendency, he stands unrivalled amongst the Brethren. His energy was stupendous. He was working for Brethreuism before he was thirty, and when he was eighty he was working as hard as ever ; nor had he been known to relax his efforts efforts put forth to the full measure of his great strength, and often beyond it during the whole of the intervening time. The theory of Brethrenism, so far as it can be stated in words, is that the Church of God is the aggregate of all believers in Christ, and a local meeting of those believers is the local Church. " Their meeting in any place is the sole ' expression ' of the Church of God there. It is Divinely recognized. Nothing else is. It is graced by the promised presence of the Lord to two or three gathered in His Name ; and no other congregation, however scriptural or godly, can have ' the Lord in their midst,' according to the terms of the promise." The proceedings of the Meeting were austerely simple. The place of assembly was a barn or a stable, or a plainly-furnished room in a private house or public hall. No order of ministry was tolerated. Each one there might speak as the Spirit led him. No prepared utterances were acceptable. It was even thought better that a frequent speaker should 260 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH not speak habitually from the same part of the room, lest a semblance of officialdom or clericalism should mar the absolute equality of Christian membership. " The Brethren had the disciplinary power of the Church committed to them, because they only met on Scriptural ground. Any person on whom they pronounced sentence of excommunication was by that act cast forth from the Church of God on earth." The religious system which Darby thus consolidated is on the whole the most purely spiritual which exists in the world. It is true that it retains two sacramental observances, the Breaking of Bread, and Baptism by Immersion of believing adults, and in that respect Quakerism, which rejects all outward signs, may claim an even more purely spiritual character. But against this must be set the fact that Quakers are as a rule actively employed in secular pursuits, trades, manu- factures, and money-makings of various kinds, and are also keen politicians and energetic citizens. All such trafficking with the world is abhorrent to Brethrenism. The iron necessity of living compels the poorer brethren to follow trades or handicrafts ; but the number of professions in which they may engage is extremely limited. A " Brother " must not be a soldier or sailor, or a lawyer or judge or magistrate. He will not sit in Parliament, or take any part in political or civil life. The Brethren will not go to law, however grossly they may have been wronged ; and it is regarded as a sign of imperfect spirituality to look at a secular newspaper. In a word, separation from the world is carried out more consistently by the Brethren than by any set of people, except monks, with whom I am acquainted. And the Brethren have one supreme merit, that of self-denying liberality. They " give them- selves poor." Many deny themselves every luxury, and THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 261 even what some would call necessaries. Lord Congleton would not have carpets in his rooms, and spent his whole income in charity. " The Brethren entirely keep their own poor " ; and a Brother in distress has an inde- feasible claim upon the purse of a Brother who is better off. The claims of " Brethren " are regarded as far more pressing than those of one's own family, if the family happens to be outside Brethrenism. A Brother well known to the present writer used to say, "When I have clothed my children, and fed them, and punished them, I have done all that duty requires of me." As to the theology of Brethrenism, it is not easy to speak positively in the absence of an authorized confession of faith. But John Nelson Darby was intensely and scrupulously orthodox about the central verities, and his orthodoxy produced a memorable schism in the body. About the year 1845 Mr. Benjamin Wills Newton, one of the early leaders of the movement, was the centre of a very influential meeting at Plymouth. He was an able and an amiable man, but not a trained theologian ; and he had puzzled himself by trying to interpret prophecy, and was led into some erroneous views about the Person of our Lord. Darby instantly excommunicated Newton, delivered him over to Satan, and called on all the Brethren throughout the world to save themselves from this contamination. But there was one who would not obey. This was George Miiller, founder of " Bethesda," the famous and faith-supported Orphanage at Bristol. Miiller was not, any more than Newton, a conscious or willing heretic ; but he had none of Darby's theological instinct. He could not see the vital defect of Newton's teaching, and he declined to join in the exclusive policy enjoined by Darby. He admitted to the Lord's Table all 262 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Brethren who chose to present themselves, whether they repudiated Newton or not. Darby, on the other hand, declined communion with all and sundry who either followed Newton's teaching, or even stood neutral like Miiller. In later years he wrote : " I reject Bethesda as wickedness, as I ever did when the blasphemous doctrine of Mr. Newton came out. Bethesda deliberately nurtured and accredited it. It is all one to me if it is a Baptist Church, or anything else. It has been untrue to Christ, and no persuasion, with the help of God, will ever lead me a step nearer to it." The schism produced two separate bodies, the Open Brethren, who followed Newton and Mtiller, and the Exclusives, who clung to Darby. The depth of the division which sundered them can hardly be understood by those who stand aloof from the quarrel. A man and his wife lived on a farm in the far west of America, a hundred miles from any other Brethren : the wife followed Darby ; her husband denied his authority ; and from that moment they could no longer " break Bread " together. An " Exclusive " declined all intercourse with has own mother, because she had broken Bread with a rebellious Brother. The Exclusives would not willingly shalfce hands with an Open Brother. They regarded marriage outside their own ranks as blameworthy ; and anyone who with- drew from them " would be pretty sure to lose all his friends at a stroke." Notwithstanding this intense and watchful system of discipline, and his own transcendent power of will, Darby lived long enough to see his authority under- mined. Schism proved to be, as ever, fissiparous, and both the Exclusives and the Open Brethren were gradually broken up into further subdivisions. The Open Brethren have long been divided into Miillerites THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 263 and Newtonians ; and now the Exclusives fall asunder into Darbyites, Kellyites, and Cluffites. Darby himself never bated a jot of his high pretensions. As years went on he developed ever stronger and stronger claims for his own following. Those who agreed with him were the Church on earth. Those who disagreed on any point of doctrine or even of management, he ex- communicated, and placed outside the covenanted mercies of God. As long as his strong personality survived, he maintained a semblance of unity among his followers; on his demise the whole edifice which he had reared with such untiring labour and such consummate skill broke up in unsightly ruin. But in spite, or perhaps because, of all these tragedies and failures, Brethrenism will always have a peculiar fascination for those who revere an austere unworldliness and a life absolutely consistent with its theory. THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE" 1 On the 3rd inst., at The Grange, Albury, Guildford, Francis Valentine Woodhouse, barrister-at-law, in his ninety-sixth year. THIS announcement, which appeared in the list of deaths in the newspapers of February 7, 1901, conveyed very little to the general world, but very much to a small body of earnest Christians. They call themselves the Adherents of a Restored Apostolate, but other people call them Irvingites. The biographical genius of Mrs. Oliphant has made us familiar with the tragedy of Edward Irving's life and death, and we know that he was not the founder, nor the organizer, nor the ruler, of the community which has, unhistorically, been called by his name. But that it should have been so called is not wonderful. He was incomparably the most majestic and the most attractive figure connected with it. His keen spirituality, his heroic faith, his magical eloquence, would have made him a chief orna- ment of any Church which he served. And yet, in the strange scheme of his life, it was ordered that he should be only a herald and a forerunner a preparer of the way for a movement which he did not control, an adherent of a spiritual oligarchy in which he had no place. Of that oligarchy the venerable man who died last week at Albury was the last survivor ; and his death seems a suitable occasion for a brief review of 1 The Pilot, 1901. 264 THE " RESTORED APOSTOLATE " 265 that mysterious movement with which his long life had been associated. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century there was a remarkable revival of religious earnestness both inside and outside the Church of England. Mr. Glad- stone has left it on record that, in the opinion of con- temporary observers, such as Archbishop Howley and Thomas Grenville, this revival was due to a reaction from the horrors and impieties of the French Revolu- tion in its later stages. Space would not allow me to enter into all the forms in which the revival manifested itself ; the one which most concerns my present purpose was the increased attention bestowed on the study and interpretation of sacred prophecy. One of the persons most deeply interested in prophetical research was Mr. Henry Drummond (1786-1860), banker and M.P. ; and he gathered round him a company of Biblical students like-minded with himself. The first of these Prophetical Conferences was held at his house at Albury, in Advent, 1826, and the same gathering was repeated annually for five years. Forty-four people in all took part in these conferences, of whom nineteen were English clergy- men, three were Dissenting ministers, four were ministers of the Scotch Kirk, eleven were lay-members of the Church of England, and seven were laymen of various denominations. The tone of the whole gathering was intensely evangelical. Edward Irving was one of the party, and has left a graphic account of the gathering and of the methods of discussion. The general con- clusions at which the conference arrived may be sum- marized thus : The Christian Dispensation was shortly to be terminated by Divine judgments, ending in the destruction of the visible Church and polity. These judgments were to be succeeded by that period of universal blessedness which is called the Millennium, 266 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH A great period of 1,260 years commenced in the reign of Justinian, and terminated at the French Revolution ; and the vials of the Apocalypse began then to be poured out. Our Blessed Lord will shortly appear, and therefore it is the duty of all who so believe to press these considerations on the attention of all men. The last of the Prophetical Conferences was held in July, 1830. The Reform Bill, the cholera, and the Revolution in Paris were regarded as heralding the end of the world. Men's hearts were failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that were coming on the earth. It was agreed at Albury that the end was at hand ; that it was a duty to pray for the revival of the miraculous gifts manifested in the primitive Church ; " and that a responsibility lies on us to enquire into the state of those gifts said to be now present in the West of Scotland." The West of Scotland had been the birthplace of Edward Irving (1792-1834). He was educated for the ministry of the Scotch Kirk, and acted as assistant to Dr. Chalmers at Glasgow. In 1822 he was ordained to the charge of the Caledonian Church in London, then situate in Hatton Garden, but transferred in 1827 to Regent Square. The enormous popularity of his preaching, and the deep impression which he made on the religious, and even the fashionable, world of London, have been so often and so fully described that I need not enter into particulars. But it is interesting, and characteristic of the man, that at the zenith of his fame he kept himself in close touch with his Scottish home ; and it was thus that he heard the first rumours of what the Seers at Albury cautiously described as " those gifts said to be now present in the West of Scotland." Among the devout souls who had been led, by con? THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE " 267 templating the signs of the times, to expect a renewal of the extraordinary gifts of the Early Church were some working folk on the banks of the Clyde, at and near Port Glasgow. In 1830 some of these folk found themselves suddenly cured of long-standing illnesses ; some burst out into unintelligible speech. It seemed plain that the gifts of healing and of tongues had been revived, and the hearts of the faithful were made glad. The matter was brought before the last Conference at Albury, with the result which we saw above ; and in the following September a deputation, consisting of Mr. Cardale, a London solicitor, Dr. Thompson, a physician, and four friends, went to Scotland to investigate the occurrences. They came back persuaded that the gifts were genuine. Irving embraced the same belief with characteristic enthusiasm ; and, in obedience to what he believed to be the Divine Will, he permitted men and women to interrupt the stated services of his church by speaking in unknown tongues and by prophesying in English. For this breach of the order of the Scotch Kirk Irving was deprived of his charge ; and he and those who adhered to him, being evicted from the church in Regent Square, established themselves in a room in Gray's Inn Road, where Robert Owen, the Socialist, had been accustomed to lecture ; and from there removed to a disused picture-gallery in Newman Street, which was fitted up as a church. Henceforward the believers in the supernatural gifts had a corporate life, a local habitation, and a name. Of course, prophecy and speak- ing in tongues went on incessantly in this new congrega- tion, and prayer was continually offered that further developments of supernatural grace might be vouchsafed. Soon the prophetic voices began to intimate that God would shortly send forth Apostles to guide this revived 268 life of the Church. In the autumn of 1832, when Mr. Cardale was praying in the congregation for an out- pouring of the Spirit, " there came a word of prophecy announcing that God had called him to be an Apostle, and to convey His holy unction." The announcement was received with absolute faith and submission. Next day Irving, as the presiding minister, publicly recognized this call, and the Church learned that the Apostolate had been restored. Mr. Cardale was not long left in solitude. The mystic Twelve were soon, under prophetic direction, completed. One had received the call and declined to act on it ; but, after his place had been filled by another, the Twelve were constituted as follows : 1. J. Cardale, solicitor. 2. H. Drurnmond, banker. 3. N. Armstrong, Irish clergyman. 4. H. Dalton, English clergyman. 5. S. Perceval, ex-M.P. 6. T. Carlyle, Scottish advocate. 7. F. Sitwell, country gentleman. 8. W. Dow, Presbyterian minister. 9. J. Tudor, scholar and expositor. 10. H. King, Civil Servant. 11. D. Mackenzie, chemist. 12. F. Woodhouse, barrister. The twelfth was the youngest. Mr. Francis Valentine Woodhouse was born February 14, 1805 ; educated at Exeter College, Oxford (M.A. 1829) ; called to the Bar at the Inner Temple 1829 ; became an Apostle 1834 ; died 1901. It will be observed that Irving, the forerunner, never attained to the Apostolate ; but he was ordained ( ' Angel " or Bishop over the Church in Newman Street, He died in December, 1834 ; and the guidance of the movement which has been associated with his name was left to other and very different hands. The Apostolic College being now complete, the Apostles were " separated" for their great work on July 14, 1835. This separation was not ordination. The Apostles were held to have been ordained by the great Head of the Church Himself, without the intervention of any human agency, and the " Separation " was merely the formal recognition by the assembled Church of its divinely- appointed rulers. Of the work entrusted to the restored Apostolate, the loftiest views were entertained. The theory was that the four-and-twenty seats in heaven belonged to the Twelve Apostles who attended our Lord at the begin- ning of the Christian Dispensation, and .the Twelve whom He raised up at its close. The original Twelve could not transmit their Apostolic powers, though they could transmit the other forms of ministry, including the episcopate. Apostles were made by God alone ; and when the last of the original Twelve departed, the Church was left without Apostles till God raised them up again in 1832. The duty of the Restored Apostolate was to rule the whole Catholic Church ; to heal its schisms ; to teach it with authority ; to prepare the world for the Second Coming ; and to present the Church to the Lord when He should appear in glory. Immediately after their Separation, the Apostles spent a year in retirement at Albury, praying, studying, and laying down the lines on which their great mission was to proceed. At the end of that period they drew up two Solemn Testimonies, the one addressed to the King and the Privy Council, the other to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and the Bishops. These were personally delivered by the Apostles or their emissaries 270 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH to the persons directly concerned. It is said that when these emissaries arrived at Holland House, in order to deliver the Testimony to Lord Holland, then a Cabinet Minister, Lady Holland stationed the servant outside his door with instructions to run in if he heard his lordship scream. Bishop Wilberforce, when Rector of Brightstone, received a visit from one of the emissaries, who came to announce the great tidings of restoration. I kept him entirely to one point his commission to come at all saying that, if would he satisfy me there, of course I would receive, or, at least, most earnestly weigh, his message. I called on him to show an ordinary, or the signs of an extraordinary, commission. Of course, he could do neither. It is a very painful sight to witness so strong a deceit. But a larger scheme was on foot. The two smaller Testimonies were amalgamated in a " Great Testimony," addressed "to the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and others in places of chief rule over the Church of Christ throughout the earth, and to the Emperors, Kings, Sovereign Princes, and Chief Governors over the nations of the Baptized." This document, of por- tentous length, sets forth the evils of the time, the decay of faith, the shattered and enfeebled condition of the Church, the nearness of the Second Advent, and the necessity of being reunited to God through the medium of the Restored Apostolate and a fourfold ministry of Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, ordained by Apostles. The last notes of the knell of this world's dispensation are pealing the world passes away, and the things of the world ; the only hope is that which hath ever been the hope of the Church, to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so to be ever with Him, saved from the snare of the tempta- tions and the great tribulations which are coming upon the earth. THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE" 271 This document was printed in English, French, German, and Latin. Each Apostle had a district of Christendom assigned to him ; and ten of them, ac- companied by subordinate ministers, went out in 1838 to all the principal cities of Europe and America, delivering the Testimony, proclaiming the restoration of the Apostolate, and imploring men to escape from the wrath to come. It is not easy to picture the astonishment of the Papal Hierarchy when three English gentlemen, to all appearance lay-folk, with whiskers and satin stocks and frock-coats, arrived at the Vatican, and announced that they were commissioned by God to rule the Pope and his patriarchate as parts of that Universal Church over which they had received supreme authority direct from Christ Himself. Surely they must have said that the religious eccentricity of the English was never more conspicuously displayed. By Christmas, 1838, the Twelve had returned from their Apostolic wanderings, and were gathered at Albury, where was the "Apostles' Chapel" and the seat of (Ecumenical government. Though they had not suc- ceeded in converting the Pope or the Emperor of Austria or King Louis Philippe, their journeyings were not without result. They had seen, for the first time, the Divine wisdom of the Sacramental System, and the beauty of Catholic worship. In brief, they went out Puritans, and they came back Ritualists. The change in their devotional temper resulted in the com- pilation of the " Liturgy, and other Divine Offices of the Church." This book is believed to have been the handiwork of Mr. Cardale, but it was adopted by the Apostolic College, and is the authorized manual of worship for the " adherents of the Restored Aposto- late." It is long, copious, and elaborate; providing devotions for every act and contingency of life (though 272 none for burial), and profoundly pervaded by the Sacramental idea. The office of the Holy Eucharist is founded on the Eastern liturgies, with a taste of the First Book of Edward VI., and a large admix- ture of devotions peculiar to believers in the Restored Apostolate. The book is throughout disfigured by long- winded exhortations, fashioned on the model of " Dearly beloved," and dealing with the fallen and decayed state of the Church, and the nearness of the Second Advent. I have not room to trace the development of liturgical worship among the " Adherents." It must suffice to say that, under Apostolic guidance, a body composed of Evangelicals, Presbyterians, and Dissenters came gradually to accept a Fourfold Ministry, Seven Sacraments, the Heal Presence, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, Perpetual Reservation, and a worship embellished with vestments, lights, incense, and holy water. That such a revolution should have been effected without serious resistance in a community profoundly Protestant by origin is regarded by believers as one of the strongest proofs that the Apostolic powers were genuine. At least it was a remarkable triumph of strong wills and tactful administration. I spoke just now of " Seven Sacraments," including, in that term of the Sacramental Ordinances ; but before long the Church found itself possessed of what may, without offence, be called an Eighth Sacrament, and this eighth is the characteristic practice of the community, as the imminence of the Second (Advent is its characteristic belief. In 1847 the Apostles decided that, in order to escape the Great Tribulation and to be numbered with the 144,000 who are redeemed from the earth, it is necessary to be " sealed." To " seal " was the exclusive function of the Apostle. No inferior minister could perform the rite. A form of administering it THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE " 273 was drawn up, and the first sealings were performed by Mr. Cardale on May 31, 1847. The act consists in crossing on the forehead with consecrated chrism. It conveys the gift of the Holy Ghost, and seals the recipient unto eternal life. The adherents of the Restored Apostolate had be- lieved that the Twelve would remain intact until the Lord's return. They were not daunted by the deser- tion of one ; for his place, as we have already seen, had been filled. They were not daunted by the refusal of another to continue his Apostolic work. There still were Twelve Apostles left alive and the Lord's return was at hand. At Christmas, 1853, the splendid charch in Gordon Square was opened, and a dentist was made Angel of it a curious conjunction of ideas. But trouble was at hand. In 1855 three of the Apostles died Mackenzie, Carlyle, and Dow. It was evident, at any rate, that the Twelve were not to await intact the Lord's Coming. Perceval died in 1859 and Drummond in 1860, Tudor in 1862, Sit well and King in 1865. Dalton died in 1871, Cardale in 1877, Armstrong in 1879. And now one only was left alive. As the Apostolic College diminished, the imminence of the Second Advent was more and strenuously proclaimed. The signs of the times were considered to point unmistakably to the approaching end, and a close comparison of dates led to a definite conclusion. On July 14, 1875, the fortieth anniversary of the Separation of the Apostles, a thousand communicants assembled in the church in Gordon Square, expecting the Lord to return that day ; and again and again, before that date and since, expectations, equally well founded, have been equally disappointed. In 1885 the venerable Mr. Woodhouse, sole survivor of the Twelve, added a postscript to his " Narrative of 18 274 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Events," which had long been the authoritative history of the movement. In that postscript he admitted, with simple pathos, the discouragement of the faithful, who saw the Apostolic College now reduced to a single member of advanced age, and the Second Advent still delayed. But the faith of the Church, he said, was sustained by two texts : " Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth," and " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? " And now he, too, is gone. The supreme disappointment has befallen the believers. The last Apostle is removed ; Christendom is not reunited ; and the Lord has not returned. We need not suppose that the adherents will renounce their beliefs, or abandon their worship. They believe that they have an Episcopal Succession, transmitted from the Apostles through the Angels, and this will suffice for the daily needs of the faithful. But the Apostles as such can have no successors. The Catholic Church is once again without rulers. " Sealing " can no longer be administered, and the Great Tribulation must overtake us unprepared. A MODEKN MIRACLE 1 LET me hasten to say that this is not a theological discourse. My title is none too strong for the phenomenon which it describes ; but it is only of the social and secular aspects of that phenomenon that I am going to write. I have no taste for theological discussion in a daily paper, and therefore I shall leave out of sight some of Mr. Dolling's most vivid chapters, 2 such as " Our Saints," " Our Battles Ecclesiastical," " Our Method of Services," " Our Method of Religion," and shall confine myself strictly to those which narrate his moral and material reforms., And first a word of the Reformer himself. Mr. Dolling is a man about forty-five years old, in appearance curiously unlike the lean ascetic that pious imagination may have pictured ; robustly strong, passionately in love with the work of social reform, and richly endowed with the saving gift of humour. He is an Irishman by birth. After leaving Harrow he worked for some years as a land-agent in Ireland. Then he came up to London, and took part, as a layman, in religious and social work connected with St. Alban's, Holborn. Subsequently he was ordained without a degree, and after two years in a country 1 The Daily Chronicle, 1896. 