"With these precautions," said Charles, "I really think you might have ventured on your surplice in the pulpit every Sunday. Are your parishioners contented?"
"Oh, not at all, far from it," cried Bateman; "but they can do nothing.
The alteration is so simple."
"Nothing besides?" asked Charles.
"Nothing in the architectural way," answered he; "but one thing more in the way of observances. I have fortunately picked up a very fair copy of Jewell, black-letter; and I have placed it in church, securing it with a chain to the wall, for any poor person who wishes to read it. Our church is emphatically the "poor man"s church," Mrs. Reding."
"Well," said Charles to himself, "I"ll back the old parsons against the young ones any day, if this is to be their cut." Then aloud: "Come, you must see our garden; take up your hat, and let"s have a turn in it.
There"s a very nice terrace-walk at the upper end."
Bateman accordingly, having been thus trotted out for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the ladies, was now led off again, and was soon in the aforesaid terrace-walk, pacing up and down in earnest conversation with Charles.
"Reding, my good fellow," said he, "what is the meaning of this report concerning you, which is everywhere about?"
"I have not heard it," said Charles abruptly.
"Why, it is this," said Bateman; "I wish to approach the subject with as great delicacy as possible: don"t tell me if you don"t like it, or tell me just as much as you like; yet you will excuse an old friend. They say you are going to leave the Church of your baptism for the Church of Rome."
"Is it widely spread?" asked Charles coolly.
"Oh, yes; I heard it in London; have had a letter mentioning it from Oxford; and a friend of mine heard it given out as positive at a visitation dinner in Wales."
"So," thought Charles, "you are bringing _your_ witness against me as well as the rest."
"Well but, my good Reding," said Bateman, "why are you silent? is it true--is it true?"
"What true? that I am a Roman Catholic? Oh, certainly; don"t you understand, that"s why I am reading so hard for the schools?" said Charles.
"Come, be serious for a moment, Reding," said Bateman, "do be serious.
Will you empower me to contradict the report, or to negative it to a certain point, or in any respect?"
"Oh, to be sure," said Charles, "contradict it, by all means, contradict it entirely."
"May I give it a plain, unqualified, unconditional, categorical, flat denial?" asked Bateman.
"Of course, of course."
Bateman could not make him out, and had not a dream how he was teasing him. "I don"t know where to find you," he said. They paced down the walk in silence.
Bateman began again. "You see," he said, "it would be such a wonderful blindness, it would be so utterly inexcusable in a person like yourself, who had known _what_ the Church of England was; not a Dissenter, not an unlettered layman; but one who had been at Oxford, who had come across so many excellent men, who had seen what the Church of England could be, her grave beauty, her orderly and decent activity; who had seen churches decorated as they should be, with candlesticks, ciboriums, faldstools, lecterns, antependiums, piscinas, rood-lofts, and sedilia; who, in fact, had seen the Church Service _carried out_, and could desiderate nothing;--tell me, my dear good Reding," taking hold of his b.u.t.ton-hole, "what is it you want--what is it? name it."
"That you would take yourself off," Charles would have said, had he spoken his mind; he merely said, however, that really he desiderated nothing but to be believed when he said that he had no intention of leaving his own Church. Bateman was incredulous, and thought him close.
"Perhaps you are not aware," he said, "how much is known of the circ.u.mstances of your being sent down. The old Princ.i.p.al was full of the subject."
"What! I suppose he told people right and left," said Reding.
"Oh, yes," answered Bateman; "a friend of mine knows him, and happening to call on him soon after you went down, had the whole story from him.
He spoke most kindly of you, and in the highest terms; said that it was deplorable how much your mind was warped by the prevalent opinions, and that he should not be surprised if it turned out you were a Romanist even while you were at St. Saviour"s; anyhow, that you would be one day a Romanist for certain, for that you held that the saints reigning with Christ interceded for us in heaven. But what was stronger, when the report got about, Sheffield said that he was not surprised at it, that he always prophesied it."
"I am much obliged to him," said Charles.
"However, you warrant me," said Bateman, "to contradict it--so I understand you--to contradict it peremptorily; that"s enough for me.
It"s a great relief; it"s very satisfactory. Well, I must be going."
