If we may quote the Eastern Church, the Roman Catholic Church is the greatest heresy of modern times. In the Encyclic Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, the Papal system is referred to as "the chief heresy of the latter days, which flourishes now, as its predecessor, Arianism, flourished before it in the earlier ages, and which, like Arianism, shall in like manner be cast down and vanish away." "I die in the faith of the Catholic Church before the disunion of East and West," were the last words of Bishop Ken. Under the Stuarts, in solemn conclave the Anglicans accused the Romanists of idolatry. In the opinion, then, of the oldest Church, the only Church with an indisputable apostolical succession, and in the opinion of some of England"s greatest Churchmen, the Church of Rome is an heretical one. Such is the conclusion to which also we are driven by the very slightest historical inquiry. Lady Herbert wonders that an Anglican Churchman can go to Jerusalem and not become a Romanist.
Why, as the priest takes you from one sacred station to another, shows you where the Saviour fainted beneath the load of the cross, where Saint Veronica wiped His face with her handkerchief, where the print of the Saviour"s foot yet remains,-when we all know that the Jerusalem of the Saviour"s time is some eighty feet below the surface, and that all these a.s.sertions are absolutely false, you feel indignant, and, if you have the smallest iota of intellect left, after listening to the priestly legends, return a considerably sounder Protestant than you went. In like manner, history leads you to a similar conclusion as to the Roman Church.
History, with an impartial pen, tells us how the Roman heresy sprang up, and grew, and reigned in every land. History robs Romanism of all its terror and of all its power. We see it, with plain, unblinded eyes, to be a heresy gradually enlarging its claims in accordance with the increasing ambition of its prelates, and the increasing credulity of its devotees. Gradually, as the memory of apostolic teaching and preaching pa.s.sed away, the Church of Rome, after the fall of Jerusalem, continued to advance among the western Churches certain vague a.s.sertions of authority. In proportion as its clergy a.s.serted their claims, other changes of an unscriptural character were made. First of all, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration was a.s.serted; then a mysterious veneration began to attach itself to the celebration of the Lord"s Supper; the sign of the cross was held to be vital to the expulsion of the devil; and prayers for the dead became common. A great step was gained when the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy was enforced; when Gregory the Great, as the Romanists may well call him, inculcated purgatory, and pilgrimage to holy places; inst.i.tuted the Canon of the Ma.s.s, and added splendour to the ceremonies of the Church, and claimed the power of the keys for the successors of St. Peter. On the foundation thus raised it was easy to base the most astounding claims; whether you are asked to believe that the Church of Loretto flew through the air from Syria to Italy, or, as in our time, the liquefaction of the blood of St.
Januarius, and the immaculate conception of the Virgin. After a certain point gained, the rest is sure to follow. Give up the Bible, believe in the priest, and the Roman heresy is the natural result.
In the Catholic Directory I find the statistics of Romanism as it exists in London. The province of Westminster, established by his Holiness Pope Pius IX. (Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,-such are a few of the t.i.tles he a.s.sumes), Sept. 29,1850, comprises the diocese of Westminster, with twelve suffragan dioceses. Westminster comprises Ess.e.x, Hertfordshire, and Middles.e.x, with, for Archbishop and Metropolitan, the Rev. Edward Henry Manning, elected and consecrated in 1865. In London also there is another Church dignitary, the Rev. Thomas Grant, Bishop of Southwark, elected and consecrated in 1851. The patron saints of the diocese of Westminster are "our blessed Lady, conceived without sin; St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles; St. Edward, King and Confessor." In addition to the Virgin in Southwark, the patron saints are St. Thomas of Canterbury and St. Augustine. The ecclesiastical statistics of Westminster diocese are, priests-secular, regular, oratorians, oblates of St. Charles, and unattached, 221; public churches, chapels, and stations, 123; and the average attendance at the four schools of the diocese was, for 186667, 12,056. Of course this includes more than the London district; but then in Southwark diocese I find St.
George"s Cathedral, and, besides, about thirty chapels or stations; and of the 160 priests in the diocese, we may reasonably conclude that a fourth are engaged in London and its suburbs. Last year thirty-eight secular clergy were ordained for England. Of these, thirteen were for the dioceses of Westminster and Southwark.