1 " Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum." By Robert R Dolling, late Priest-in-Charge of St. Agatha's, Landport (Winchester College Mission). ,275 276 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH curacy he was requested, in 1885, to succeed Dr. Linklater in charge of the Mission which is maintained by members of Winchester College in the district of Portsmouth called Landport. The district contained six thousand souls. The wages of the majority of the people in regular employment were so small that they lived in continuous poverty. The larger part had no settled wages at all, many of them being hawkers, greengrocers with a capital of five shillings, window-cleaners in a district where no one wanted their windows cleaned, old pensioners past work with a shilling or eighteenpence a day, sailors' wives with three or four children living upon 2 a month, and soldiers' wives married " off the strength " with no pay at all. One week's sickness of the bread-winners meant a fortnight's living upon the pawning of clothes and furniture, with nothing before them but the workhouse, " and death sooner than that." Two notes [says Mr. Dolling] were always making them- selves heard : one was the poverty, the other was the sin. And surely they explained each other; they were sinful, as a rule, because they were poor. Boys stole because stealing seemed to them the only method of living ; men were drunken because their stomachs were empty and the public-house was the only cheerful place of entertainment, the only home of good fellowship and kindliness ; girls sinned because their mothers had sinned before them, oftentimes their grand- mothers too, unconscious of any shame in it, regarding it as a necessary circumstance of life, if they were to live at all. And to cope with all this festering mass of evil, what had been done by the official Church, as distinguished from the purely voluntary efforts of Winchester College? Let Mr. Dolling answer. " Literally nothing. The enormous mother-parish of All Saints had its twenty-seven thousand parishioners, one church, one A MODERN MIRACLE 27? vicar, one curate " and for the special needs of Land- port the Church seems to have made no provision whatever. The zealous piety of the Winchester boys and masters made the first attempt to supply this lack, and the work was excellently initiated by Dr. Linklater, who administered the Mission for three years from its foundation. It is, however, the work as developed by his successor that the book before us describes, and it therefore is of that only that I can speak. Having said that I would eschew theology, I must leave on one side the strictly religious agencies which Mr. Dolling employed, and the auxiliary efforts of earnest Dissenters. The limits of space do not allow me to describe in detail those more familiar methods of social reform the Day-School, the Sunday-School, the Orphan- age, the Penitentiary on all of which Mr. Dolling writes with excellent sense and a large-hearted Liberal- ism, having a good word to say even for the anathe- matized Board-Schools. I must concentrate my attention on three or four agencies which seem to bear, in a special sense, the impress of Mr. Dolling's vigorous and genial personality. First among these, as it seems to have come first in order of time, I must place the Gymnasium. One of Mr. Dolling's earliest acts was to buy a building which had been a Baptist Chapel, with a gallery all round, square pews, three-decker pulpit, a font for immersions, and two dead ministers buried in the middle ! With its appurtenances this chapel cost over 3,000, and " I had not a penny of money." But the money was begged or borrowed, the chapel was converted, the boys' clubs were turned into it, and it started on its new career as a gymnasium, the gallery being used for music, games, and bagatelle. The rules were the simplest " no gambling, no bad language, no losing of temper, no annoying anybody 278 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH else." These four rules have stood the test of ten years' work among the roughest and the rowdiest, and have come out triumphant. But at first it was not peace. The instructors were lassoed, arms and legs bound, and lashed to the gymnasium-ladder; spread-eagled on the vaulting-horse; or, with a noose under their armpits, run up to the ceiling. Mattresses were ripped up, pianos knocked to bits, bagatelle- tables used as points of vantage from which opposing forces sprang at one another. And yet [says Mr. Dolling] there rises before me the vision of a use in that gymnasium, as the chief centre of reformation in the parish ; a vision of lads who, amidst all this disorder for the disorder arose merely from episodes of high spirits or weak management gained their first lessons of self- restraint and bodily, and even mental, development ; weak, sickly lads coming to us (illness not always the cause of their weakness), now healthy and strong ; bad-tempered, sullen brutes licked into shape ; boys learning the priceless benefit of wholesome play ; mean, unambitious people quivering with the passion of desire to achieve success. How often the lad, just needing the inch to become a soldier, has won it by continuous use of our ladders ; how often the lad, needing an inch in chest-measurement, has won it by the use of our dumb-bells, many a smart regiment, many a gallant ship, could testify to-day. How many it has won from the awful fascination of the public-house, from the vulgarity and worse of the sing-song room, from the delirium of gambling, from hideous forms of sin, impossible for those who desire to achieve a wholesome mind in a wholesome body ! From all parts of the world, strong, healthy, self-respecting men bless and praise God for the old gymnasium in Clarence Street. And next we must say a word of the Girls' Social Club. This had been started by Dr. Linklater, and did a world of good in giving the factory-girls, amidst the swarming temptations of a seaport and a garrison, a place of safe, comfortable, and wholesome resort after A MODERN MIRACLE 27D working hours ; and in leading them on, through self- respect and self-help, to self-denial and the joy of helping others. I can never tell what I owe to my elder girls, everyone helping a circle of younger girls. It would be impossible to measure the love which binds these girls together love which proves itself in the highest acts of self-denial. I have known, when there was little doing at the factory, a girl lending another her good bonnet and jacket to come to church in on Sunday, she coming in her week-day one. I have known, when another girl was sick, three of them arranging to surrender their night's rest, that the sick girl might have someone with her at night, though the illness lasted over six weeks. I have known a girl going with Miss D. into the worst streets, the worst houses, looking for one who had gone astray. This spirit has spread even amongst the younger girls, and with it a spirit of self- respect. . . . Wherever we go, their hosts always remark the same things their naturalness and refinement. But, excellent as all this was, Mr. Dolling, who is frankly human, seems to have felt that there was something lacking. There were good clubs for the boys, and good clubs for the girls ; but no common meeting- ground for both no provision, in short, for the social instinct of humanity. The boys and girls were constant in attendance at their respective clubs np to a certain age, and then they gradually disappeared. What had become of them ? They had begun to " keep company " to " walk out " with one another. With the whole day occupied by work, with overcrowded homes and no respectable places of social entertainment, all courting must perforce be done in evening walks, and more or less clandestinely. The moral results are too obvious to need stating. Turning the matter over in his mind, Mr. Dolling came to the eminently sensible conclusion that he was bound to supply these young people with what the circumstances of their lives withheld a recognized 280 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH opportunity of meeting and knowing each other. The first attempt was a " Social Evening," a kind of humble "At Home" in the gymnasium. But this proved very unsuccessful, beginning with shy awkward- ness, and ending in romps, kissing, and unedifying games. Then Mr. Dolling boldly resolved to introduce dancing. The girls had learned to dance in their own clubs. Mr. Dolling taught the boys ; and now the dancing class is one of the most highly valued of paro- chial institutions. Our blind organist presides at the piano. Nearly all the members are communicants. Everyone pays twopence, and we dance from eight till half -past ten p.m. It is extraordinary the difference which this has effected in the manners of our people. The dancing is, perhaps, a little more serious than at a ball in Belgravia, for "squares" are danced with a due attention to the figures. It has given one the most happy opportunity of enabling our boys and girls to meet naturally together, and I am more and more convinced by experience that one of the great causes of sin, in places like ours, is this want. Many of our boys and girls have got engaged to be married through this dance, and, if any of them get engaged to a girl outside the parish, the dance gives them an excellent excuse to introduce her to us. It would be very difficult to say, " You must come and see my parson." It is very easy to say, " You must come and see my dancing class." Perhaps the most astonishing of all Mr. Dolling's experiments, and certainly one of the most successful, was his determination to keep open house for all and sundry. During the ten years I have been at the Mission we have never sent away from the door anyone whom we thought we could benefit. A lad is picked np starving in the streets, and is taken into the house as a free guest. Three months' food and exercise, and he is fit for the Royal Artillery. A MODERN MIRACLE 281 " It costs perhaps 5. Think of it 5 ; and a man made by it ! " A broken-down gentleman, after three years of aid and supervision, becomes a prosperous steward on the Australian line. Marines, footmen, clerks, tramps, clergymen, Irish landlords, ex-prisoners, ex- priests, ex-monks these are a few samples of Mr. Dolling's guests. They were received just as they came. No one but Mr. Dolling knew their names or circum- stances. The rules of the house were simplicity itself to be punctual at meals, not to annoy the other in- mates, and always to be in by a quarter past ten at night. Vulgarity, ill- manners, or horse-play would have made a home like ours insupportable, and I think by degrees we all learned tenderness and forbearance with one another. I suppose this is the best test of being what is called " gentlemen." All ate at a common table clergy, lay-helpers, visitors from London or Winchester, and the waifs of the Portsmouth slums. Anyone who remembers the aspect and bearing of that apostolic but fastidious man the late Bishop Thorold, can picture his expression when his host told him one morning that the two com- panions he had chosen to sit by at supper last night when he stayed at the Mission-House were both experienced thieves. One had been in gaol three times, the other twice the former a clergyman's son, the latter one of those curious instances in which the lowest surroundings had not been able to obliterate signs of a better heredity. The Bishop found them very pleasant, and when I told him what I knew about them he could hardly believe it was possible. The housekeeper had to cook for an average of eighteen every day, with dinner and tea for more than forty on Sunday. And, as to the results of this undiscriminating 282 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH hospitality, we read of puny boys reared to manhood, and invalids coaxed back to health and bread-winning ; anaemic faces growing ruddy, gloomy faces growing gay. And as to moral results : What a school for learning truths about humanity ! With knife and fork in hand, all men are at ease together. . . . Over and over again I have seen the look of polite horror and disdain passing out of some cultured face, as the owner dis- covered that the shoeblack next him was quite as intelligent as himself. And then the splendid discipline of it all that power of banter so cleansing for the priggish that power of laughter so health-giving to the morose chasing away the frown of set purpose fixed on the face. Eight years of that common dining-table cost enormous sums of money, and entailed continuous outpouring of strength and tact ; but I doubt if, in all England, money has been better spent and strength better expended. AB no one was refused at the door, so no one was expelled except for a very sufficient cause. " We kept them as long as we saw any chance of doing them good." The inmates stayed, in short, until they had found some work to do, and were provided for elsewhere. In many cases the experiment turned out splendidly ; sometimes, of course, it failed, drink and thieving being the two mischiefs most difficult to eradicate. But [says this patient reformer] I don't think that even when we failed altogether with a man we were disappointed. How could we in a few months hope to set right what many years had made wrong ? I am tempted to prolong this study in unconventional methods of philanthropy ; I am even more powerfully tempted to follow Mr. Dolling in what evidently lies nearest his heart that purely spiritual work to which all this social effort is merely ancillary. But it is time to leave methods and ask about results. What Landport was fifteen years ago may be gathered from preceding A MODERN MIRACLE 283 paragraphs may be learned in full from this fascinating book. To-day Mr. Dolling can say : We have lost the outward and visible signs of slumdom. Poverty, of course, remains it always will. But utter hopelessness and callous depravity have, in a large measure, passed away, not merely from our people, but from our very streets. Again : In the last six years, I do not think we have had one marriage amongst our people for which we have cause to feel shame. Again : I hand over to the Bishop of Winchester all necessary plant for the future of St. Agatha's church -schools, mission- house, parsonage, gymnasium, clubs, almshouses which the generosity of Wykehamists and my own friends has enabled me to build for the Church of England. I hand him over a parish with a communicants' roll of 441 so united that for ten years there has never been a difference amongst us. It is to be observed that these results, as well as all the social and philanthropic work which I have already indicated, have been produced by voluntary effort. Mr. Dolling tells us that when he was appointed to Landport he was the poorest man in England. We read of bis pawning his watch to get a night's lodging, and selling his books to meet a parochial emergency. The endow- ment of the Mission is nominal. The demands are infinite. Everything has been done by begging. " I calculate," says Mr. Dolling, " that I have devoted one day out of every week that I spent at Portsmouth to this work alone" and to such good purpose that in ten years 50,000 has been raised for the service, sacred and secular, of the Mission-district. Even if moral and social results were left out of sight, this one material fact such a sum raised, in such a time, by such methods, 2S4 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH for such an end would surely merit the title of a Modern Miracle. Much more amazing than any help from outside, though that in its way is remarkable enough, is the amount raised in Landport itself. In a district which does not contain one wealthy resident, where no one keeps a servant, and where gold is an unknown quantity in the alms-bag, the collection on an ordinary Sunday averaged 4 with a considerable addition on great days and all in coppers, threepences, sixpences, and shillings. A Parochial Fund, maintained by the subscriptions of regular Communicants, amounted to 380 in four years. A special fund for the family of a scavenger who had been killed brought 123 ; another for the sufferers by the loss of the Victoria, 114, " the mothers giving up their treat that year." Surely Mr. Dolling deserves to be reckoned with the " sturdy beggars " of old time ; but, sturdy though he is, he leaves Landport with a burden of 2,000 debt upon his shoulders. Till that burden is paid off he is not a free man. Perhaps some social reformer who reads this paper will give him a helping hand. I said at the outset that I would forbear all theological discussion. This is not the place to weigh the merits of side-altars, adapted services, and Masses for the Dead. Whether Mr. Dolling was wisely handled by his diocesan is a question on which various opinions are possible ; but it is beyond all controversy that his work has enlarged God's kingdom on earth, and saved souls and bodies for which Christ died. His Mission has been, from first to last, a triumph of the voluntary principle. It has owed singularly little to Establishment or Endow- ment, to " Principalities and Powers." This ten years' work at Laudport adds its emphatic testimony to the truth which I am always striving, in season and out of season, to impress upon my fellow-Churchmen that, A MODERN MIRACLE 285 where the Church is least established, there she is most powerful for all spiritual, social, and humanitarian ends. Postscript. The Rev. Robert William Ratcliffe Doll- ing, after leaving Landport was left for two years without a parochial charge. He then was appointed by the present Bishop of Bloemfontein to the Vicarage of St. Saviour's, Poplar. He died on the 15th of May, 1902, in his fifty-second year, having worn away his life in the service of the outcast and the lost. Euge, serve bone et fidelis. CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS AND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS l (CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS. Those.two words make the keynote of my discourse. Both are essential to my purpose. Neither would set the tune aright without the other. If there are Christians who do not recognize social obligations well, they are no concern of ours ; to their own Master they stand or fall. And Socialists who are not Christians lack one to put it no higher of the most potent incentives to social service. I address myself, then, to-night to men whose faith, spiritual and social, I share to men who believe with all their heart and soul and mind and strength that our Lord Jesus Christ, being Very and Eternal GOD, is also Perfect Man ; that He is the King of all human life, secular as well as sacred ; and that our loyalty to Him, if it is a reality, must govern our conduct on week-days as well as on Sundays must regulate not only our churchman ship but also our citizenship, not only our worship but also our vote. The vote is, in the Scriptural sense, a " talent," for the right use of which we must one day render an account. Citizenship is a trust confided to us, not only or chiefly for our own advantage, but for the benefit of those who are least able to help themselves. We, as self-governing citizens ; as partners, in however small 1 A paper read before the Guild of St. Matthew, 1897. 