"I don"t like to seem to drive you away," said Charles, "but really you must be going if you want to get home before nightfall. I hope you don"t feel lonely or overworked where you are. If you are so at any time, don"t scruple to drop in to dinner here; nay, we can take you in for a night, if you wish it."
Bateman thanked him, and they proceeded to the hall-door together; when they were nearly parting, Bateman stopped and said, "Do you know, I should like to lend you some books to read. Let me send up to you Bramhall"s Works, Thorndike, Barrow on the Unity of the Church, and Leslie"s Dialogues on Romanism. I could name others, but content myself with these at present. They perfectly settle the matter; you can"t help being convinced. I"ll not say a word more; good-bye to you, good-bye."
CHAPTER XV.
Much as Charles loved and prized the company of his mother and sisters he was not sorry to have gentlemen"s society, so he accepted with pleasure an invitation which Bateman sent him to dine with him at Melford. Also he wished to show Bateman, what no protestation could effect, how absurdly exaggerated were the reports which were circulated about him. And as the said Bateman, with all his want of common sense, was really a well-informed man, and well read in English divines, he thought he might incidentally hear something from him which he could turn to account. When he got to Melford he found a Mr. Campbell had been asked to meet him; a young Cambridge rector of a neighbouring parish, of the same religious sentiments on the whole as Bateman, and, though a little positive, a man of clear head and vigorous mind.
They had been going over the church; and the conversation at dinner turned on the revival of Gothic architecture--an event which gave unmixed satisfaction to all parties. The subject would have died out, almost as soon as it was started, for want of a difference upon it, had not Bateman happily gone on boldly to declare that, if he had his will, there should be no architecture in the English churches but Gothic, and no music but Gregorian. This was a good thesis, distinctly put, and gave scope for a very pretty quarrel. Reding said that all these adjuncts of worship, whether music or architecture, were national; they were the mode in which religious feeling showed itself in particular times and places. He did not mean to say that the outward expression of religion in a country might not be guided, but it could not be forced; that it was as preposterous to make people worship in one"s own way, as be merry in one"s own way. "The Greeks," he said, "cut the hair in grief, the Romans let it grow; the Orientals veiled their heads in worship, the Greeks uncovered them; Christians take off their hats in a church, Mahometans their shoes; a long veil is a sign of modesty in Europe, of immodesty in Asia. You may as well try to change the size of people, as their forms of worship. Bateman, we must cut you down a foot, and then you shall begin your ecclesiastical reforms."
"But surely, my worthy friend," answered Bateman, "you don"t mean to say that there is no natural connexion between internal feeling and outward expression, so that one form is no better than another?"
"Far from it," answered Charles; "but let those who confine their music to Gregorians put up crucifixes in the highways. Each is the representative of a particular place or time."
"That"s what I say of our good friend"s short coat and long ca.s.sock,"
said Campbell; "it is a confusion of different times, ancient and modern."
"Or of different ideas," said Charles, "the ca.s.sock Catholic, the coat Protestant."
"The reverse," said Bateman; "the ca.s.sock is old Hooker"s Anglican habit: the coat comes from Catholic France."
"Anyhow, it is what Mr. Reding calls a mixture of ideas," said Campbell; "and that"s the difficulty I find in uniting Gothic and Gregorians."
"Oh, pardon me," said Bateman, "they are one idea; they are both eminently Catholic."
"You can"t be more Catholic than Rome, I suppose," said Campbell; "yet there"s no Gothic there."
"Rome is a peculiar place," said Bateman; "besides, my dear friend, if we do but consider that Rome has corrupted the pure apostolic doctrine, can we wonder that it should have a corrupt architecture?"
"Why, then, go to Rome for Gregorians?" said Campbell; "I suspect they are called after Gregory I. Bishop of Rome, whom Protestants consider the first specimen of Antichrist."
"It"s nothing to us what Protestants think," answered Bateman.
"Don"t let us quarrel about terms," said Campbell; "both you and I think that Rome has corrupted the faith, whether she is Antichrist or not. You said so yourself just now."
"It is true, I did," said Bateman; "but I make a little distinction. The Church of Rome has not _corrupted_ the faith, but has _admitted_ corruptions among her people."
"It won"t do," answered Campbell; "depend on it, we can"t stand our ground in controversy unless we in our hearts think very severely of the Church of Rome."