A correspondent of the _Weekly Register_, writing to show the increase of Catholicism in London during the last thirty years, points out that in 1839 there were in the metropolis and the suburbs the following Catholic churches:-St. Mary"s, Moorfields; St. Mary"s, Chelsea; the French Chapel, King Street, Portman Square; the Chapel of the Benedictine Convent at Hammersmith (now removed to Teignmouth, Devonshire); St. Mary"s, Kensington; St. Anselm"s, Lincoln"s Inn Fields; St. Patrick"s, Soho; St.
Aloysius, Somers Town; St. James"s, Spanish Place, Manchester Square; and the a.s.sumption, Warwick Street, Golden Square; in all ten churches or chapels. There are now, in addition to the above, St. Mary and the Angels, Bayswater; the new church at Bow; the Oratory, Brompton; St.
Bridget, Baldwin"s Gardens; St. Joseph, Bunhill Row; the Servite Fathers, Chelsea; St. Peter"s, Clerkenwell; SS. Mary and Michael, Commercial Road; the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street; St. Thomas, Fulham; the German Church, Whitechapel; the church built by Sir George Bowyer, in Great Ormond Street; St. John the Baptist, Hackney; Holy Trinity, Brook Green; Nazareth House, Hammersmith; the chapel at Hampstead; the Dominicans"
Church, Haverstock Hill; the Pa.s.sionist Church, Highgate; the Augustinians" Church, Hoxton; the Sacred Heart, Holloway; St. John the Evangelist, Islington; the Italian Church, Hatton Wall; the Carmelite Church, Kensington; the church in Kentish Town; the church at Kilburn; Our Lady and St. Joseph, Kingsland; the new French Church, Leicester Square; the Rosary, Marylebone Road; St. Francis, Notting Hill; St.
Charles, Ogle Street; the Polish Chapel, Gower Street; St. Mary"s, Poplar; the Holy Family, Saffron Hill; St. Anne"s, Spitalfields; Our Lady"s, St John"s Wood; St. Vincent de Paul, Stratford; the English Martyrs, Tower Hill; Our Lady of Grace, Turnham Green; St. Mary"s, Horseferry Road, Westminster; and SS. Peter and Edward, Palace Street, Westminster-in all forty churches or chapels in thirty years (without counting many private chapels or convents, &c.), or fifty chapels, where thirty years ago there were but ten. And it should be borne in mind that of the new churches many, such as the Oratory, Commercial Road, Farm Street, Islington, the Italian Church, Bayswater, Brook Green, St. John"s Wood, and others, are of a size and beauty which thirty years ago would have been deemed a folly even to hope for. There are now as many ma.s.ses said at the Oratory, Bayswater, and Farm Street, as thirty years ago there were in all the chapels in London, so great has been the increase of priests in London since 1839. On the south side of the water, in the diocese of Southwark, the change for the better is even more manifest than in that of Westminster; but, the congregation being poorer, the churches are also smaller. In what is now the diocese of Westminster, there were, in 1839 (writes the same correspondent), about seventy priests, and of these but two were regulars-Jesuits-who lived almost as private individuals in the Marylebone Road. There are now a hundred and thirty secular priests-fifteen Oratorians, sixteen Oblates of St.
Charles, sixteen Jesuits, ten Marist Fathers, seven Oblates of Mary, six Carmelites, six Dominican Fathers (besides as many more not yet ordained), six Pa.s.sionists (in addition to ten or twelve not yet ordained), five Servite Fathers, five Fathers of the Society of Missions (Italians), five Augustinians, two Franciscans, and three Fathers of Charity-in all, between regulars, seculars, and priests not attached to any particular mission, there are two hundred and forty-one priests in this diocese. Of convents for women there were in 1839 two within what is now the diocese of Westminster; there are at present thirty-eight.