286 THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 287 a degree, in this vast empire; as units, however in- significant, in the great community of London, we are trustees for those to whom misgovernment means, not mortified pride or stinted luxury, but pain and want and degradation and risk to their own lives and their children's souls. The non-Christian Socialist recognizes this as freely as we do, and we rejoice to meet him on this common ground. But the Christian Socialist knows that, in thus interpreting his civil duty, he is not merely yielding to the persuasions of humanity, but is also obeying the command and copying the example of a Master whom he believes to be Divine. Twenty years ago and more, I heard my friend Arthur Stanton, of St. Alban's, say, " I know no Radicalism except that which I sucked in from the breasts of the Gospel," and of his lay friend and fellow-worker, Theodore Talbot, that " young man of great possessions," who did so much for the social work of St. Albans, it was written in his Memoir : He had wonderful sympathy and love for the working man. He loved him for the sake of the Divine Workman of Nazareth. That was his Liberalism a pure, unselfish, dis- interested love of the poor and helpless. I have now said enough to indicate the spirit in which we should approach the coming elections in London, and I proceed to give my counsel a little more in detail. While setting out clearly the objects at which we ought to aim, I shall not attempt to distinguish very closely between one election and another School Board, County Council, Board of Guardians, or Vestry. I shall not offer the least suggestion about wire-pulling or vote- combining. I shall not meddle with any of those marvellous mystifications of electoral law by which the governing classes, having failed to rob the workman of his rights by violence, have endeavoured (as Burke 288 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH says) to " shuffle them from him by chicane." All such questions of tactics and management and electioneering method I leave to those whose official business it is to look after them. I speak only of the objects which, as Christian Socialists, we should seek lying, all of them, well within our scope and province as members of a municipality, and attainable through the agency of the various Local Bodies which within the next few months we must take part in electing. Believing, as we Christians -do, that Christ redeemed our bodies as well as our souls, and that human life is the most sacred thing in this world, we must place first and foremost among the objects to be aimed at the maintenance of the Public Health. Too often in times past even, to some extent, I fear, at the present public bodies have taken for their motto the sarcastic couplet from Clough's " New Decalogue " : Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive Officiously to keep alive. Well, our object must be exactly that " officiously to keep alive " ; and for the attainment of that end alike the County Council and the Vestries are armed with formidable powers, if only they choose to use them. Much of the sanitary neglect of the past has arisen from the fact that the Acts conferring these powers are generally permissive, and not compulsory. Gradually, as I rejoice to think, the London County Council is as- suming the position of a Ministry of Public Health, and in choosing our representatives upon it we should have careful regard to such questions as these : Will this candidate do what lies in his power towards securing an unlimited supply of pure water for the poor districts ? Will he vote for needful expenditure on great systems of main drainage ? Will he wage war on insanitary TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 289 dwellings, wherever he finds them and to whomsoever they belong ? This last is a question which may be most pertinently asked with reference to elections for the Vestry. I know not how the case stands now ; but, when I was officially connected with the Local Government Board, the Vestries of London were a black-and-white patchwork of bad and good ; and in the bad ones it was not uncommon to find the sanitary committee packed with owners of the most insanitary house-property. The question of the housing of the poor has, of course, its obvious bearing not only on health, but on morals. What chance is there for decency or self-respect where whole families, with children of different ages, are encamped together in a single room ? There is another department of effort in which the Vestry can powerfully serve the cause of public morality that is, by enforcing the Act of George II. against Disorderly Houses. These houses are often places not only of sin, but of crime, violence, cruelty, and robbery ; and something very like slavery is imposed on the wretched girls who live in them. It is for the Church to deal with the sm, but the crime lies well within the province of the secular authority, and it is our business to promote the election of such vestrymen as will, on information properly laid, exercise their legal powers to abate the nuisance. 1 I approach the subject of Education. Here our duty as Christian Socialists is as clear as daylight. We must endeavour to return those candidates who will do the most for the welfare, in the widest sense, of the children. The pitifullest and meanest outcry which can be 1 The foregoing remarks apply with equal force to the new Borough Councils. 19 290 uttered is the outcry of the well-to-do classes against the expenditure of the School Board. To put the issue in the vulgarest form, compare what, as a nation, we spend on drink with what we spend on education, and you will have good reason to be ashamed of our national housekeeping. Sixty years ago, Sydney Smith, preach- ing in St. Paul's Cathedral on the duty of public educa- tion, said : When I see the village school, and the tattered scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical art of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching that alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, insuring property, fencing the altar, guarding the throne, giving space and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him up to his own place in the order of creation. Those are not bad words for a dignitary of the Established Church in the year 1837, and we Churchmen may take a reasonable pride in the fact that, in the matter of public education, as in so many other spheres of secular beneficence, the Church has preceded and led the State. In the darkest days of a social exclusiveness the Church was the nursing mother of the poor scholar, and provided of her own free will that career for talent which is now secured by law. Bishop Butler, preaching in 1745 on behalf of the Charity Schools of London and Westminster, anticipated, and rebutted by anticipa- tion, the views of those who, a hundred and fifty years later, should selfishly oppose the demands of popular education. He speaks of the successive changes in the world, and shows how they make certain knowledge necessary which was not so formerly ; he urges the hard- ship of exclusion from such knowledge ; and he ridicules with characteristic satire the absurdity and selfishness of those who are " so extremely apprehensive of the danger that poor persons will make a perverse use of TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 291 even the least advantage, whilst they do not appear at all apprehensive of the like danger for themselves or their own children, in respect of riches or power, how much soever ; though the danger of perverting these advantages is surely as great, and the perversion itself of much greater and worse consequence." The same great man in the same great sermon says, with equal insight, " Of education, information itself is really the least part." Most certainly it is, and yet, the conditions of life for poor boys and girls being what they are, information is a very necessary part. The struggle for existence, the pressure of competition, the rivalry of foreign nations, make it imperatively neces- sary that, during the few years that these children are in our hands, we should supply them with such an outfit in the way of hard knowledge and definite accomplishment as will save them from being crushed to death in the struggle for self-support. This much must be secured ; and, concurrently with it, there must be the moral education which is supplied by order, discipline, and cleanliness ; the sense of membership of a body ; the encouragement of honest pride in good work ; some provision for the aesthetic sense ; some attempt to make good the inevitable shortcomings of the perhaps squalid home. If this is so, it means, of course, warm, healthy, and convenient schoolrooms ; it means something at least in the way of artistic decoration ; it means the cultiva- tion of music ; and, above all, it means a well-paid staff of teachers. No form of public meanness can be more suicidal than that of " sweating " the men and the women who are training the next generation of English citizens. And, for my own part, in choosing a candidate for the School Board, I would go a good deal further. Physical exercises, such as drill and swimming -the 292 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH training of the body as well as the intellect should form a part of any system of rational education. And this leads me to a further point Can all this work of body and mind be done on an empty stomach, or, at the best, a half-nourished frame ? One free meal a day in every elementary school is, as I conceive, positively due to ill-fed children whom we compel to learn ; and, if anyone is found to grumble at the cost, let him ask a Board-School teacher to describe the scraps of food on which, even in the depth of winter, so many of the children subsist ; let him compare them with the succession of meals which he deems essential for his own family and pray God to take away the heart of stone, and give him a heart of flesh. Information, then, as Bishop Butler said, is the least part of education. The greatest, I suppose, is the development of the child's natural power to its utmost extent and capacity ; and the duty of so developing it must, I think, be admitted by everyone who ponders our Lord's teaching about the buried talent, and the pound laid up in the napkin. Unless we enable and encourage every boy in England to bring whatever physical and mental gifts he has to the highest point of their possible perfection, we are shamefully and culpably squandering the treasure which God has given to England to be traded with and accounted for. And we have no one but ourselves to blame if, as a Nemesis on our neglect, we lose our present standing among the nations of the world. My ideal for National Education is the Golden Ladder, reaching from the elementary schools, by exhibitions, to the secondary schools, and from them again to the Universities. Only this very year, the highest mathematical honours of Cambridge are won by an ex-Board School boy. Let us not rest TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 293 till we can say to every little urchin raked in from Whiteehapel or Soho, "The road lies straight before you ; go and do likewise." I will not further labour this point, but will refer my hearers to the teaching of our forerunner in Christian Socialism Charles Kingsley, in "Alton Locke." I should, I suppose, hardly be doing what is expected of me to-night if I omitted from a discourse on our duty at the coming elections all reference to the religious question. For my own part I believe in the central dogmas of the Catholic Faith as confidently as I do in my own existence ; but I do not desire to see them taught at the expense of others who disbelieve in them ; and it is no comfort to me to be told that the balance is redressed by teaching false doctrine or " undogmatic religion " at my expense. Two iniquities do not, as some of my clerical friends seem to think, make one equity in this or in any other case ; and for my own part I consider that the State, comprising Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics, had better leave the teaching of religion to the voluntary agency of religious bodies. Let the State provide mental and physical training, and let it give all ministers of religion free access to the children, when and as their parents desire. Then the claims of dogma will be amply secured ; and they will be secured consistently with the equally sacred claims of justice and freedom. I approach now a department of my subject which I have purposely kept for the last, in order more especially to emphasize it, because, in a peculiar degree, it pertains to our belief and action as Christian Socialists I mean the elections to the Board of Guardians. When we passed the Parish Councils Act, as it was commonly called, I felt, and said, in Parliament and 294 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH on the platform, that the most important part of it, to my mind, was the reformation nay, rather the revolution which it effected in the mode of electing the Guardians of the Poor. Remember that before 1894 no one could be a guardian unless he had a certain property-qualification. The voter had a plural vote, greater or less according to the length of his purse ; and the election was by open voting on paper. It was impossible for a poor man to be a guardian, and almost impossible for any number of poor men to return the candidate of their choice. We reversed all that by a stroke of the pen. We made the poorest man in the parish equally eligible with the banker or the squire. We established the principle of " one man, one vote," and we gave the voter the protection of the ballot. Surely, with the aid of this reform, it ought to be possible for us Christian Socialists to bring the administration of the Poor Law into something like accordance with Christian charity. Our palpable and inexorable duty is to return such guardians as will distinguish between deserved poverty and undeserved poverty. For deserved poverty the poverty which comes of idleness, drunkenness, thriftless- ness, rascality the workhouse is the proper place. For undeserved poverty the poverty which overtakes honest, industrious, sober old people, through years and sickness and the loss of children provision should be made at home. When a man has done his level best all through a long life to serve his day and generation in his calling as a labourer or an artizan, I submit that he is as much entitled to public assistance in his old age and de- crepitude as the soldier, the sailor, the policeman, or the Civil Servant. And till Parliament gives us some rational system of old-age pensions, carefully dis- tinguishing between deserving and undeserving cases, TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 295 Christian charity demands a much more liberal use of out-door relief. Men who, like myself, were undergraduates at Oxford in 1875 will never forget a University sermon by Dr. Pusey on " Christianity without the Cross a Corruption of the Gospel." It had been suggested by a book, just then widely popular among undergraduates, called " Modern Christianity a Civilized Heathenism," and the great Doctor spoke of the duty of the rich to the poor in a passage which I might not have ventured to write, but which I will venture to quote : What shall we have to say to our Lord when He comes down to be our Judge when we shall behold Him whom by our sins we have pierced ? " True, Lord, I denied myself nothing for Thee ; the times were changed, and I could not but change with them. I ate and drank, for Thou too didst eat and drink with the publicans and sinners. I did not give to the poor, but I paid what I was compelled to the poor-rate, of the height of which I complained. I did not take in little children in Thy name, but they were provided for. They were sent, severed indeed from father or mother, to the poor- house, to be taught or no about Thee, as might be. I did not feed Thee when hungry. Political economy forbade it ; but I increased the labour-market with the manufacture of my luxuries. I did not visit Thee when sick, but the parish doctor looked in on his ill-paid rounds. I did not clothe Thee when naked. I could not afford it, the rates were so high, but there was the workhouse for Thee to go to. I did not take Thee in as a stranger, but it was provided that Thou mightest go to the casual ward. Had I known that it was Thou " And He shall say, " Forasmuch as thou didst it not to one of the least of these, thou didst it not to Me." And in a foot-note to the sermon, the Doctor added : Reliance on the Poor-law interferes with Christian charity ; offers, in large towns, a mode of relief whicb the better poor would rather starve than accept ; and in times of suffering, as of an epidemic, offers relief in a way which degrades the poor in their own eyes and of their compeers, if they accept it. ... If the poor, like the lower animals, needed only S>96 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH food and warmth, the poor-house system provides these, I doubt not. But the poor have souls and loving hearts, more loving than many rich, and to separate those whom God has joined, as the condition of supplying them with necessaries, is un-Christian and anti-Christian. I fear that in the Great Day many even kindly people will find that reliance on the Poor-law has steeled their heart against Christ. And now I have done. I thank you for allowing me this opportunity of enforcing on your attention a truth in which I am persuaded that you believe as firmly as I do, and the practical application of which vitally concerns our claim to the title of Christian Socialists. Our Lord and Master has given us, as citizens of this great city, the power, and with the power most assuredly the duty, of promoting His Kingdom on earth by brightening, purifying, and humanizing the lives of men. To that great end let us press forward with a single aim, not merely talking the language of Christian Socialism, but doing its work and living its life ; In the undoubting faith, although It be not granted us to see, Yet that the coming age shall know We have not wrought unmeaningly ; When gold and chrysoprase adorn A city brighter than the morn. LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH 1 MR. CAINE, M.P. for the Camborne Division, pre- siding the other day over a meeting of " The Deputies of Protestant Dissenters of the three denomi- nations Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists " said that " Nonconformity was more and more dominating the Liberal party. More than half the members of the present House of Commons on the Liberal side were Nonconformists, and the Liberal party were united as one man in resisting Sacerdotalism. On the other side of the House they were not without friends who might be relied on to help them on all their special questions." Now, Mr. Caine has (like Lord Macaulay) "his own heightened and telling way of putting things," and this must be taken into account when we consider his public utterances, or, as Pennialinus would say, his Pronounce- ments. But, making all due allowance for the way of putting it, I fancy that Mr. Caine's opinion is in sub- stance not far wrong. Liberalism and Nonconformity are old allies. The later Whigs were a good deal tainted with Socinianism, and eagerly co-operated with their Non- conformist friends to keep the Church in its proper place. Nonconformist Liberalism smashed the Education clauses of Sir James Graham's Factory Act. The same power in the present day makes a Religious Census impos- sible. It says, with Matthew Arnold's friend, Mr. Bottles, "No here I put down my foot. No Government on 1 The Pilot, 1901. 297 298 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH earth shall ask me whether I am a Particular Baptist or a Muggletonian." And so the insidious project is defeated. That Nonconformists should be eagerly on the watch for what they believe to be encroachments on their liberties, and that they should actively co- operate with the political party which will defend those liberties, is highly natural, and even laudable. What is less amiable is the desire, if it exists, to violate the conscientious rights of Church-people, and to force the Liberal party into a policy of persecution. This was impossible as long as Mr. Gladstone lived. His hold over the Nonconformist conscience was one of the most curious phenomena in contemporary politics, and it strengthened as time went on. When he first came over to Liberalism, the chains of Oxford still hung about him, and he was more than suspected of obscurantist leanings. But during the last twenty years of his active life a complete harmony was established ; and the Noncon- formists, although they regarded his theology as an irritating and dangerous delusion, gave him an enthu- siastic and whole-hearted support. He on his part was active in promoting those moral principles of political action on which Nonconformists set the greatest store, and he repeatedly did due homage to the righteous influence of Nonconformity in great issues of public controversy. Yet, highly as he esteemed the political value of Nonconformity, he never suffered it to affect his dealings with the Church. In 1870 he strained the loyalty of his Nonconformist allies to bursting-point by saving the Church schools when he passed the Education Act. In 1874 he fought a single-handed fight against the P. W. R. Act, which all Protestantism demanded. In later years, when it was proposed to penalize King's College for being a Denomi- national institution, j he said : "It is no more virtuous to persecute Denominationalism than to persecute Unde- nominationalism ; and, if anyone tells me that there is a difference between exclusion from an advantage, and persecution, I will undertake, like Sydney Smith, to prove that there is no more difference between them than there is between himself and a booby." The Welsh Disestab- lishment Bill of 1895 seemed to Mr. Gladstone to be, in its provisions with regard to cathedrals and church- yards, a persecuting measure, and he renounced his " pair " in order that he might be ready, if occasion arose, to come back to the House and defeat it. With such a chief at the head of the Liberal party, it was not easy for Nonconformists or anyone else, even if they wished it, to persecute the Church. But, since Mr. Gladstone went, I think I can perceive a change. The Nonconformists take a kindly interest in our in- ternal concerns, are much opposed to Sacerdotalism and Ritualism in the Establishment, and are anxious to put those evils down. At a by-election in the West of England a Liberal candidate was required to pledge himself in advance to the Liverpool Clergy Discipline Bill. At the General Election, Nonconformists all over the country heckled the candidates about their atti- tude towards Ritualism. No one connected with any Ritualistic church or society could show his face on a Liberal platform ; and a Tory candidate, who had just joined the E.C.U., found it expedient to with- draw from the Union before the polling took place. Such just now is the Nonconformist spirit ; and if it be true, as Mr. Caine avers, that Nonconformity " dominates " the Liberal party, that party must be prepared to forget a good deal that it used to profess about the sacred principle of religious freedom. But I believe that there is a problem ahead of us which will separate those who at present are allies, 300 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Broadly speaking, Nonconformists are in favour of Disestablishment. With the great bulk of them (as with myself) the principle of the Free Church in the Free State is a sacred and unalterable faith. But there are a considerable number of old-fashioned Liberals not very keen Churchmen, but not Nonconformists who are staunch upholders of Establishment. " As long as we have an Established Church we can kick the parsons. But once disestablish it, and, begad, they will kick us." This is the Whig doctrine of Church and State, as compendiously conveyed to me in my youth by a Whiggish peer. That good man did not stand alone. I am persuaded that there is a mass of men in the Liberal party who, though prepared to reform the Church out of recognition, to revolutionize its Marriage Law, and re- write its Prayer-book, will never willingly disestablish it. It is when the Noncon- formists begin to press for Disestablishment as a necessary part of the Liberal programme that we shall see whether they do or do not " dominate " the Liberal party. In the meantime, and pending Disestablishment, I recognize that subjection of the Liberal pp.rty to Nonconformity, in which Mr. Caine rejoices. But I ask myself, and I would ask my brother-Liberals, if that subjection is likely to be advantageous to Liberalism. It is matter of common observation that, wherever the Church is properly worked in any large centre of population, there springs up round it a band of energetic, capable, and enthusiastic young men, who care very much for their religion and for humanity, and very little for any political party. A quarter of a century ago such young men were, as a rule, Radicals. Then, as now, their religion had the first place in their affections ; LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH 301 but, if they were Churchmen first, they were Radicals afterwards. The Catholic idea, with its high contempt for the world's authority, its faith in human equality, and its devotion to the poor, led its adherents to the Radical side. They were " Christian Socialists " before, or after, their time. Young men are naturally hero- worshippers, and Mr. Gladstone's splendid personality, with his romantic devotion to the Church, attracted to his cause great numbers who cared not a jot for his views on Free Trade or the Income-Tax. The Dis- establishment of the Irish Church, by driving men to first principles and forcing them to consider the essential nature of a Church as distinct from the State, made a powerful appeal to all who believed in their own Church as a spiritual mother. The P. W. R. Act, which, passed by a Tory Government, set an ex-judge of the Divorce Court to settle Eucharistic ritual, was a deliberate insult to all that Churchmen hold sacred, and it brought its own reward. The Eastern Question of 1876-9, when Lord Beaconsfield did his best to force us into war on behalf of the great anti-Christian power, awoke a counter- feeling which was nothing less than a passion. Young Churchmen who took their religion seriously rose every- where in victorious rebellion against the godless old cynic who had joked about " Mass in Masquerade," and had scoifed at the red horrors of Bulgaria. But all this is now ancient history. The two great antagonists of that day are dead. We have been in- formed by Mr. Balfour that Lord Beacons field's policy is buried ; and Mr. Gladstone, in spite of all his per- sonal power, signally failed to form a school or found a tradition. The P. W. R. Act is forgotten, and the Sultan has no apologist left among responsible politicians. Thus many of the forces which tended to make Church- men Liberals have ceased to operate, and meanwhile 302 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH the Church of England is every day developing fresh strength. In the new districts of great towns the Church is practically a voluntary agency, and it is just in those places where she relies least on legal privilege that her most signal victories are won. The Catholic religion has an immortal charm. Both on its moral and on its aasthetic side it appeals with irresistible force to the young, the ardent, and the hopeful ; to minds that can imagine, and hearts that can sympathize ; to natures which believe in, and long to prove, their own high capacities. And so it is found, as a matter of practical experience, that wherever the Church of England is efficiently worked on popular lines and in a sympathetic spirit, the young men crowd round her. In that respect, what was true five-and-twenty years ago is only more conspicuously true to-day. But the striking difference is this that whereas then the young Churchman was a Radical, to-day he either is a Tory, or else is absolutely indifferent to all political issues. Now, do those who are responsible for the manage- ment of the Liberal party really desire the permanent estrangement of the class which I have described ? The Liberal party is just now not so numerous or so influential that it can prudently refuse any section of possible adherents ; and, least of all, one would have thought, can it afford to despise the help of men who are dominated, not by sordid selfishness, but by enthusiasm for a cause. Did not Mill tell us that one man who has a belief is worth a dozen who have only interests ? But it may be said that it would be impossible for the Liberal leaders to win support by professing a religious or ecclesiastical zeal which they do not feel, and which their Nonconformist supporters would regard with sus- picion. No one asks them to make the attempt. If the class which I have been describing, and of which LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH 303 I have known something ever since I grew up, is to be recovered for Liberalism, the Liberal leaders must declare unmistakably for two great principles, both of which have lately been allowed to lapse strangely out of sight I mean Social Reform and Religious Liberty. It is my firm belief that there is a great mass of Churchmen, at present hostile or indifferent to Liberalism, who are ready to make common cause with any political party which will give the Church fair play, and carry out her teaching in the social service of humanity. In this respect they are the true successors of the Radical Churchmen with whom I was associated in my early manhood. Then we were taught by Dr. Pusey, with a searching solemnity which seemed to anticipate the disclosures of the Great Day, to weigh the bearing of our Lord's teaching on our own social conduct and on the lives and miseries of the poor. And what Dr. Pusey taught us we saw translated into beneficent fact in the working of the Church in Holborn and Shoreditch, and at the London Docks, at Oxford and Leeds and Cardiff and Plymouth. "To lessen the social pressure on labour" was the Christ-like effort which then enlisted the best workers, and made them Radicals in spite of themselves ; and as long as human nature lasts, and the Church witnesses for Christ and His poor, that spell will not lose its power. If, then, when the present tyranny of war is overpast, the Liberal leaders will seriously take in hand a policy of social reform, and will show their followers that Politics, rightly understood, is the science of human happiness, I believe that they may yet gain a great accession of support from earnest Churchmen. But, if we are to serve the Liberal party, we must demand fair play for our religious beliefs. No expediencies of electioneering, no necessities of the 304 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Nonconformist alliance, must be allowed to invade our spiritual freedom. We must claim our right to worship God in the Church of England according to our own conviction of truth, and of the system which He has appointed. And surely this claim should not sound unreasonable in the ears of a political party which has been proclaiming for a century past that "the true spirit is to search after God and for another life in lowliness of heart, to fling down no man's altar, and to punish no man's prayer." 'HI AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S ~bJUNC formosissimus annus. September in London has a peculiar charm. The days are exactly the right length, and no one compels you to sit in the garden after dinner, with centipedes falling into your coffee-cup. The weather is neither hot nor cold. The parks are in their highest beauty. The falling leaves and misty glades in Kensington Gardens suggest all the romantic associations of Gustave Dora's forests, with a khaki-clad Yeoman and a nursery-maid for a Red Cross Knight and an Enchanted Princess. Traffic is mitigated, and it is possible for elderly gentlemen to cross Piccadilly without being destroyed by omnibi (as the classical lady said), or reviled in the vernacular by conductors. The streets are pervaded by leisurely passengers, who lounge and saunter and gaze into shop- windows. Everywhere there is a sense of space and freedom. You can breathe in the theatre and kneel down in church. From the uplands of Highgate and Hampstead you look down upon a boundless and beautiful city, dimly visible through a golden haze. A winding and turbid river divided the city in unequal parts, in one of which there rose a vast and glorious temple, crowned with a dome of almost superhuman size and skill, on which the favourite sign of Heaven flashed with trium- phant truth. 1 The Pilot, 1901. 305 20 306 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Of Lord Beaconsfield's English Robert Lowe once amiably said that " after all, it was his native tongue," but certainly he contrived to make it read like a rather flamboyant translation of some foreign language. But that description of the dome is a prime favourite of mine ; and, though it was written of St. Peter's, it is a perfect picture of St. Paul's. Sunday evening at St. Paul's is a recognized fixture in the programme of the provincial visitor to London, and the least ex- pensive way of taking an autumn holiday is to put on your country clothes and join the pilgrim-throng. The great west doors are flung wide open, as if to welcome the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Lord Mayor, and all at once we find ourselves, hushed and awestruck, in the illimitable perspective. Just fifty years ago Charles Kingsley thus described the scene : The organ droned sadly in its iron cage to a few musical amateurs. Some nursery -maids and foreign sailors stared about within the spiked felon's-dock which shut off the body of the cathedral, and tried in vain to hear what was going on inside the choir. The scanty service rattled in the vast building, like a dried kernel too small for its shell. The place breathed imbecility and unreality, and sleepy life-in- death, while the whole nineteenth century went roaring on its way outside. When will life return to this cathedral system ? At all events, it is keeping your cathedrals rain-proof for you, till you can put them to some better use than now. And in the meantime there is life enough in them life that will wake the dead some day. Surely that prophecy has been fulfilled. The " better use" has been discovered, and the pent-up life has burst into activity. The material aspect of the huge cathedral witnesses to the spiritual change. Even the staunchest believer in Gothic, as the only religious architecture, may admit, without disloyalty to his faith, AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S 307 that every year St. Paul's becomes more like a church, and less like a glorified council-hall for an Imperial Senate. Last Sunday evening the shadows had tempered the garish splendour of mosaic and gold and electricity, and enhanced the dominant sense of vastness and grandeur. And prayer ascended, and sweet boy-voices rang, and the distant altar with its gleaming lights focussed the meaning and purpose of the whole. And then we all realized the great " Communion of Hymns." By a curious and happy conjunction, Bernard of Cluny, William Cowper, and John Keble all contributed of their best. " Brief life is here our portion " seemed to utter the real heart's desire of a tired-looking mechanic who stood beside me. " Hark, my soul ! " seemed to communicate its own intensity to the very tone and look of the people who sang it ; and " Sun of my soul " was an evening prayer which sounded just as natural and as fitting in the inmost heart of London's crowd and grind and pressure as in the sweet solitude of the Hursley fields. In the pulpit, a spiritual descendant of the Christian Socialists of '48, with thrilling voice and uplifted hand, was extolling the Cross as the test and strength and glory of human life While at his feet the human ocean lay, And wave on wave rolled into space away. A human ocean indeed, of all sorts and conditions old men and maidens, young men and children, rich and poor, English and foreigners, sightseers and citizens, pale-faced clerks and toil-stained artizans and red-coated soldiers all happy, and all interested, and all at ease, and all at home all taking their conscious and definite part in the worship, and all following with keen attention the preacher's passionate pleadings. " In certain quarters," Canon Henson has lately told 308 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH us, " it is fashionable to make little of sermons " ; and this fashion of belittlement he sets himself to repudiate with all his energy, which, as his friends know, is not a trifle. The pity is that this energy leads him, at the very outset, into a startling exaggeration. He calls preaching " the highest function of the Christian ministry." One would have thought that the highest function of the Christian ministry was the administration of the Sacraments. After all, when it comes to a pinch, a layman can preach; but there are certain offices of the priesthood with which no layman can intermeddle. The highest service [wrote Dr. Liddon] which a creature can offer to the Supreme Being is the celebration of the Blessed Eucharist. This is, indeed, the central and supreme act of the Christian ministry, by which it is directly associated in the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. But, after that unguarded phrase about the " highest function," Canon Henson goes on to more moderate, and therefore more convincing, language : So far as the mass of his congregation is concerned, his ministry as teacher and as pastor must be fulfilled in those brief moments during which he speaks to them face to face in his Master's name. This is very true ; but it gains nothing in cogency from a side-hit at " the much-vaunted wisdom of the Con- fessional." If it were true, as Canon Henson alleges, that in Confession human life is " studied only in its morbid mood and darker aspects," the value of the Confessional as a guide to the priest in dealing with his flock, though still great, would be less than it is. But, when we consider that those persons who practise Confession do so as a rule habitually and regularly, in cloud and in sunshine, in the joy of thankfulness as well as in the agony of contrition, the experience so gained by the AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S 309 priest must surely be an enormous help to him when he preaches to those of whose private lives he has no personal knowledge. But, after all, the people who habitually submit them- selves to the discipline of Confession are comparatively few ; whereas comparatively many submit themselves to the discipline of sermons. However reluctantly we may admit it, admit it we must in the end, that our hold over the people depends mainly upon our sermons. It must be our interest, as it certainly is our duty, to set a high standard of preaching before us, and to resist as an insult and a peril the modern fashion of belittling the pulpit. But is the fashion so modern ? In 1870 a secular writer, extolling Liddon's famous Lent Lectures at St. James's, Piccadilly, wrote : " ' As dull as a sermon ' : no proverb is more trite. ' The age of the pulpit has gone by ' : no idea is more readily taken for granted by cultivated men." In 1867 the present Dean of Canter- bury said : " It is too much of a modern and tin-Christian fashion to disparage or discredit this ordinance in itself. . . . These despised sermons may perhaps be the invisible links of that golden chain which keeps our souls from falling into utter forgetfulness of God." Twenty years earlier Prince Albert asked Bishop Wilber- force, "Sermons why so dull?" and supplied his own answer, " No object." So the current disparagement of preaching is no new fashion, but is rather a convention of secular speech, and personally I doubt if it represents any very deep feeling. Of course the great majority of people are wholly indifferent to religion, while a large section are actively hostile to it. These people contemn or dislike sermons just as they contemn or dislike religion. But among those who have in any way or degree a right intention towards things unseen I 310 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH always seem to find a keen appetite for .sermons. Indeed, the prominence of preaching has often seemed to dwarf all other religious effort, and it has become necessary to remind people that the Church is, primarily, not the place of hearing, but the place of worship. We all know churches in London where the sermon on Sunday morning is the be-all and end-all of congregational religion. And, even where the ministry of preaching is subordinated to worship, a good preacher invariably attracts attention and draws an audience. Canon Henson himself speaks of the " immense congregations " which gather to Canon Gore. Go to St. Paul's or West- minster Abbey and see the huge crowds which listen to teachers so diverse as the Bishop of London, Canon Holland, and Archdeacon Wilberforce. Go to the even- ing services, under the Dome or in the Nave, and mark the eager attention with which the utterances of quite unknown preachers are followed ; and the conviction is forced upon one that, if only a man has spiritual earnestness, human sympathy, and simplicity of speech, he will never preach to empty beaches. But, says Canon Henson, the publishers assure us that there is no market for sermons. If this be the fact, it certainly marks a curious change. I remem- ber the vast collections of Evangelical sermons under which, in my youth, the bookshelves, and not seldom the children, groaned. Then came the jocose common- sense of Spurgeon, the stilted rhetoric of Henry Melvill, Dr. Vaughan's reiterated editions, the long blue series of Dr. Liddon's volumes. All these pro- ductions sold widely and paid handsomely ; and yet to-day no one will buy. What is the reason for this change ? I believe that it lies in the increase, and abuse, of extempore preaching. I do not disparage the extempore method. If a man has the necessary AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S 311 fluency, and will consent to give the adequate preparation, I believe that extempore preaching has an effect upon the masses of mankind which is denied to manuscript. But an extempore sermon, however well it may sound, hardly ever reads well. It shares the failings and the fate of the political speech. 1 believe that all political speeches which are good to read were either written before they were delivered, or else prepared with an elaboration equivalent to writing. And some of the most splendid orations which were ever delivered extempore have been, when reported verbatim, unreadable. To the extempore speaker, voice, manner, gesture, play of coun- tenance, are at least half his apparatus. They all have their part in the effect ; and that effect is instantaneous it cannot be recaptured. And the same words, divorced from the accessories which recommended and enforced them, lose most of their significance and all their charm. But the written sermon, carefully thought out, intelligibly divided, and clothed in becoming English, is often a great deal better in the reading than in the hearing. The late Dr. Vaughan was pre-eminently a case in point. His voice and utterance in the pulpit were absolutely distressing. They suggested the insincerity of which his friends knew him to be incapable. A Templar once said to me about the performance on " Grand Night," " It's enongh to set a man against his dinner to hear Vanghan say Grace over it." But when once Vaughan's sermons were dissociated from his voice, they seemed and seem to me worthy to rank with the best, and to combine in the most singular degree the power of searching the conscience, insight into the meaning of Scripture, and English of exquisite precision. Canon Henson observes, with great justice, that it is a grave blunder to discuss the two methods of reading sermons and preaching extempore as mere alternatives. A free 312 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH use of a carefully-prepared manuscript has often been found to combine the advantages of both systems. Such, if I remember aright, was Kingsley's method ; such, at one period of his career, was Liddon's. But perhaps the greatest exponent of it was the present Bishop of St. Andrews, who, after twenty minutes of a written sermon, would stuff the MS. into his pocket, and give us five minutes of extempore hortation which sent us home graver, if not wiser, people. THE COMMON CREED OF CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS * BY Lord Halifax's request I am here to-night, and I am to attempt, in this paper, to remove some of the strange misunderstandings which hinder English Church-people from " godly union and concord." I have called my paper " The Common Creed of Catholics and Evangelicals " ; and my endeavour is to show our Evangelical brethren, among whom I was brought up, and whose devotion to our Lord I deeply revere, that on many of the points just now most hotly contested there is substantial unity between us. Catholic and Evangelical, I say ; and on the last word I lay all the stress I can command. I might have spoken of the common creed of Catholics and Protestants, and, so far as Protestantism means only a hearty repudiation of the Pope and all his ways, my title would not have been amiss. But, unfortunately, the name of " Pro- testant " has been " soiled with all ignoble use," and has been employed to cover and to justify the widest departures from the doctrine of the Cross. A Bishop of our admirable Establishment indeed thinks it appro- priate to send "all good Christmas wishes " to a clergy- man of his diocese who denies the Incarnation. There was another Bishop of more primitive times who warned the faithful against receiving such an one into 1 Read before the English Church Union, 1898. 313 314 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH their houses, or bidding him God-speed ; and, for my own part, I confess that I can find no common ground in religion for those who believe, and those who deny, that our Lord Jesus Christ is Very and Eternal God. My attempt, then, is limited to finding common ground for those two sections of English Church-people who are respectively labelled " Catholic " and " Evangelical." I hope to show that Catholic theology is truly Evangelical, and Evangelical theology (so far as it is constructive and affirmative) truly Catholic. Among the most helpful sayings that I know is one ascribed by a Cambridge tradition to Dr. Whewell : " Truth emerges more readily from error than from con- fusion." And another which I would parallel with this was that of Henry Drummond, the Irvingite Apostle : "Religious people are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny." In the light of these two sayings I approach my task, endeavouring, in the first place, to clear away some of the confusion which too often prevails in Evangelical minds about what Catholics believe ; and, in the second, to show my Catholic hearers how much of fundamental truth there is in the affirmative parts of Evangelical theology. I. I start with the most tremendous of all dogmas the Being and Attributes of God. Here, happily, there is no shade of difference between Catholics and Evangelicals. Both sections, I believe, accept, with the same unquestioning loyalty, the per- fectly theological language of the First Article : There is but One Living and True God, everlasting, with- out body, parts, or passions ; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness ; the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be Three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 315 II. Again, with respect to the characteristic dogma of Christianity, as against mere Theism, Deism, and Free-thinking the Incarnation of our Lord Jesns Christ. I have never heard of an Evangelical who questioned the accuracy of our Second Article : The Son, Which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the Very and Eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance ; so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in One Person, never to be divided, whereof is One Christ, Very God, and Very Man ; Who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a Sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. III. And, again, of the Person and Nature of God the Holy Ghost. With one heart and one mouth Catholics and Evangelicals confess that The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son. is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, Very and Eternal God. IV. So far, then, as the cardinal doctrines of the exist- ence of the One True God and the mutual relations of the Three Holy Persons are concerned, there is nothing in dispute between Catholics and Evangelicals. And even when we proceed to the next step in our demonstra- tion, and touch that which is the characteristic of the Evangelical school i.e. the doctrine of the forgiveness of human sins we find, in spite of all misrepresentations and misunderstandings, the same essential agreement : We believe and profess that Almighty God has promised forgiveness of sins, through the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, to all who turn to Him with true sorrow for sin, out of unfeigned and sincere love to Him, with a lively faith in Jesus Christ, and with full purpose of amendment of life. 316 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Whose are these words ? They might be Charles Simeon's or Hugh McNeile's. As a matter of fact, they are Dr. Pusey's, and the Declaration of which they form part was signed in 1873 by the present Bishop of Lincoln, Father Benson, Canon Carter, Dr. Liddon, and Mr. Mackonochie. It is impossible to write Mr. Mackonochie's name without thinking of the church where he ministered ; and if ever in my life I (an Evangelical born and bred) have heard the doctrines of sin, repentance, free grace, and pardon through the Blood of Christ set forth with unflinching plainness, it has been from the pulpit of St. Alban's, and by the lips of Arthur Stanton. It has been said, with some- thing of a boastful air, that " the Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants." We can reply, with all humility, but with all sincerity. " Jesus and Jesus only is the religion of Catholics.'" V. And, as regards the spiritual life of the individual, I do not find much difference between the theory of the Catholics and that of the Evangelicals. It has been described as that personal and experimental life of the human soul with God, which profits by all ordinances, but is tied to none, dwelling ever, through all its varying moods, in the inner court of that sanctuaiy whereof the walls are not made with hands. The language is not that of a Low Churchman, but of a man so steeped in Sacramental theology as Mr. Gladstone. The Evangelicals seem sometimes to fancy that they have a monopoly of the teaching of Conversion. If they would attend a mission-service at a Ritualistic church, or a Retreat conducted by a Ritualistic clergyman, they would know better. They would learn that Catholics insist, with all the force of CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 317 which they are capable, on the absolute need of an unconditional surrender of the will to the Will of God ; and place the whole hope of salvation in pardon through the Precious Blood, definitely sought by the individual sinner, for sins actually done in the body. It was not a Low Churchman who wrote : If some poor wandering child of Thine Have spurned to-day the Voice Divine, Noiv, Lord, the gracious work begin ; Let him no more lie down in sin. According to all Catholic teaching, the sinner, in the work of repentance, is solus cum Solo. If " the Voice Divine " reaches him on a desert island, a thousand miles from priest or altar or bible, he has only to turn to the Crucified Lord in repentance and faith. Then and there he is forgiven ; then and there he is at peace. VI. And, if we have this in common about the beginnings of the conscious life of the soul (I say nothing for the moment about the antecedent grace of Baptism), we have much in common about its maintenance. No orthodox Evangelical believes in instantaneous sanctification, however thoroughly he may believe that conversions sometimes take place suddenly. All Evangelicals teach growth in grace ; all urge careful use of the means of grace. This leads me to consider the Evangelical doctrine of the Sacraments, and to compare it with the Catholic doctrine. First, as regards Holy Baptism. No point was more strongly urged by the Evangelicals among whom I was brought up than that the doctrine of Baptismal Re- generation was a " soul-destroying error." No wonder that they so regarded it, for they believed it meant that every human being who was baptized in infancy, whatever his subsequent faith and life might be, must 318 be finally saved ! I do not imagine that this delusion prevails widely among Evangelicals of the present day ; nor, on the other hand, do I contend that the Evangelicals would interpret exactly as we do the article of the Creed which teaches us that there is " one Baptism for the remission of sins." Bat their faith is proved by their practice. What Evangelical Churchman ever fails to bring his child to the font ? Catholics teach that what is done in Baptism is the work of the Holy Ghost. Evangelicals admit that the seed of Divine Grace may be imparted in Baptism ; and many of them would agree with that great leader of their school, William Wilberforce, who urged that no man can see God without a change of heart. We believe that infants do see God, and therefore he did not doubt that their hearts were changed at Baptism. 