In calculating the amount of Roman Catholic influence and activity, we must remember that in their churches and chapels service is always being performed; and that thus one Romanist place of worship for all practical purposes may often be considered as equivalent to a dozen Protestant places, especially where the inc.u.mbents are of the cla.s.s of old-fashioned clergymen who have a relish for port and what used to be considered a gentlemanly religion. For instance, let us see what is the round of services at the cathedral, Blomfield Street, Moorfields. On Sundays and holidays there is ma.s.s at seven, eight, nine, ten, and high ma.s.s at eleven. At three there is catechism, at four baptism, and on Wednesdays and Fridays at eleven A.M.; vespers, sermon, and benediction at seven.
On week-days ma.s.s is performed at half-past seven, eight, and ten. On Thursday, rosary, sermon, and benediction at eight; on the other evenings of the week rosary and night prayers at that hour. On the first Friday of the month there is sermon and benediction in honour of the Sacred Heart; on the second Friday of the month the Way of the Cross. There are the confessions, sometimes twice a day; and the Confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament, of the Sacred Heart, of Holy Angels for Children.
Then there are the Societies, such as the Holy Family Total Abstinence Society, Holy Family Provident Society, Benevolent Society for the Relief of the Aged and Infirm Poor, and the Night Refuge for Homeless Women of Good Character. Nor is this the only way in which Roman Catholic influence is felt in this district. On good works the Roman Church has ever laid great stress, and thus we find from the centre in Blomfield Street the priests have specially a.s.signed to them Newgate Prison, Old Bailey; Debtors" Prison, Lower Whitecross Street; St. Bartholomew"s Hospital, Metropolitan Free Hospital, Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital,-an amount of exertion incompatible with spiritual ease and worldly enjoyment. I mention this to show that you are not to judge by what you see; attendance at any particular time is no criterion as to the state of the Catholic community. You may depend upon it that it is always much stronger than it seems. Those present are but a t.i.the of the Romanists in any particular locality, and the admirable organization of their priests peculiarly fits them for aggressive purposes. I believe they are most successful in the low neighbourhoods, in the guilt gardens, in which a great metropolis like ours abounds. Their charities in London are very extensive. There is a Catholic Poor School Committee, a Westminster Diocesan Education Fund, an Aged Poor Society, an a.s.sociation for the Propagation of the Faith, a Society of St. Anselm, for the Diffusion of Good Books. The a.s.sociated Catholic Charities, for educating and apprenticing the children of poor Catholics, have six schools in London. The Immaculate Conception Charity a.s.sists the clergy in providing for children whose faith or morals are exposed to imminent danger through the death or helplessness of their parents. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, whose chief object is visiting poor families at their own homes, has sixteen branches in London, besides a large Orphanage, at this time containing eighty boys, and a Catholic s...o...b..ack Brigade. The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul have an establishment in Westminster. The oldest Roman Catholic charitable inst.i.tution is the Benevolent Society for the Relief of the Aged and Infirm Poor, founded in the year 1761. During the six winters the Providence Row Night Refuge for Homeless Women and Children has been in existence, 92,194 nights" lodgings, with suppers and breakfasts, have been given gratuitously. The only condition requisite for admission is that the applicant be homeless and without food and money. Such are the charities in London of the Roman Church.
As regards the pulpit, the Romanists are not wise in their generation.
In London, where oratory can do so much, they fail to provide themselves with a grand and effective preacher. They have no Father Hyacinthe in London. Surely Italy might have sent us a Roman Catholic Gavazzi.
Ireland supplies us with orators in abundance, but where are her eloquent priests? Cardinal Wiseman was florid and heavy. Archbishop Manning is more than sixty years old; and oratory, unlike wine, does not improve with age. His position, his talents, his zeal, incline you to hear him with respect, nothing more. As I have listened in some of the fine old cathedrals of the Continent to fiery priests, thundering away to crowded and attentive audiences, it has often occurred to me that it is just as well we have no such preachers in London to bring the Roman Catholic Church into fashion; to make it the sensation of the hour; to do for it what Irving did for Presbyterianism when he drew around him to the Scotch Church in Hatton Garden all the beauty, the fashion, the genius, the intellect of his day.