1 In this connexion I may mention the fact that I have been told by an Evangelical clergyman, who was a pupil of Charles Simeon, that his master always interpreted the verse about " the washing of regeneration " as referring to Holy Baptism. VII. Secondly, as regards the Holy Communion. The Evangelicals no doubt repudiate the terminology in which Catholics express their belief. They insist upon the deep and positive truth of the Presence in the heart of the recipient after Communion, and so far they are right. They stumble only at the thought of a Presence independent of, and exterior to, the act of Communion. They seem to us imperfectly to apprehend the force of the words by which our Lord Himself, and St. Paul following Him, connect the Presence with the Consecrated Elements. Yet they frequent the Holy Table with the utmost regularity and fervour. Their hymns and Eucha- 1 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. i., p. 46. CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 319 ristic manuals breathe a truly Catholic spirit, and in this, as in other cases, the Lex Precandi is the Lex Credendi : Hail, Sacred Feast which Jesus makes, Kich banquet of His Flesh and Blood ! Thrice happy he who here partakes That sacred Stream, that Heavenly Food. The King of Heaven His table spreads For every willing heart ; Not Paradise with all its joys Could such delight impart. We need not now go up to Heaven To bring the long-sought Saviour down ; Thou art to all already given, Thou dost e'en now Thy Banquet crown : To every faithful soul appear, And show Thy Real Presence here. These are the words of Evangelical hymn-writers ; and a king of Evangelicals Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta wrote thus in his diary : Blessed Lord, I am now about to partake of Thy Body as broken, and Thy Blood as shed for me. Oh, enable me to resign myself to Thee ! At Thy Altar may I renew my dedication. And Bishop Ashton Oxenden, in his " Earnest Commu- nicant," gives these prayers before and after Com- munion : Thou Bread of Life, Which earnest down from Heaven and givest life unto the world, come now into my heart and cleanse it from all its defilements. Grant that I may with reverence receive this Heavenly Manna, and be nourished by it unto eternal life. Glory be to Thee, Blessed Jesus, my Lord and my God, for thus feeding my soul with Thy most Blessed Body and Blood. 320 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH VIII. On the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, more perhaps than on any other point, Evangelicals are estranged from Catholics simply by misunderstanding. They believe that Catholics mean, by the Eucharistic Sacrifice, a fresh atonement for the sins of the world effected each time a priest celebrates the Holy Com- munion. This, indeed, would be a " soul-destroying error." Dr. Pusey, Canon Carter, Mr. Butler of Wantage, Mr. Mackonochie, Dr. Liddon, and all the other Catholic leaders repudiated it in set terms more than thirty years ago : We repudiate the notion of any fresh sacrifice, or any view of the Eucharistic sacrificial offering as of something apart from the one all-sufficient Sacrifice and Oblation on the Cross, which alone " is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual," and which alone is " meritorious." In teaching the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, we Catholics found ourselves solely upon the recorded words of our Blessed Lord and His express revelation to St. Paul, " Do this for a memorial of Me." " As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." As for the Catholic interpretation of these texts, I forbear to encumber my paper with a long chain of Anglican authorities ; let one famous passage from Jeremy Taylor suffice : Now what Christ does in Heaven He hath commanded us to do on earth that is, to represent His death, to commemorate His Sacrifice by humble prayer and thankful record ; and, by faithful manifestation and joyful Eucharist, to lay it before the eyes of our Heavenly Father, so ministering in His Priesthood, and doing according to His commandment and example, the Church being the image of Heaven ; the priest the minister of Christ ; the holy table being a copy of the celestial altar ; and the Eternal Sacrifice of the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world being always the same. CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 32i So far the Catholic view of the matter. I now turn to the testimony of unimpeachable Evangelicalism. John Wesley wrote : We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian Church (whether dependent on the Bishop of Rome or not) an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an outward Sacrifice offered therein by men, authorized to act as ambassadors for Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. On what grounds do you believe that Christ has abolished that priesthood or Sacrifice ? ' John and Charles Wesley prefaced their " Hymns on the Lord's Snpper" with a treatise by Dr. Brevint on "The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice." One section of that book of hymns is specifically devoted to " The Holy Eucharist as it implies a Sacrifice." Let one quotation speak for the rest : Why is the faithful seed decreased, The Life of God extinct and dead? The Daily Sacrifice is ceased, And charity to Heaven is fled. O would'st Thou to Thy Church return ! For which the faithful remnant sighs, For which the drooping nations mourn, Restore the Daily Sacrifice. There is no name more justly venerated in Evangelical circles than that of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, Rector of Watton. From his " Treatise on the Lord's Supper," which ran through I know not how many editions, I make one concluding extract : The Lord's Supper was designed to represent, commemo- rate, and show forth the Lord's death as a sacrifice for sin, This is done as a prevailing mode of pleading His merits before God. It has been observed that "what we more 1 Wesley's Works, voL ii., p. 4. 21 322 compendiously express in that usual conclusion of our prayers, Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we more fully and forcibly represent in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, when we plead the virtues and merits of the same Sacrifice here which our Great High Priest is continually urging for us in Heaven." There is the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice defined by an Evangelical divine in language which every English Catholic would wish to make his own. If any of my hearers care to pursue this branch of my subject further, I would refer them to a remarkable Eirenicon by the late Rev. E. F. Willis, sometime Vice-Principal of Cuddesdon. IX. I turn now to the doctrine of the Christian ministry. Our Evangelical brethren are loud in their denunciation of " a sacrificing priesthood " ; but the de- nunciation is founded on that very misconception of the Eucharistic Sacrifice which I have just been trying to clear away. If the Eucharistic Sacrifice merely presents and pleads before the Eternal Father the one atoning Sacrifice once for all oiFered on the Cross, and if the Christian priest is a minister Divinely set apart for that function, I doubt if the Evangelical clergy would repudiate the title. In old days Evangelicals used to denounce the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession ; but dispassionate research has proved too much for them, and they are now willing to recognize the fact of the Historic Episcopate. They would still take a more favourable view than is possible to us of Presbyterial orders and all the " stated ministries " of Protes- tantism. But, testing them again by their practice, who ever heard of an Evangelical Churchman sending for a Dissenting minister to give, for example, the Holy Communion to a sick member of his family ? I have no doubt that there is much more in common between Catholics and Evangelicals, as touching the nature and CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 323 functions of the Christian ministry, than either would at first sight recognize. X. The mention of the functions of the ministry leads me, by a natural transition, to the thorny subject of Confession and Absolution. On no topic have the organs of Evangelicalism in the past thundered more loudly than on the Confessional. "I have never grovelled in the filthy lair of the confessor," was the animated rhetoric of 1873. " No sin that you can have to confess could be so bad as the sin of confessing it," was said to a school-boy contemplating his first Con- fession. Surely all this was founded on misapprehension. The very privacy with which the ordinance is necessarily surrounded begat a hundred strange fancies as to what was said and done in it. The genuine zeal for our Lord's unshared prerogatives, which is the most excellent feature of Evangelicalism, rose against the notion that the power of pardoning sin lay in any hands but His. The practice of the Roman Confessional had, whether rightly or wrongly, given rise to the notion that resort to a human absolver encouraged insincere repentances and confessions made with no intention of amendment. Some of this prejudice no doubt still lingers ; but much of it has been rolled away. Dean Vaughan, who often and strenuously condemned what he conceived to be the evils of Confession, yet said in one of his " Addresses to Young Clergymen" (Macmillan, 1875): Most clergymen, whatever their Church views, find them- selves compelled sometimes to receive confessions. In other words, they are the natural referees in cases of conscience ; and cannot, if they would, evade the necessity of ministering privately to spiritual disease. It may be in the form of difficulties of believing. It may be in the form of perplexities in acting. It may be in the form of distresses about sin the forgiveness of the past, or strength against the present. 324 In some form or other, the Study must sometimes be a Confessional ; and one of the most anxious, most trying, most exhausting parts of the Clergyman's day is given of necessity to this office. Many an Evangelical clergyman as, for example, Bishop Wilkinson of St. Andrews has, by this inevitable dealing with troubled consciences, been led to see the truth and value of the Church's ordinance. By degrees men have come to see that Confession is made to God, in the presence of the priest, as formerly in the presence of the congregation ; that, in the Church of England, Confession is absolutely free ; that the priest's office is merely to apply to the penitent's conscience the pardon once for all purchased by the Precious Blood ; that the efficacy of the Absolution is conditioned by the penitent's sincerity ; that the same blessing is conveyed whether, as in the West, the form is indicative, or, as in the East, precatory. And here let me quote the words of Bishop Wilkinson, a man both Evangelical and Catholic, about his own dealings in the matter. After describing the lines on which the Confession should proceed, he says : When, so far as fallible man can be, I am satisfied that the man is sincere, and repents, and believes in Jesus, then I am told to stand up, without the shadow of a misgiving, in the name of my Church in the Name of the Invisible Head of my Church and to say, in the strongest possible words : " Man, thou art loosed from thine infirmity ; thou art free. Thy sins are forgiven. The Church forgives thee for having sinned against thy fellow-Christians these many years. Thy God forgives thee for having sinned against Him. Jesus has atoned for thy sin. The power of the devil is broken by Christ the Conqueror. Thy prison-doors are open. Go out and use thy freedom ; I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." This was Bishop Wilkinson's way of stating the CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 325 matter in 1874, when he was Vicar of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and when a storm like the present had broken upon the Church of England. In twenty-four years a good deal of misconception has been removed. Personal contact with Catholic clergy nay, with the dreaded and misguided Ritualists has convinced all except the most hopelessly prejudiced that the Catholic religion inter- poses no human being and no created thing between the soul and God. I imagine that each one of us here present to-night, if suddenly called to minister to a fellow-creature in the imminent prospect of unforeseen death, would say, in words or in effect, with John Wesley, " Plead thou solely the Blood of the Covenant." Let me quote from a letter written by one of the most notorious Ritualists in London to a man whom circum- stances hindered from making his Confession : Bide God's time : wait His opportunity. This is real religion ; and, if you don't see me or any priest till after Easter, you and all your shortcomings and sins will be bidden away in the side of the Riven Rock, where is rest and peace. You know we said that nothing must ever take away our rest in the old Evangelical love, and our trust in Jesus. That is a letter from a Catholic confessor which any Evangelical clergyman might make his own. XI. I have generally found Evangelicals very anxious to repudiate the authority of the Church at large, and the appeal to Catholic antiquity. In matters of inter- pretation they are apt to take their own views of the Bible, unhampered by any reference to what " larger minds have thought out in calmer ages " ; and, for my own part, I think that this profound reverence for the Written Word, and this constant study of it for light and guidance, are parts of the Evangelical system which we Catholics should clo well to imitate, while nqt 326 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH forgetting our loyalty to the authority of undivided Christendom. Here again, as in so many other instances, the Evangelical practice is better than its theory. Theoretically, the Evangelical may repudiate the Church's authority, but in practice he accepts it ; for he receives the Bible on the authority of the Church, which tells him that one book is canonical and another is not ; he acquiesces in Baptism by affusion, because that is the form substituted by the Church for primitive immersion ; and, above all, he obeys the Church in transferring from Saturday to Sunday the Divine obligation to keep holy one day in seven. XII. Recent controversies between Catholics and Evangelicals have turned not a little on the relation of the living to the Faithful Departed. The dogma that the efficacy of prayer ceases at the moment when he for whom it is offered departs out of the body has always seemed to me to be, in an extraordinary degree, " man-made," wilful, and unfounded in Scripture. It has resulted, as Mr. Gladstone said, " in narrowing the range of Christian sympathies, and establishing an anomaly in the general doctrine of Prayer." It is true that we are not specifically taught to pray for the Departed ; but then we are not specifically taught to pray, e.g., for women. Yet no one proposes to exclude our Christian sisters from our prayers. Our duty is to pray for the whole Christian family, that they may receive God's blessings according to their several stations and necessi- ties ; and to exclude from this prayer our brothers and sisters who have gone before us with the Sign of Faith is a cruel violation of natural religion. On this point, again, I say nothing of the Catholic tradition, too notorious and too world- wide to need illustration. I turn to Evangelical authorities. John Wesley conceived CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 327 such prayers to be " clearly justified both by the earliest antiquity, by the Church of England, and by the Lord's Prayer ; although the Papists have corrupted this Scriptural practice into praying for those who die in their sins." l The saintly Reginald Heber was " in the habit of recommending on some occasions, as after receiving the Sacrament, my lost friends by name to God's goodness and compassion, through His Son." Lord Shaftesbciry clarum et venerabile nomen wrote on the death of Canning : " I do feel compassion, and pray sincerely, God rest his soul." And, after com- memorating his departed wife, he wrote: "And, God, may I pray that our blessed and pious children, gone before us, Francis, Maurice, and Mary, may be with us, for truly did they love Thee and Thy Blessed Son." Archbishop Magee pleaded strongly for the practice of Prayer for the Departed. 2 At the funeral of Prince Henry of Battenberg a direct prayer for the repose of his soul was offered " Give rest, Christ, to Thy servant with Thy Saints " and not a single Evangelical voice, so far as I know, was raised in protest. All this appears to point to the dispersion of Con- fusion. As long as Evangelicals thought that Catholics talked of " praying souls out of hell," they denounced "prayers for the dead." When they realize that our petitions are offered on behalf of the Faithful Departed, for an increase of their refreshment, light, and peace, they are, it would seem, not unwilling to join in so simple an act of natural piety. XIII. I have spoken so far of doctrine. It remains that I should say a brief word about ritual. Here, manifestly, there is no room for a difference 1 Works, vol. ix., p. 35. J See p. 144 Of. The Tirties of January 3, 1883, 328 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH of principle between Catholics and Evangelicals ; it is merely a question of degree. All Evangelicals use more or less ritual. One flagrant piece of Ritualism they have, indeed, generally discontinued the assump- tion of a special vestment for the delivery of the sermon but in other respects their ritual increases year by year. Surpliced choirs, stained glass, chanted psalms, lecterns, choir-stalls, floral decorations, em- broidered frontals, and a dozen similar objects, testify to that sense of the fitness of outward decency and beauty in Divine worship which belongs to no one theological school. When Archbishop Tait built his chapel at Fulham Palace, he showed it to a Tractarian incumbent of the diocese, and asked him what he thought of it. " Very nice, my lord," was the reply, " but twenty years ago it would have been thought the height of Puseyism." Everything is moving in the Evangelical world. Chasubles and altar-lights will come in time. Let me close this section with two Protestant testi- monies to the value of the Crucifix. Lord Shaftesbury writes from Padua in 1833: Bought a small crucifix. ... The worship of the material or the mere representation is senseless, wicked, and idolatrous ; but to bear about a memorial of what God Himself once exhibited to the world does but simply recall His Death and Passion, and forces us, as Scripture has foretold, " to look on Him Whom we pierced." Dr. Arnold writes from Bourges in 1840: In the crypt is a Calvary, and figures as large as life representing the Burying of Our Lord. The woman who showed us the crypt had her little girl with her, and she lifted up the child, about three years old, to kiss the feet of our Lord. Is this idolatry? Nay, verily, it may be so, but it need not be, and assuredly is in itself right and natural. I confess I rather envied the child, CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 329 XIV. And now I bring to an end this most imperfect but sincere attempt to promote the sacred cause of Christian concord in " a day of rebuke and blasphemy." To my Evangelical brethren, if ever this paper should come into their hands, I would say, in the words of a holy man who certainly had more sympathy with them than with the Catholic school Bishop Cotton of Calcutta : If we will obey One Guide and listen to One Voice, we shall be safely brought together when our life's voyage is over, never again to be separated, never to wrong or grieve or misunderstand each other, but to be holy and happy for ever in our Father's home. To you, who have so kindly followed me (and to myself), I commend the creed of a truly English saint, Thomas Ken : As for my religion, I dye in the holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; more particularly, I dye in the communion of the Church of England, as it stands distin- guished from all Papall and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross. CATHOLIC CONTINUITY IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 1 TO English Catholics July 14, 1833, is a sacred date ; for, according to Cardinal Newman, it was " the start " of the Oxford Movement. It is natural and right that we should hold in high reverence the birthday of a spiritual energy to which we owe so much. But my object to-day is to remind my hearers that the work of the Oxford Leaders was not a creation, but a revival not a commencement, but a renewal. Too often we speak and think as if all Catholic truth had perished out of the Church of England during the eighteenth century, and had been brought in again by the Tractarian writers. The fact is and it is a fact which comes out more clearly the more closely we study the religious records of the time that, even in the deadest and darkest days of irreligion and misbelief, " God left not Himself without witness " in the Church of England. In spite of deformations and defections, the Catholic tradition of doctrine and practice was maintained un- broken, though attenuated, between 1700 and 1833. The work of the Oxford Leaders was not to introduce the Catholic Religion into a Church which was ignorant of it not even to bring it back into a Church which 1 A paper read before the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, 1902. 330 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 331 had once possessed it and then lost it but to drag it out of obscurity into the light of day, to call public attention to it, to defend it, and to glorify it. The Leaders fanned the embers till they burst into a flame. They " strengthened the things which remained, that were ready to die." John Keble (1792-1866), born and brought up in an English Parsonage, knew no higher testimony to the truth of any doctrine than to say, " It seems to me just what my father taught me " ; and that father was born in 1745. Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) said of the Doctrine of the Real Presence, that he had learnt it from his mother, who was born in 1773, and in turn had been taught it by the clergy of her youth. John Henry Newman had been brought up in a different school ; but, as soon as he had apprehended the Catholic Faith, he realized that Dr. Routh (1755-1854) had survived to " report to a forgetful generation what had been the theology of their fathers " ; and he acknowledged Hugh James Rose (1795-1838) as the teacher who, by insisting in 1826 on the Doctrine of the Apostolic Succession, had led the English clergy to " stir up the gift that was in them, and to betake themselves to their true Mother." Now, it is to be borne in mind that the older divines, to whom the Tractarian Leaders thus appealed, were not necessarily " High Churchmen " in any sectional or partizan sense. They were ordinary Church-people, who knew their Prayer-books, and lived and died in the practice of sober religion, as it had been handed down to them from times anterior by a century and more to the Oxford Movement of 1833. The limits of this paper would not permit me to 332 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH trace the continuity of English theology through the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts. I must limit myself to authorities who died in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and who had learned their own theology and taught it to others, long before the Tractarian writers began their devout and learned labours. Such men were : Bishop Wilson 16631755 William Law 16861761 Bishop Randolph 17011783 Dr. Johnson 17091784 John Wesley 17031791 Bishop Home 17301792 Jones of Nayland 17261800 Bishop Horsley 17331806 Bishop Middleton 17691823 Bishop Lloyd 17841829 Sikes of Guilsborough 17671834 Bishop Van Mildert 17651836 Hugh James Rose 17951838 Dr. Wordsworth 17741846 Archbishop Howley 17651848 John Oxlee 17791854 Oxlee's learned work on "The Christian Hierarchy" won the warm praise of Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen, whose life spanned the century from 1755 to 1854. In addition to the names of persons, it may be worth while to mention a few devotional books, all published before 1833. In these the Sacramental theology of the Church was set forth by writers who evidently never doubted that what they taught was the traditional doctrine of the Church of England. Besides such well- known works as " The Whole Duty of Man," Nelson's " Fasts and Festivals," and Lake's " Officium Eucharis^ ticum," there were ; CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 333 Wesley's " Companion to the Altar," from Thomas a Kempis 1742 Wesley's "Hymns on the Lord's Supper," with Preface by Brevint 1745 " The New Manual" of the S.P.C.K 1771 " The Companion to the Altar " 1775 Annotated Prayer-book 1786 Bickersteth's " Treatise on the Lord's Supper" ... 1822 This last book ran through countless editions, and was a special favourite of the Evangelical school. I turn now from generalizations to particulars, and trace the continuous testimony, during the period which I have indicated, to certain characteristic truths of Catholic theology. THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION On this I appeal, as I shall often have occasion to do, to that truly great divine perhaps the greatest of the eighteenth century Samuel Horsley, Bishop successively of St. David's, Rochester, and St. Asaph. He wrote thus in 1790 : He who thinks of God's ministers as the mere servants of the State is out of the Church, severed from it by a kind of self-excommunication. Thus Charles Daubeny (Archdeacon of Sarum) in 1798, writes of the Apostolic Government of the Church, as originally estab- lished under the direction of the Holy Spirit by its Divine Founder (from Whom alone a commission to minister in holy things can properly be derived). In 1804 Samuel Horsley said in a debate in the House of Lords : The sacerdotal character cannot be done away by the secular power ; the Sacerdotium Catholicum is that which no 334 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH secular power can either give or take away ; it is derived from a higher source. William Van Mildert (Bishop of Durham) in 1814 described the Church as that which has from age to age borne rule upon the ground of its pretensions to Apostolical Succession. Francis Wrangham (Archdeacon of Cleveland) wrote in 1823: To God, and not to a patronizing Crown or to an electing people, we authoritatively refer our origin as a Ministry. For Christ, we are expressly told in Scripture, sent His Apostles with a power to send others, thus providing an unbroken succession for all coming ages. It was "about" this same year, 1823, as we know from the " Apologia," that Newman learned the doctrine of the Succession, from his friend, the Rev. William James (1787-1861), then Fellow of Oriel. And in October, 1833, Samuel Wilberforce (who could scarcely have acquired the doctrine since the previous July) called upon his brother-clergy to prize at a higher rate that unbroken Succession where- by those who ordained us are joined unto Christ's own Apostles. THE REAL PRESENCE Henry Englefield (a Roman Catholic recusant) wrote in 1715: The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour in the Sacrament of the Eucharist was always believed by the Holy Catholic Church, maintained ever since the Reformation by many of the most orthodox reformed divines of the Church of England, fully asserted in the Church of England Catechism, and plainly expressed in the Holy Scriptures. CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 335 This testimony, coming from a Roman Catholic who suffered for his faith, seems to me to have a special value. William Law wrote in " Christian Perfection," 1726 : We are most of all to desire those prayers which are offered up at the altar where the Body and Blood of Christ are joined with them. And again in the "Serious Call," 1728: You would justly think it a great profaneness to contemn and trample upon an altar, because it was appropriated to holy uses, and had had the Body of Christ so often placed upon it. As Law grew older, his Sacramental teaching became still more explicit. Thus, in 1740, he wrote, in "An Appeal to All that Doubt": Would you know what Blood this is, that has this atoning, life-giving quality in It ? It is that Blood which is to be received in the Holy Sacrament. Would you know why It quickens, raises, and restores the inward man that died in Paradise ? The answer is from Christ Himself : " He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him." . . . Here, therefore, is plainly discovered to us the true nature, necessity, and benefit of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; both why, and how, and for what end we must all of necessity eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of Christ. No figurative meaning of the words is here to be sought for ; we must eat Christ's Flesh, and drink His Blood in the same reality as He took upon Him the real flesh and blood of the Blessed Virgin. We can have no real relation to Christ, can be no true members of His Mystical Body, but by being real partakers of that same kind of Flesh and Blood, which was truly His, and was His for that very end, that through Him the same might be brought forth in us. All this is strictly true of the Holy Sacrament, according to the plain letter of the expression ; which Sacrament was thus instituted, that the Great Service of the Church might con- tinually show us, that the whole of our Redemption consisted in receiving the Birth, Spirit, Life, and Nature of Jesus Christ into us. 336 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH A similar testimony is borne by the Annotated Prayer- book of 1786 : The Prayer of Consecration is not only the most antient, but the most essential, part of the whole office. In every liturgy of every church the priest repeats the words of our Saviour's institution, and by those words the Consecration is made. .For, it is not the power of the priest, but the efficacy of the Author, which makes the elements become, Sacrament- ally, the Body and Blood of Christ. In 1806 Bishop Horsley wrote thus of the Scottish Communion Office : With respect to the comparative merits of the two offices for England and Scotland, I have no scruple in declaring to you that I think the Scotch Office more conformable to the primitive models and, in my private judgment, more edifying than that which we now use ; insomuch that, were I at liberty to follow my own judgment, I should myself use the Scotch Office in preference. The alterations which were made in the Communion Service, as it stood in the First Book of Edward VI., to humour the Calvinists, were, in my opinion, much for the worse. Nevertheless, I think our present office is very good; our form of consecration of the elements is sufficient. I mean, that the elements are consecrated by it, and made the Body and Blood of Christ, in the sense in which our Lord Himself said the bread and wine were His Body and Blood. 1 This testimony is curiously confirmed by an eminent Dissenter, Dr. Martineau, in 1839, who, criticizing our Office of Communion, says : Respecting this Real Presence with the Elements, there is no dispute between the Romish and the English Church ; both unequivocally maintain it, and the only question is respecting the " Real Absence " of the original and culinary bread and wine. However anxious, indeed, the clergy of the Evangelical 1 See Skinner's treatise on "The Office for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper " (Aberdeen, 1807), p. 157. CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 337 school may be to disguise the fact, it cannot be doubted that their Church has always maintained a supernatural change in the elements themselves, as well as in the mind of the receiver. The Rev. George Huntington, Hector of Tenby, who was Curate of Wigan in 1848, sends me this interesting story of a simple and traditional faith in the Reality of the Presence : James Daniel was an old yeoman, who lived in the neighbourhood of Wigan, some four miles or thereabouts out. He never missed the Holy Communion, and walked in to the daily service whenever he could. . . . The custom then was, in accordance with the rubric, to call up poor communicants to consume what remained of the Consecrated Species. I noticed that James Daniel always did this, and that he took the piece of the Consecrated Bread, placed it reverently in white paper, and then put it between the leaves of his large Prayer-book. Then he explained (I wish I could give his words as he spoke them), " I take it home to our Betty " (his wife), " and we kneel down together, and I say with her all of the service that a layman may say, and then I give it to her, for it is our Lord's Body, and if it is good for me it is good for her." Then in his quaint way he said, " Didn't Queen Bess say, ' He took the Bread, and brake it, etc., etc.' ? I'm of one mind with Queen Bess, and I take oiir Lord at His word." James Daniel was almost a man of one book, with a know- ledge of the Holy Scriptures I never saw equalled. I do not think he possessed any books except such as Nelson's " Fasts and Festivals," " The Monthly Preparation," and " The Whole Duty of Man." From Daniel Brevint, Dean of Lincoln, Wesley, in the preface to his "Hymns on the Lord's Supper," quotes this striking language : As the Israelites, whenever they saw the cloud on the Temple, which God had hallowed to be the sign of His Presence, presently used to throw themselves on their faces, not to worship the cloud, but God ; so, whenever I see these Better Signs of the glorious mercies of God, I will not fail 22 338 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH both to remember my Lord Who appointed them, and to worship Him Whom they represent. THE EUCHARISTIC SACKIFICB William Beveridge (16371708), Bishop of St. Asaph, wrote : The Sacrifice that is most proper and peculiar to the Gospel is the Sacrament of our Lord's Supper, instituted by our Lord Himself, to succeed all the bloody sacrifices in the Mosaic law. . . . This is properly our Christian Sacrifice, which neither Jews nor Gentiles can have any share in, as the Apostle observes : " We have an Altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle." John Wesley taught the " outward Sacrifice " offered by the " outward priesthood." And, with reference to the Holy Communion, he wrote in 1742 : I joined ... in the great Sacrifice of Thanksgiving. His teaching was as emphatic in verse as in prose : 'Tis done ; the Lord sets-to His seal ; The prayer is heard, the grace is given ; With joy unspeakable we feel The Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven : The Altar streams with Sacred Blood, And all the Temple flames with God. Yet in this ordinance Divine We still the sacred load may bear ; And now we in Thy Offering join, Thy Sacramental Passion share. Yet may we celebrate below, And daily thus Thine offering shew, Expos'd before Thy Father's eyes; In this tremendous Mystery Present Thee bleeding on the Tree, Our Everlasting Sacrifice. CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 339 Edward Bickersteth (Evangelical) wrote in 1822 : The Lord's Supper was designed to represent, commemorate, and show forth the Lord's death as a sacrifice for sin. This is done as a prevailing mode pleading His merits before God. Daniel Wilson (Bishop of Calcutta) wrote in 1826 : I will present my child at the Font of Baptism. ... I will lead him to the Altar of our Eucharistic Sacrifice. And in 1827 John Keble, in " The Christian Year," described the Holy Communion as " our glorious Sacrifice." HOLY BAPTISM On this it is needless to encumber my paper with citations from the older divines of the traditional school, for without exception (so far as I know) they taught Baptismal Regeneration. It may, however, be worth while to cite the testimony of teachers who were styled Evangelical. John Wesley wrote in 1756 : By water, then, as a means the water of Baptism we are regenerated or born again, whence it is also -called by the Apostle the Washing of Regeneration. Herein a principle of grace is infused, which will not be wholly taken away unless we quench the Holy Spirit of God by long- continued wickedness. Wesley's great Irish disciple, Alexander Knox (1757- 1831), wrote in 1820 : All infants who are baptized infallibly participate in the inward and spiritual grace which the Sacrament of Baptism is intended to convey. It would seem that William Wilberforce (1759- 340 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 1833) held the same doctrine, for we read in a letter by his son, Henry Wilberforce, that Papa defended most strongly the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. . . . His ground was, that we are told that no man can see God without a change of heart. We believe that infants do see God, and therefore he did not doubt that their hearts were changed at Baptism. In this connexion it is noteworthy that Newman was led to receive the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration by reading the " Treatise on Apostolical Preaching " of that staunch Evangelical Archbishop Simmer (1780- 1862). ABSOLUTION On the Power of the Keys, I again disregard the older teaching, and turn to the testimony of men who were born in the eighteenth century. The Power of the Keys was taught unmistakably by all these : Archbishop Wake died in 1737 William Wheatley 1742 Bishop Wilson John Wesley Bishop Home Bishop Tomline Bishop Marsh Professor Blunt John Keble Bishop Phillpotts 1755 1791 1792 1827 1839 1855 1866 1869 The doctrine was strongly urged by the Rev. J. Digby Beste, in a sermon on " Priestly Absolution," preached before the University of Oxford, in 1793. He laments the practical disuse of Confession ; but this disuse cannot have been universal, for John Nelson Darby, the chief leader of the Plymouth Brethren (1800-1882), writes thus of his early days : CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 341 I knew and walked in the system called Puseyism when Dr. Pusey was not heard of. ... I went to my clergyman always if I wished to take the Sacrament, that he might judge of the matter. (It is to be noted that this was in strict conformity with the Nineteenth Canon of the Irish Church, repealed after the Disestablishment.) I have the following instance from the Rev. John Wakeford. A metrical form of Confession was used by people making their confessions during a Mission held at Chardstock in 1897, and is apparently of im- memorial antiquity : To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost To thee ; and all the Heavenly Host ; I lift my hands and pour my prayers, And tell my griefs and sins and cares. For I have sinned, and I alone Am cause of all the sins I own. I pray God's pardon and His grace Of you His priest, who, in His place, Shalt judge of what I now confess, And bind or loose, and blame or bless. PRAYER FOR THE DEPARTED The Doctrine of Prayer for the Faithful Departed was taught by Barrow, Ken, Cosin, and Thorndike. Bishop Andrewes's Devotions abound in such prayers, and were for generations garbled by Puritan editors so as to conceal the fact, which has lately been brought to light by the learned labours of the Rev. P. G. Medd. To these standard authorities let me add some quotations from later Churchmen. John Wesley : I believe it a duty to observe, so far as I can, to pray for the faithful departed. 342 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Dr. Johnson : Lord, so far as it may be lawful, I commend unto Thy fatherly goodness my father, brother, wife, and mother, beseeching Thee to make them happy, for Jesus Christ's sake. Reginald Heber (Bishop of Calcutta) : 1 have been myself in the habit for some years of re- commending on some occasions, as after receiving the Sacrament, my lost friends by name to God's goodness and compassion, through His Son. In 1816, on the death of Princess Charlotte, Dr. Law, Bishop of Chester and subsequently of Bath and Wells, said in a sermon : We commend to Thee, as far as we may, and as it becometh us, the soul of her who has departed. We pray, we humbly pray, that she may be received into the Mansions of the Blest, that she may exchange a corruptible crown for one that is incorruptible, and that fadeth not away. At the same time Lord Charles Percy wrote, with reference to the departed Princess : May God of His mercy receive her soul into blessedness. In 1827, Lord Shaftesbury, on hearing of the death of Canning, writes in his diary : I do feel true compassion, and pray sincerely God rest his soul. Dr. Routh wrote this epitaph for his own grave : all ye who come here, in your Christian and charitable hope, wish peace and felicity, and a consummation thereof afterwards, to the soul of Martin Joseph Routh. . . . He lies buried in the adjoining crypt, with his wife, Eliza Agnes Blagrave, of Calcot : whom the Lord grant to find mercy from the Lord in that day. CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 343 THE FAST BEFORE COMMUNION This is a traditional practice, of which we find traces all over England. We know from the Life of Bishop Charles Sumner that it was observed by George IV. (1762-1830). Lord John Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh (1773-1862), who was educated at Eton and Christ Church, taught it as a matter of course to a lady now living whom he prepared for Confirmation. Bishop Woodford (1820-1885) told me that, when he first had a country parish in Gloucestershire, he found it an established practice in reference to the Communion of the Sick, and I have no doubt that similar instances could be multiplied indefinitely. And now I must conclude. I am perfectly aware that I have merely touched the fringes of a deeply-interesting and important subject. The just limits of time forbid me to do more. But I hope that enough has been said to show that, in holding fast to the Catholic doctrine concerning the Sacraments, the Power of the Keys, and our relation to the Faithful Departed, we are not following a cunningly-devised fable of the Tractarian writers, dating from 1833, or an exotic theory imported into the Church of England from Italy or France or Belgium. On the contrary, our Holy Religion is both historic and indigenous. After the way which only the ignorant or the malicious call Popery, so worship we the God of our Fathers. REFORMATION AND REUNION 1 IN the April number of this Review, my friend Mr. Birrell magnified the English Reformation. In the May number, Lord .Halifax, certainly not less a friend, pleaded for Reunion with Rome. The two essays afforded an interesting contrast of thought and temper. Each showed intelligence, information, sincerity, and above all a sense of the supreme importance of religion even in the life of this world. But the point of view, the mental environment, the antecedent bias, of the two writers were strikingly dissimilar, and my purpose in this paper is to enquire whether either attains, not to the whole truth of the matter, for that is not given to man, but to so much of the truth as can create a better understanding between members of the Church of Eng- land and their fellow-Christians in other communions. I begin with Mr. Birrell's essay headed " What, then, did happen at the Reformation ? " and here, turning for a moment from substance to method, I hope that Mr. Birrell, who has a scholar-like knowledge of his Dickens, will not be angry if I say that his mode o'f interrogative argument reminds me of Rosa Dartle. He is so sur- prisingly ingenuous. He is so conscious of his ignorance. He asserts nothing. He asks much. He insinuates more. "What, then," he asks, "did really happen at the Reformation ? " He would not for the world say 1 The Nineteenth Century, 1896. 344 345 what, though he has a little notion of his own, and does not mind our seeing- what it is. Of Miss Dartle we read that "she never said anything she wanted to say outright, but hinted it, and made a great deal more of it by this practice." Thus : "Oh, really ? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for information, but isn't it always so? . . . I want to be put right if I am wrong isn't it really ? " " Really what 1 " said Mrs. Steerforth. " Oh ! you mean it's not ! " returned Miss Dartle. " Well, I'm very glad to hear it ! Now I know what to do ! That's the advantage of asking." Similarly Mr. Birrell, when asking what really did happen at the Reformation, has a notion that a good deal happened ; that, in particular, the Mass ceased to be said in the Church of England ; and that, with its departure, came a severance alike from mediaeval England and from modern Rome, which it is idle for Anglicans to ignore and impossible to repair. This seems to be the idea at the back of Mr. Birrell's mind, but, Dartle-like, he forbears, out of deference to Anglican feelings, to formulate it. To him, as a Non- conformist, really things look a little as if it were so ; but he very much wishes to be put right if he is wrong. He " only asks for information," and if any one can show him good reasons for a different .view he will be eager to exclaim, " ' Oh ! you mean it's not I Well, I'm very glad to hear it ! Now I know what to do ! That's the advantage of asking." To lead him to this happy state of intellectual satisfaction and moral peace is my immediate object. Now, broadly speaking, I would venture to tell Mr. Birrell that the following were the most important of the many and far-reaching events which happened at the period vaguely known as the Reformation : 346 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 1. The translation of the Bible. 2. The revision of the Liturgy and Offices. 3. The dissolution of the monasteries. 4. The permission of marriage to the clergy. 