The ordinary public service of a Roman Catholic Church requires little description; nor do you see it here as you do, for instance, in the magnificent cathedral of Antwerp, where, in the dim dusk of an autumn eve, while a flood of music floats down from the choir, and the gorgeous priests, with tapers and incense and costly banners, are sweeping, dimly seen, along the fretted aisles, the writer has often felt there is a strange, weird effect produced, which, here you can never dream of. All is poor, something like a theatre by daylight, or a fancy ball when the delusions of gas have been dispelled by the too candid and impartial rays of the sun. There are the tapers and the usual processions, the vestments of various colours, and the music ever flowing, while at the altar end the priests are bowing and kneeling and scattering incense, and performing the service of the ma.s.s. If you have to listen to a sermon, it will not be a long one; and if you be a Protestant, it will strike you as verbose in style and un-English in tone. Nearest to the altar will be the upper ten thousand, who come in broughams, and have fashionable aspirations. At the other end will be the very poor, such poor as you see nowhere else, scarcely educated enough to count, as they do on their knees, their beads, and certainly not competent to intelligent appreciation of the service. Of course the people kneel to the altar and cross themselves as they come in, and join in the worship with an appearance of piety (I mean the elder ones-young ladies who have eyes will use them, whether they be saints or sinners), which is pretty well for such an undemonstrative people as ourselves, but is nothing to that of the Moslem, who plumps on his knees, regardless of all, exclaiming _Allah hu akbar_! as the Muezzin calls to prayer.
On the Continent it fares ill with the Papacy. In France-in Italy-in Austria-even in Spain it has lost its power. Its chief strength at this time seems to consist in the sayings and doings of an increasing section of the Church of England. It appears there is a society actually in existence to form a union with Rome, and Mr. Malet, the Vicar of Ardley, in Hertfordshire, was lately sent on such a mission. As to the idea of Christian union no one can find fault with that. It is lamentable that the Christian Church should be divided into sections that turn against each other the energies that should be devoted to the destruction of a common foe. That all should be brethren in Christ who believe in Him and lead a Christian life, is manifest, the common reader will say, in his desire after Christian unity. Mr. Malet comes then, of course, to all Christians, of whatever sect or denomination, and holds out to them the hand of fellowship? Alas! no; he does nothing of the kind. First of all he tells us he will not call himself a Protestant, then he dresses himself like a monk, and has his friends to call him "Brother Michael."
He then gets letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Manning, and goes to Rome humbly to ask the Pope to recognise the Church of England. Of course, at Rome, he is favourably received, and is delighted with all he saw, and seems to have swallowed all he heard, not even excepting the most monstrous fable or the absurdest legend. From Rome Brother Michael finds his way to Jerusalem-that Jerusalem that crucified the Lord of life, that stoned the prophets, that persecuted and slew the teachers and apostles and converts of early times-that Jerusalem where there is more downright lying in the name of G.o.d, and under the plea of religion, if it be possible, than in Rome itself-that Jerusalem where the rival monks to-morrow would cut each others" throats if the Turkish soldiers did not keep them quiet;-and then to the Greeks and Roman monks he offers a similar request; and "the aged pilgrim," as he terms himself, returns delighted, believing that the Church of England will be permitted to join with the Pope in a.s.serting all the frauds of the Papacy, and with the Greeks in celebrating that pious fiction of the holy fire once a year in Jerusalem. "The aged pilgrim" sees many favourable signs in this country. One is the reprint of Edward VI."s Prayer-book for twopence; and another the fact that incense may be bought in many shops at the West End, and that half a pound lasts a long time. Now what must the cultivated, intellectual, and sceptical spirits of the age think of a man holding such opinions? What must be the effect of his teaching on such men, but to estrange them more and more from the Church and its inst.i.tutions? Brother Michael falsifies history as much as he does religion. Actually he tells us there would have been no vice and crime in the country, no G.o.dless education, no pauper Bastilles, if Henry VIII.
had not put down the _Holy Brotherhood_. Of course he means by the "holy brotherhood" the lazy and dissolute monks. Why, if we were to sully our pages with but a t.i.the of the abominations and obscenities and rascalities recorded of the "holy brotherhood" in indisputable historical doc.u.ments, every father of a family would hide away this volume. The less Brother Michael says about "the holy brotherhood" the better.