5. The repudiation of the Pope's authority. These five great changes will, I think, be found to contain within themselves the germs of all that dis- tinguishes the modern from the mediaeval Church of England, and together they constitute my general reply to Mr. Birrell's artless question. For my own part, I regard the change which I have put last in the list the repudiation of the Pope's authority as infinitely the most important. Mr. Birrell, on the other hand, seems to think that the most important is that which I have numbered 2 ; and I will therefore examine it a little more in detail. When I speak of the " Revision " of the Liturgy and Offices, I include " translation," and I use " Liturgy " in its strict sense, as meaning the service of the Holy Communion, to which the " Offices " of Morning and Evening Prayer are ancillary. The substitution of a vernacular liturgy for one performed in an unknown tongue was an immense change, but, as Mr. Birrell does not concern himself with it, I may pass it by. Again, he disregards the ancillary Offices, and so may I. He concentrates his whole attention on the Mass, and I will do the same. " It is the Mass," he says, " that matters " ; " It is the Mass that makes the difference." And here it seems to me that Mr. Birrell attaches to the word " Mass " some occult or esoteric meaning, for which, as far as I know, he has no warrant. The etymology of the word is obscure ; the very language from which it is derived has been disputed. Our fore- fathers did not trouble themselves with these linguistic problems, but used the word a short, convenient, REFORMATION AND REUNION 347 practically English word to signify the Holy Eucharist. When Sir Walter Scott describes the Lady Rowena as having got wet in returning from " an Evening Mass," he presumably adopts the less exact use which we find in " Romeo and Juliet," and which applied the word to any form of Divine Service. But before the Reformation all public worship centred in the service of the altar, and the Mass was the Eucharist. The Reformers regarded the words as synonymous ; and the Prayer-book of 1549 sets forth "the Supper of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass." The Mass, then, is the service of the Holy Communion nothing more, and nothing less ; but Mr. Birrell reads into the phrase some other meaning of his own. Abandoning for the moment all argument, historical, theological, or etymological, he makes a sudden incursion into the region of the emotions, and cries out that he can feel the presence of the Mass at Havre and can feel the absence of it at Cromer. Well, it is not for me to disparage the emotions, or the employment of them in religion. Once Robert Browning, looking on with a friend at High Mass in a French cathedral, at the moment of the elevation gripped the friend's arm and exclaimed, " My dear Arthur, this is too good not to be true." But an emotion of this kind affords only a sandy founda- tion for the faith and practice of a lifetime ; and English Churchmen will look, through the splendid accessories which so impressed the picturesque sensibility of Mr. Browning and Mr. Birrell, to the unseen Realities which they enshrine. We turn from the sound of the Sanct- bell, on which Mr. Birrell is eloquent, and the Divine fragrance of the censer's wafted breath, to the plain oaken table, the " fair white linen cloth," the worn silver vessels of some English village-church, untouched as yet by liturgical or aesthetic revival ; and, making 348 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH our appeal, not to accessories or trappings however suitable or beautiful or instructive, but to the recorded words and acts of our Lord, to the unbroken usage of His Church, and to the letter of our English liturgy, we reach a definite and reasoned conclusion. It may be formulated in the words of a writer whom I feel in- stinctively sure that Mr. Birrell dislikes : " This day, as I believe, the Blessed Sacrament has been in the church before our eyes, and what can you or I desire more ? " l So far, I do not understand that Mr. Birrell disagrees with me. Like a prudent man, he declines to challenge the historic continuity of English Orders. With a duly- commissioned ministry, the words of institution, and the prescribed elements, we have the essentials of a valid Eucharist ; but Mr. Birrell seems to say that this is not enough to disprove that organic severance between the mediaeval and the modern Church of England which he would like to establish. A valid Eucharist we may have, but we have lost the Sacrifice of the Mass, and this he seeks to prove by (A) the changes in our Eucharistic service ; (B) the changes in the Ordinal ; (C) the generel intention of those who were parties to these changes ; (D) the teaching of the Church of England since the Reformation. Let us examine these proofs one by one. (A) Mr. Birrell instances, as changes fatal to any sacrificial view of our modern rite, the omission of the Invocation of the Holy Spirit on the elements, and the omission of the Prayer of Oblation. With regard- to the Invocation, it is certainly a liturgical feature of great antiquity and wide prevalence : its insertion in our Office was a gain and its omission a loss. But the Church of Rome does not possess it ; and, if it is essential to the Sacrifice of the Mass, Mr. 1 "John Inglesant," vol. L, ch. iv. REFORMATION AND REUNION 349 Birrell, when he fancies that he can perceive the Mass at Havre, is nurturing himself in a delusion, and might as well be worshipping at Cromer. As to the Prayer of Oblation, it has been, not removed, but displaced, and put as an alternative to the Thanks- giving at the end of the service. This, again, was a change for the worse ; but surely, if the Sacrifice of the Mass is of our Lord's instituting, it must be found in that part of the service which He explicitly ordained, and not in the devotional additions made by the piety of men. And all that He ordained the Church of England has scrupulously retain ed. As to (B), Mr. Birrell merely alleges " ambiguity " and " weakening " in the successive changes in the English Ordinal. As he adduces no instance, we need not stay to argue, but pass on, merely remarking that here again the Church of England repeats the words of her Divine Founder and the acts of His Apostles ; and in so doing she presumably administers a valid ordination, and confers the Christian ministry for all the purposes for which it was instituted. On (C) Mr. Birrell is even less augumentative, frankly avowing that it is impossible to ascertain the intentions of those who were parties to these changes. We therefore pass on to (D). And here, without encumbering the pages of this Review with a catena of quotations from Cosin and Sparrow, and Beveridge and Johnson, and fifty more, it may suffice to say that the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (or the Sacrifice of the Mass, for it is only a choice of terms) has never ceased out of the Church of England, but has been devoutly held and openly taught in each succeeding age. The chain has never been broken. The Sacrifice of the Eucharist is nowhere set forth with more emphatic clearness than in the hymns, sermons, and devotional 350 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH manuals of John and Charles Wesley. When John Wesley died, in 1791, Henry Drnmmond, of Albury, was five years old, and of Drummond Mr. Gladstone wrote : " No man was in principle more opposed to the Chnrch of Rome ; but he expressed in the House of Commons a conception of the Eucharistic Sacrifice so lofty as must have satisfied a divine of the Latin Church." l John Keble, who was born in 1792 and died in 1866, inherited his Eucharistic doctrine from his father, and his teaching about " our glorious Sacrifice " was widely diffused in the Church of England six years before the Catholic Revival of 1833. Even Bishop Wilberforce (1805-1873), steeped as he was in Evangelical traditions, held, according to Bishop Woodford, " the doctrine of there being in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper a Commemorative Sacrifice, wherein the Church on earth pleads before the Father the atoning death of the Son, imitating in a divinely-appointed way our Lord's own intercession above." And, to add one living link to the chain, Mr. Gladstone himself writes that the " effacement " of the " sacrificial idea " from the doctrine of the Eucharist " could hardly be accomplished without a serious dislocation of the historical relations between that great Sacrament and its historic types." 2 But perhaps Mr. Birrell will say, " Is this all ? There is nothing here that an orthodox Nonconformist need repudiate. The Presbyterian Milligan taught it just as emphatically as you do. This is not the doctrine of the Mass as I understand it." Perhaps not ; but for all that it is the doctrine of 1 " The Courses of Religious Thought," Contemporary Review, June, 1876. J "The Sixteenth Century arraigned before the Nineteenth," Contemporary Review, October, 1878. REFORMATION AND REUNION 351 the Mass, as the Catholic Church in East and West understood it ; and against this the Reformers of the Church of England struck no blow. Certainly they repudiated, and we repudiate, some loose notions, of no theological authority, which had become current in England just before their time. " The sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." Strong language, though perhaps not too strong for the unscriptural and untheological notion which it condemns. But even in this emphatic article there is no word levelled against the true and orthodox doctrine of the Commemorative Sacrifice. Here, as in every other controversy, the Reformers betook them- selves to the law and to the testimony to the recorded words of our Blessed Lord and His express revelation to St. Paul : " Do this in remembrance of Me." " As often as ye eat this Bread, and drink this Cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He come." Here is the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice as stated in Scripture, and to this the Church of England has unfalteringly adhered. " The Eucharist," says Bishop Andrewes, " ever was, and by us is, considered both as a Sacrament and as a Sacrifice." I said that I would forbear to quote. Let one famous passage suffice : The Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross being propitiatory and impetratory both, it cannot be denied that the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, inasmuch as it is the same Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, (as that which is re-presentative, is truly said to be the thing which it re-presenteth,) is also both propitiatory, aud impetratory by virtue of the Consecration of it, whereby it becometh the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. 1 The doctrine thus stated by Thorndike (who, it 1 Thorndike, Bk. Ill, ch. v., 19. 352 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH should be remembered, had a principal hand in the last revision of the Prayer-book), has been held by the Church of England since the Reformation as before. But, if Mr. Birrell asks me whether the Reformation made no change in her way of presenting it, I frankly reply that it did. Broadly speaking, the change was this. Whereas in the mediaeval Church the idea of Sacrifice in the Eucharist had overshadowed and obscured the primary idea of Communion, the Church of England at the Reformation laboured to restore Communion to its supreme and unshared place in the devotional life of the Christian soul. She reverted once again to the letter of Scripture : to the ordinance of Christ and the usage of His first disciples. She insisted on the presence of Communicants at each celebration of the Eucharist ; and she taught that, wherever there is a strict compliance with the conditions of the Eucharist as the Lord ordained It, there is a perfect fulfilment of It in all Its aspects of communion, sacrifice, and worship. In the concluding part of his essay, Mr. Birrell, admitting the unquestionable fact that this doctrine of the Eucharist has always been held in the Church of England, refers to the fact, equally unquestionable, that in this, as in other matters of less than cardinal importance, there are differences of opinion in the Church, and calls aloud for an authoritative decision as to which is right. There must, he cries, be in the Catholic Church a defining authority which all her members recognize and obey. And here, having accom- panied Mr. Birrell to the end of his journey, I bid him courteously farewell, and transfer my attentions to Lord Halifax ; for the question of Authority leads naturally to that of Reunion, and Reunion is the subject of Lord Halifax's essay. REFORMATION AND REUNION 353 When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it ; and, sitting amongst his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word Peace, Peace. As Lord Falkland ingeminated Peace, so Lord Halifax ingeminates Unity ; and in truth it is hardly fanciful to trace some similarity between his character and that of the high-souled Cavalier whom Clarendon depicted, with his " inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation," his " flowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind," and his " primitive simplicity and integrity of life." Now, knowing Lord Halifax's intense convictions on this subject of Reunion, I desire, even when I am con- strained to differ from him, to treat his views with the utmost sympathy and consideration. I begin therefore by saying that I entirely concur in his sense of the immense value of Unity among Christain people, and the sacred duty of promoting it. No one who really believes that our Lord uttered the words recorded in St. John xvii. 20, 21, can feel otherwise. But what is Christian Unity ? It will, I suppose, be admitted on all hands that the first condition of the Unity which our Lord desired for His disciples is that Union with Himself by which alone our fallen humanity can be restored and saved. A common Union with the Head is the most potent element of Unity among the members. But is this enough to secure the absolute Unity for which our Lord prayed ? What saith the Scripture ? To the " one God and Father," and " one Lord," and " one faith," the Apostle adds " one Baptism," and, in 23 354 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH another place, " one Bread." In other words, the Creed and the Sacraments are the signs and means of Unity among believers. And it would indeed be an enormous addition to the ideal completeness of the Christian Church, as well as to her practical power, if all who hold the same creed could communicate together in the same Eucharist. Intercommunion between different Churches is indeed a consummation devoutly to be wished. But to some it seems that even this would not be enough ; and they say or imply, with greater or less distinctness, that, in order to realize Christian Unity after our Lord's own Mind, all Christians must be visibly united in one organization, governed by one earthly Head, and that Head the Pope. Now, I do not deny the theoretical attractiveness of this ideal of the Christian Church ; but has it any warrant in Scripture ? And how does it tally with the facts ? Do we find after our Lord's Ascension the slightest trace of a visible Head of the infant Church on earth ? Do we not find, even in Apostolic days, Christian Churches springing up in different localities, each with its in- dependent life, and governed by no central authority ? Do we not see distinct differences of teaching even between one Apostle and another, on matters less than vital ? And the Apostles, by mutual consent, taking different departments of the human family under their respective charge ? Does St. Paul's letter to the Christians at Rome suggest that they had among them an infallible guide in faith and morals ? Do St. Peter's letters claim for their author the right to rule the Universal Church ? In the Council of Jerusalem we certainly see an instance of appeal, not to an individual, but to a central body; but it is noteworthy that this appeal is made, not on a question of vital doctrine, but REFORMATION AND REUNION 355 on a ceremonial observance of secondary importance. And even if we infer from this instance (what, I think, we have no right to infer) that it is a condition of Christian Unity that all Christians should be ready to refer their disputes to the judgment of one and the same assembly, what becomes of the Papal claim ? It might be conceivably, thongh fantastically, argued from the precedent of the Council of Jerusalem, that the visible head of the Church, and the presiding officer at her Councils, must be the successor of St. James in the See of Jerusalem ; but where does the Pope come in ? For my own part, I am unable to recognize even that Primacy of Peter which moderate Anglicans are some- times ready to concede. St. Peter was indeed a con- spicuous figure in the narrative of the New Testament, but conspicuous, alas ! as much by shame as by honour. I believe, with Chrysostom and Augustine and Cyril and Leo, that the Rock on which the Church is built is the fundamental truth of our Lord's Godhead, and that Peter's outspoken testimony to this truth is the great glory of his life, as it is the origin of his name. And, of the two other so-called Petrine texts, I believe that the one merely warned him of his fall, and the other announced his restoration. I know no proof that Peter had any headship over the other Apostles (certainly he had none over St. Paul, who " resisted him to the face because he stood con- demned ") ; or that he ever was Bishop of Rome ; or that he ever was at Rome ; or that, if ever he had been Bishop there and had enjoyed any headship over the rest of the Apostles, he transmitted that headship, or had the power to transmit it, to his successors in the Roman See. Something may, of course, be said for every one of these notions ; but in the vital matters of Christian faith, and the conditions of our spiritual 356 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH life, we require something more substantial than an ingeniously constructed system of assumptions and conjectures. And, turning from history to the actual state of the present world, the Papal theory seems fatally at issue with the facts. When we look through or over the wall of the Western Church, into the precincts of the Eastern, we seem to find a living confutation of it. For there a vast body, nearly a fourth of Christendom, has subsisted from the great Day of Pentecost to our day, which not only does not enjoy, but which denounces and condemns, the whole doctrine of supremacy ; and which, under the old Patriarchal Constitution of the Church, retains the Christian Faith entire, by the acknowledgment of Rome herself, who invites, and invites in vain, to her councils those unyielding Patriarchs of the East. . . . The score of millions of those Christians who inhabit the Turkish Empire have for almost a corresponding tale of generations enjoyed the highest of all honours : they have been sufferers, for their faith. They have been its martyrs. They alone have continuously filled that character. . . . Ever since the Turkish hoof began to lay waste the Levant, those twenty millions have had before them, on the one side peace and freedom, on the other side the Gospel. They have chosen the Gospel ; and have paid the forfeit. And, what- ever be their faults and errors, it is not for us of the West, amidst our ease and prosperity, our abundant sins and scandals, to stigmatize them as professors of a dead or dying Christianity, and thus to disparage the most splendid and irrefragable perhaps of all the testimonies which man can render to the Religion of the Cross. 1 No, assuredly the testimony of Eastern Christendom is valid, and it is emphatic against the Papal claims. But we have among us some who say : " We do not concern ourselves about the Easterns. We admit that they have strong ground. They stand where they did 1 Gladstone's " Gleanings," vol. iii., p. 257 seq. REFORMATION AND REUNION 357 before the great schism ; and we Westerns, who profess the Filioque, stand on new ground. But there is no need for further subdivision. Let us leave the East alone, recognize the Pope as Head of the West, and unite ourselves to him." But what would be the conditions of such a surrender, and what the resulting gain ? First, we should have to admit that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals ; and I, for one, no more believe it than I believe that the earth is square. We must abandon our secure foothold on the Creeds and the Bible, for the varying and perhaps inconsistent decisions of successive Popes. We must exchange the characteristic virtues of the Church of England an open Bible, a vernacular liturgy, Communion in both kinds, freedom of marriage for the clergy, freedom of Communion for the laity for the opposite vices of the Roman system. And, in the region of practical effort, we should renounce our passport to the sympathies of the great Anglo-Saxon race, which has, to all appearance, broken finally with Rome and all that savours of her. We come then to this. The headship of the Pope is unsupported by Scripture or History ; is vehemently repudiated by a great part of modern Christendom ; and could not be accepted by us without grievous loss to our spiritual privileges and opportunities. Is then the cause of " Unity," as between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, hopeless ? If by " Unity " is meant Reunion, I neither expect nor desire it. But Lord Halifax and his friends seem to see another chance of Unity in a form which would involve no compromising declarations by us. In plain words, they think it conceivable that the Pope may recognize the validity of English Orders, and all that such validity implies. " Recognition," then, rather than 358 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH " Reunion," is their immediate object. Now on this I would briefly remark : 1. Lord Halifax, having discussed the matter in con- fidential conversations with the Pope and other high Roman authorities, is much better able than I am to judge of the likelihood of this recognition ; but, for my own part, I do not believe in it. We know that human nature is very strong even in Cardinals ; it is part of human nature to dislike being proved to be in the wrong ; and this would be most conspicuously the case witli the Anglo-Roman body if English Orders were pronounced valid. My own belief, therefore, is that, whatever may be the Pope's own sympathies, the Roman authorities in England will fight tooth and nail against Recognition, and will prevail. We have learned from Cardinal Manning's Life that diplomacy and intrigue are not unknown at the Vatican, and that Infallibility is often subjected to a little judicious wire-pulling in order to make its decisions conform with the prepossessions of its environment. We must wait and see. 2. I entirely deny that the Pope and his Commission of Cardinals, whether well or ill affected towards us, have any power to decide for us whether our Orders are valid or not. We are not believers in the Infallibility, and on no other ground could the Pope's decision have binding force. We can judge as well as he of the historical facts of the case, and not less so of the question whether the words and acts of the English Ordinal comply with the requirements of our Lord. 3. Supposing, for argument's sake, that the Pope decides that English Orders are valid, what is the gain ? Some weak-kneed Anglicans might be comforted, but people who need the Pope's comfort are better at Rome. Romans could not communicate with us, nor us to their altars, for we should still be, ex REFORMATION AND REUNION 359 hypothesi Romana, in a state of schism. Eome would regard the Church of England as she now regards the Oriental Churches, and I see no great gain in that. I am told that there is a certain section of Anglicans who long to submit to Rome, but cannot bring them- selves to repudiate Anglican Orders and the Sacraments by which they have lived. Well, certainly, if Rome were to recognize our Orders, people of this class would be able to betake themselves to Romanism without disavowing their whole spiritual history. But this, though it might be no great loss, can hardly be reckoned as a gain. Although I do not expect the Pope to pro- nounce in favour of our Orders, I still sincerely wish that Lord Halifax's aspiration might be fulfilled. It would, at any rate, have been an admission by Rome of what we believe to be the truth ; it would tend to the increase of Christian charity between two great Communions ; and it might, in God's good Providence, do something to accelerate the time when the separated branches of the one great Christian family shall be able, without surrendering their distinctive views of truth, to co-operate for Christian ends. More than this in the way of Unity I do not expect to see ; and even this would be glaringly incomplete if it did not include the great bodies of orthodox Nonconformists. On that word orthodox I lay all possible stress, for the great dividing-line between religious truth and error is the doctrine of our Lord's Godhead. Between all who accept it there must be a vital union of heart and hope and worship, which those who reject it, alas ! cannot share. Henry Drummond, the Irvingite apostle, used to say that religious people are commonly right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. This saying affords a good guide for our dealings with Nonconformist 360 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Christians. They affirm the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement of sin, redemption, and grace ; and they are right. They affirm that they administer a valid Baptism, and they are right. They do not claim the Apostolic Succession, conveying the power to consecrate the Eucharist and to absolve the penitent; so we have no controversy with them there. If they maintain that in their devout celebration of the Memorial Feast they are spiritually refreshed and strengthened, they speak that which they know, and who is it that dare gainsay them ? If, yearning for the blessings of an authenticated rite, they present themselves for Communion at our altars, " the English Church offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come." If, on the other hand, they choose to abide where they were placed by God's Providence in birth and education, we, while devoutly thankful for our different lot, can surely walk with them in charity and mutual tolerance, and joint efforts for the objects of the Christian Kingdom. After all, we must remember that the Master promised, not " one fold," but " one flock," under " One Shepherd," even Himself. THE MASS: PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 1 TO the February number of The Nineteenth Century Mr. J. H. Round contributed a paper which was called " The Elizabethan Religion," and which was stated [in brackets] to be "in correction of Mr. George Russell." If it had for its sub-title " In Display of Erudition," it would not be ill described. To that erudition I offer the homage of sincere respect. My critic evidently is an historian. But it is only fair to remark that he has had six months wherein to acquire the information with which he belabours me ; whereas present exigencies leave me scarcely as many days for my reply. Nor is this the only consideration which makes me a little nervous in attempting to cope with Mr. Round. I am apprehensive lest I should offend him by a mis- placed levity. Sydney Smith remarks that " there is nothing pompous gentlemen are so much afraid of as a little humour." Mr. Birrell is not a pompous gentleman, and has not the slightest objection to a joke in season ; but Mr. Round is made of sterner stuff. It appears that in my former paper I committed the offence of " making merry," and of " feeling amused " ; nay, even, in one gross instance, of putting a point " playfully." Now, this is really very bad, and I must be careful not to repeat in March the offensive pleasantry of July. Mr. Round solemnly proclaims that there are three 1 The Nineteenth Century, 1897, 361 362 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH ways in which his article may be met ridicule, silence, and evasion. I shall presently try to show him a fourth. In the meantime I shall equally forbear the three which he has enumerated, if only he will allow me to pause (just for a moment before we come to business) on the damning sentence in which he dismisses my theory of the Reformation : The tide is bound to ebb. All that edifice of webs that sophists have spun is doomed to be shattered and rent asunder, even as Mr. Russell's amazing assertions vanish, in the light of facts, like mists before the rising sun. Here's richness ! as Mr. Squeers said of his pupils' milk and water. Here is a noble confusion of poetic imagery ! An ebbing tide and a rising sun an edifice made of webs, and those webs spun by sophists ! Surely since the days of " Satan " Montgomery we have had nothing quite as good as this. Now, as then, One great enchanter helmed the harmonious whole. But in this case the enchanter is Mr. Round, and his divinations demand an awful reverence. Mr. Round's paper consists in great measure of interesting extracts from historical records ; but these extracts are not " in correction of Mr. George Russell," for they neither affirm what I have denied nor deny what I have affirmed. They amount to this : (1) That at the Reformation there was a considerable change in the religious beliefs and practice of England. On this point I agree completely with Mr. Round. (2) That the form of religion which was discarded at the Reformation was " Poperie," or, more graphically, " that sinck of errour and false doctrine of the Pope." Exactly so. It was the repudiation of the Pope and Popery which, as I said last July, was by far the most important part of the English Reformation. THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 363 (3) That the English order of celebrating the Holy Eucharist has, at and since the Reformation, been largely and repeatedly modified. In this sentence I purposely avoid the disputable word " Mass " ; but the fact is too palpable to need stating. (4) That the service of the Holy Eucharist, which had, before the Reformation, been commonly called the Mass, was after the Reformation generally called the Communion or the Lord's Supper, and that the word " Mass " was not revived in the Church of England till the present reign. No one, I imagine, disputes this. (5) That the stone altars which had been used before the Reformation were generally destroyed ; that wooden tables were generally substituted ; and that the de- struction of sacred furniture was often attended with shocking profanity and violence, both of act and speech. This, again, is elementary knowledge. So far, I think, we all are agreed, and Mr. Round's citations only illustrate, with force and freshness, some historical facts about which there is no dispute. But scattered up and down among the citations are some questions, statements, and inferences of a more con- troversial sort. Let me take them one by one. (a) Mr. Round adopts as his own two questions put (in substance) by Mr. Birrell. First : " Was the Reformation a break of the visible unity of the Church ? " Second : " Has the English Church, as a Church, after the Reformation continued to celebrate the Mass after the same fashion and with the same intention as before ? " My answer to the first question is, Yes. The repudiation of the Pope's authority was a " break of visible unity," because it severed the Church of England from the rest of the Catholic Church in Western Europe. My answer to the second question is, No, The English Church has since the Reformation 364 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH celebrated the Mass or Eucharist " after a fashion," differing in some important respects from the " fashion " which obtained before. Questions of intention are more difficult to answer ; but, if the Church before the Reformation celebrated Mass with the intention of a sacrifice separate from, or additional to, or repetitory of, the one Sacrifice on the Cross, then presumably the Church since the Reformation has celebrated with a different intention. But, granting that both these answers of mine to Mr. Round's queries are true, they involve no breach with the past. The organic or structural continuity of the Church of England is secured by the Episcopal succession which neither Mr. Round, nor Mr. Birrell, nor even Leo XIII. denies. A " break of unity " with the contemporary and surrounding Church does not make the Church of England a new, though it may make her an isolated, body. And as to the " fashion " and " intention " of her Eucharist, they do not for a moment affect Its reality. This may be illustrated from the case of the other great Sacrament of the Gospel. There is a vast difference of " fashion " between the immersion of an adult in a church and the sprinkling of an infant in a sick-room ; but either rite is Baptism. The intention of a Catholic priest is to plant the seed of the New Life in the child whom he baptizes : the intention of a Dissenting Minister is merely to admit the child into the congregation of the faithful. But either officiant, if he uses the proper form and matter, administers a valid Baptism. (#) Mr. Round more than once takes me to task because, in replying to Mr. Birrell, I said, " The Mass is the service of the Holy Communion nothing more and nothing less " ; and again, " The Reformers THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 365 regarded the words as synonymous." Mr. Round, quivering with a just indignation, " hesitates to define " these statements. He does well to keep silence even from good words, until he has read what I have to say in defence of my position. Among the " Reformers " may, I presume, be reckoned the compilers of the Prayer-book of 1549, and they set forth "The Supper of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass." Surely the men who framed this title treated the three names as synonymous. They did not purport to set forth (with reverence be it spoken) a new Thing : but the former Thing under two new names. To that which was commonly called the Mass they gave the alternative names of the Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion, and those three names were, in the strictest sense, synonymous. Another Reformer not unknown to fame was Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and he, when arguing for the Protestant view of the Holy Eucharist against Bishop Gardiner, 1 says : When the old Fathers called the Mass or /Supper of the Lord a sacrifice, they meant that it was a sacrifice of lauds and thanksgiving (and so as well the people as the priest do sacrifice), or else that it was a remembrance of the very true sacrifice propitiatory of Christ. Here, most certainly and strictly, "the Mass" and the " Supper of the Lord " are used synonymously. Again, Cranmer says : The adversaries of Christ gather together a great heap of authors which, as they say, call the Mass or Holy Com- munion a sacrifice. But all those authors be answered unto in this one sentence, that they call it not a sacrifice for sin because that it taketh away our sin (which is taken away only by the death of Christ), but because the Holy Communion 1 Reply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 379. 366 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH was ordained of Christ to put us in remembrance of the sacrifice made by Him upon the Cross. For that cause it beareth the name of that sacrifice. 1 Now for another excellent piece of divinity from the same Reformer : They, therefore, which gather of the doctors that the Mass is a sacrifice for remission of sin, and that it is applied by the priest to them for whom he saith and singeth, they which so gather of the Doctors do to them most grievous injury and wrong, most falsely belying them. For these monstrous things were never seen nor known of the old and primitive Church, nor there was not then in one Church many Masses every day : but upon certain days there was a common table of the Lord's Supper, where a number of people did together receive the Body and Blood of the Lord ; but there were then no daily private Masses where every priest received alone ; like as until this day there is none in the Greek Churches, but one common Mass in a day. Nor the holy Fathers of the old Church would not have suffered such ungodly and wicked abuses of the Lord's Supper. 2 Here it will be noticed that " a common table of the Lord's Supper " is used as synonymous with " one common Mass in a day." Another divine, whom Mr. Round will surely admit to have been a Reformer, is Bishop Ridley, and, when formally charged with heresy September 30, 1555 it is instructive to note that, in his reply, he applies the word " Communion " to that which in the charge is called the " Mass," and this with no hint of a distinction between the meanings of the two words. Charge. That . . . thou hast openly affirmed, and obsti- nately maintained, that in the Mass is no propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead. Reply. Christ, as St. Paul writeth, made one perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, neither can any man reiterate 1 Reply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 377. 1 Ibid., c. 378. THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 367 that sacrifice of His ; and yet is the Communion an acceptable sacrifice to God of praise and thanksgiving. Even more significant is the same Reformer's reply to the theological proposition propounded to him at Oxford, April 17, 1555 : In the Mass the Passion of Christ is not in verity, but in a mystery representing the same; yea, even there where the Lord's Supper is duly administered. Thus in Ridley's view the Lord's Supper is celebrated in the Mass, and the Passion represented therein. So much, then, for my outrageous assertion that the Mass is the Holy Communion, and that the Reformers used the terms synonymously. In further illustration of the same points, it is not irrelevant to cite the following answers to " certain queries touching the abuses of the Mass " returned in 1548 by Cranmer and Ridley respectively : The Mass, by Christ's institution, consisteth in those things which be set forth in the Evangelists, Matt, xxvi., Mark xiv., Luke xxii., 1 Cor. x. and xi. CRANMER. I am not able to say that the Mass consisteth, by Christ's institution, in other things than in those which be set forth by the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the Acts, and in 1 Cor. x., xi. RIDLEY. I think it not only convenient that such speech be used in the Mass as the people might understand, but also to speak it with such an audible voice that the people might hear it, that they be not defrauded of their own. RIDLEY. Here, as clearly as words can put it, the Mass is, in the view of our leading Reformers, the Sacrament ordained by Christ ; and the same point is further illustrated by the fact that Gardiner, arguing on the Roman side against Cranmer, uses the terms "the Mass " and " the Holy Supper " as indiscriminately as his opponent. 368 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH Some later instances of the use of the word " Mass " may not be out of place. 1606. In this year Richard Field (Dean of Gloucester) wrote, in controversy with Rome : The celebration of the Holy Mystery and Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood had the name of Mass, from the dismissing of all non-communicants before the Consecration began. 1 1659. In this year Henry Hammond, D.D., wrote, in controversy with Rome : The Protestants of the Church of England believe and reverence, as much as any, the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, as the most substantial and essential act of our Religion, and doubt not but the word Mlssa, " Mass," hath fitly been used by the Western Church to signifie it ; and herein abhor or condemn nothing but the corruptions and mutilations which the Church of Rome, without care of conforming them- selves to the Universal, have admitted in the celebration. 2 1677. In this year died Isaac Barrow (Master of Trinity College, Cambridge). On his death-bed he gave to Archbishop Tillotson the manuscript of his " Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy," which contains the following question about the Roman practice : Why is saying private Mass (or celebrating the Communion in solitude) allowed? 3 1839. In this year James Martineau (Unitarian), after denouncing our Office of Baptism, wrote as follows : The Office of Communion contains even stronger marks of the same sacerdotal superstitions ; and, notwithstanding 1 "Of the Church," vol. ii., p. 10. 1 Works of Henry Hammond, vol. ii., p. 164. 3 Works of Isaac Barrow, vol. iii., p. 96. THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 369 the Protestant horror entertained of the Mass, approaches it so nearly that no ingenuity can exhibit them in contrast. 1 1866. In this year Charles Merivale (Dean of Ely) wrote as follows : It is unlucky that the Ritualists have, as I apprehend, both law and logic on their side. . . . The term Mass is undoubtedly Edwardian and legal. 2 1859-1873. During these years Edward White Benson (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) was Master of Wellington College. One of assistant masters the Rev. C. W. Penny wrote that, after he had celebrated the Holy Communion for the first time, Dr. Benson said to him : I congratulate you on having celebrated your first Mass. 3 Mr. Penny adds : At the time the word Mass jarred: upon my ears ; but in view of subsequent events I think he used it deliberately as it is used in the First Prayer-book of King Edward VI. 1877-1883. During these years Archbishop Benson was Bishop of Truro ; and the following conversation is recorded by the Rev. A. J. Mason, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge : One day, walking up from Truro to Kenwyn, I was urging the Bishop to use his efforts to procure the restoration of Edward VI.'s First Prayer-book. . . . He sympathized much with the desire, but saw, of course, the impossibility of its accomplishment in present circumstances. The con- versation ended in his saying, " Depend upon it, we have a very good Mass; and we must mumble it." 4 Thus, by the mouth of Archbishop Cranmer in the 1 "Studies of Christianity," p. 51. 3 Autobiography of Dean Merivale, p. 362. s Life of Archbishop Benson, vol. i., p. 174. 4 Ibid., vol. i., p. 480. 370 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH sixteenth century and of his successor Archbishop Benson in the nineteenth century, the Church of England has affirmed the identity of the Mass and the Holy Communion ; and, as Dr. Martineau discerned, " no ingenuity can exhibit them in contrast." 1896. The conclusion of the whole matter was well expressed by the present Bishop of Bristol (Dr. Browne) when he said that Mass was a good old English word, which there was no harm in using. 1 (c) I learn from Mr. Round that I have authority with " newspaper correspondents." I did not know it before, but I take it as one of the results at which Mr. Round has arrived in his six months' research. And it further appears from his paper that my statements " represent the attitude of a considerable school, which, having brought into use the critical word ' altar,' so decisively expunged at the Reformation, is now openly endeavour- ing to do the same for ' Mass.' 5: Surely Mr. Round here blinds himself, as Matthew Arnold would have said, with the passions of an extinct age. Does he really think that the " school " which brought the word " altar " into common use in England is still living and working ? If so, indeed, there must be some unrecorded instances of astounding longevity in this country, some mute, inglorious Methuselahs, carrying down to the sixtieth year of Queen Victoria the language and traditions of the Caroline divines ! For at least two centuries and a half the word " altar " has been widely used and generally accepted, in the every-day parlance of the Church of England, without the least distinction of " high " and " low " theology. Have not our grand- 1 The Church fieview, November 19, 1896. THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 371 parents and great-grandparents communicated with their " Companion to the Altar " in their hands ? l Have not bride and bridegroom plighted their troth to one another at "the village-altar"? 2 Have not our kings been crowned at the " altar of Westminster Abbey " ? 3 Have not pious people of the strictest sect of the Evan- gelicals " at the altar renewed their dedication " ? 4 For my own part, it seems to me a matter of great indifference whether, following the writer to the Hebrews and the general custom of the Western Church, we speak of the Altar ; or whether, following St. Paul, we speak of the Lord's Table ; or, with the Eastern Churches, we speak of the Holy Table ; or, with the Roman Gardiner, we " believe the very presence of Christ's Body and Blood on God's Board." 5 The Prayer-book, we know, speaks both of the Holy Table and of the Lord's Table ; and whether we habitually say " Altar " or " Table," each word represents one aspect of the truth. " To men, it is a sacred Table, where God's minister is ordered to represent from God his Master the Passion of His dear Son, as still fresh and still powerful for their eternal salvation. And to God it is an Altar, whereon men mystically present to Him the same Sacrifice as still bleeding and suing for mercy." 6 And so of the titles of That which is offered on the Altar and dispensed from the Table. It is a Sacrament in its binding force ; the Sacrament in its pre-eminent honour ; the Lord's Supper in its sacred memories ; the Communion in which many participate ; the Eucharist in which all give thanks ; the Liturgy 1 Dean Comber. * Dean Stanley. 3 Tennyson. * Daniel Wilson. 5 Quoted in Cranmer's Reply, fifth book, c. 381. 6 Dr. Brevint in Preface to Wesley's " Hymns on the Lord's Supper." 372 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH which is onr " bounden duty and service." Or if, discarding all these names of various and valuable significance, we prefer to use one which is perfectly colourless and indescriptive, it is the Mass which our unreformed ancestors elaborately celebrated, and which the Reformation stripped of its mediseval accretions. (cT) I come now to the four points in which Mr. Round has summed up the results of his research, and which had better be given in his own words. (1) That the " Mass" and its correlative, the "Altar," were deliberately abolished and suppressed ; and that Catholics, from prelates to laymen, were in no doubt whatever on the point. (2) That "Communion" was substituted for "Mass," and " Table " for " Altar " (in practice, as in the Liturgy), the latter change being made avowedly on the ground that " the sacrifice of the Mass " had ceased. (3) That the Ordinal (as is now familiar) was again altered by deliberately excising the words conferring the power to " offer sacrifice." (4) That the Articles were made to harmonize precisely with these changes, not only repudiating the doctrines asserted so late as 1559 by the pre-Reformation Church of England (as, indeed, by the whole Catholic Church), but even adding (as the priest Raichoffsky cruelly observed to Mr. Palmer, from the standpoint of the Eastern Church) " abusive language." Now, with the substance of these contentions I do not in the main disagree, though I do not commit myself to all Mr. Round's adverbs, nor to his charge against " the whole Catholic Church." I agree that the word " Mass " soon passed out of the use in which the great Reformers had employed it, as a synonym for Holy Communion, and that it came to mean the Roman Mass only. I agree that the Roman Mass was made unlawful, and, as far as might be, " suppressed." I THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 373 agree that the material things called " Altars " were displaced or destroyed. I agree that the Holy Eucharist was commonly called the Communion, instead of, as aforetime, the Mass. I agree that the Ordinal was altered by the excision of the words expressly conferring the power to offer sacrifice. I agree that the Articles were made to harmonize with these changes, and that they contain strong language about the errors of Romanism. So far I can accompany Mr. Round, but no farther ; and from the conclusions which he draws from the facts, I respectfully dissent. We are not the slaves of words. The fact if it be a fact that the word " Mass " was dropped, and the word " Communion " generally substituted for it as the title of the Holy Eucharist when celebrated in the Church of England, did not, and could not, affect the question whether the Thing done under the two names remained after the Reformation the same as before. In our judgment it did, for the Sacramental conditions laid down by the Divine Founder were scrupulously continued, and where there are a priest, the elements, and the Words of Consecration, there, according to our belief, are the conditions of a valid Eucharist, or Communion, or Liturgy, or Mass. But if we are not the slaves of words, still less are we the slaves of inanimate objects. Mr. Round lays prodigious stress on the fact that the material altars were destroyed. But if every altar in Christendom were burnt to ashes, the Mass would remain untouched. It is not the altar that makes the sacrifice, but the sacrifice the altar ; and whether the Lord's Supper is celebrated under the dome of St. Peter's, or on the Holy Table of Moscow, or on a stone slab in the catacombs, or on a boulder of the Alps, or by a 374 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH sick-bed in a workhouse infirmary, the sacred Reality is the same. With respect to the changes in the Ordinal, it is enough to say that words which were not necessary for the institution of the Christian priesthood cannot be necessary for its continuance. According to our belief, the Commemorative Sacrifice inheres in the celebration of the Eucharist ; and he who receives the Apostolic commission to administer the Sacraments, receives ipso facto the power to offer the Sacrifice. As respects the anti-Roman language of the Articles, it partakes, no doubt, of the controversial vehemence of the time, but the theological judgment which it ex- presses I believe to be strictly appropriate to the errors with which it deals. (