Again, let us take another ill.u.s.tration of High Church literature: "Innovations: a lecture delivered in the a.s.sembly Rooms, Liverpool, by Richard Frederick Littledale, Priest of the Church of England." The aim of Dr. Littledale is to show that prayers for the dead, the choral service, the sign of the cross, the weekly offertory, the daily celebration of Holy Communion, the elevation of the Host, turning to the east, the division of the s.e.xes in churches, the mixed chalice, incense, vestments, and lights are _not_ innovations. He knows so little of history that he tells us that the conversion of our forefathers is due to Gregory the Great (the man under whom Popery was introduced into England); calls Edward VI. "_a tiger cub_," and speaks of Cranmer, the martyr for his religion, as having "_been arrested in his wicked career by Divine vengeance_." He says, "of the depth of infamy into which this man descended" he has not leisure to speak; and all the Reformers, according to him, were equally bad. Dr. Littledale says, "Doc.u.ments, hidden from the public eye for centuries, in the archives of London, Venice, and Simancas, are now rapidly being printed, and _every fresh find establishes more clearly the utter scoundrelism of the Reformers_."
The Doctor admits the Church of England was in need of a physician in Henry VIII."s time. His language is, "A Church which could produce in its highest lay and clerical ranks such a set of miscreants as the leading English and Scottish Reformers must have been in a perfectly rotten state-as rotten as France was when the righteous judgment of the Great Revolution fell upon it." The Rev. Thomas W. Mossman, West Torrington Vicarage, Wragley, Yorkshire, goes further still. In a letter to Dr. Newman, he says he believes that a time will come to pa.s.s that Anglicans will also see that it is G.o.d"s will that they should submit to the Holy Apostolic See, and that it is their duty as well as their privilege to be in communion with that Bishop who alone is the true successor to St. Peter, and by Divine Providence the Primate of the Catholic Church. He speaks of the "lurid murky flame of Protestantism enkindled in the sixteenth century;" and hail the light "once more beginning to beam upon us from the Eternal City, where the Prince of the Apostles and the Doctor of the Gentiles shed their blood." When such are the utterances of leading clergymen,-if the Church of England were Church of the nation as it claims to be, the language of Dr. Manning would be undeniably true. "Protestantism is dead in England. We may save the time which controversy wastes, and instead of going out into the battle-field, we may go into the harvest-field to reap and to bind and to gather our sheaves into our garner."
Dissent, however, has not been taken into account. It is rarely a Dissenter becomes a Roman Catholic. It is impossible, if he understands his principles, that he should. To too many it is the Church of England that leads to that of Rome.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
The peculiarity of the Church of England, that by which it is distinguished from orthodox Dissent, is the priestly character of its claims, and its intolerance of other sects.
The "Tracts for the Times" tell us "that the Bishop is Christ"s representative, and the priests the Bishop"s, so that despising the clergy is despising Christ." "A person not commissioned may pretend to give the Lord"s Supper, but it can afford no comfort to any one to receive it at his hands; and as for the person who takes it on himself without a warrant to minister in holy things, he is all the while treading in the steps of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. It is only having received this commission that can give any security that the ministration of the Word and the Sacraments shall be effectual to the saving of your souls. The Dissenters have it not."
The Dean of Chichester writes-"Our ordinations descend in a direct unbroken line from Peter and Paul. Unless Christ be spiritually present with the ministers of religion in their services, those services must be vain. But the only ministration to which He has promised his presence are those of the Bishops, who are successors of the first commissioned Apostles, and the other clergy acting under their sanction and authority."
The Bishop of Winchester says-"We believe that we do possess, as we cannot see that others do, Christ"s direct commission for our ministry, and a certainty and fulness, therefore, of His presence and of His Sacramental working, which, to say the least, may be lacking elsewhere.
If we do not hold as much as this we must dissent from the plain language of our own Ordination Service." The Bishop also denies that it is a superst.i.tious theory that "the clergy can convey to the soul by a material intervention some spiritual influence in an occult manner."
The Rev. E. Blenkinson, in the "Church and the World," a book presented to Convocation by the Bishop of Oxford, says the Protestant bodies have "cut themselves off from the partic.i.p.ation of the one Spirit as living in the Church and flowing through the Sacraments, which are the veins and arteries of the body." The last utterance on the subject is that of the Bishop of Ely, who places the first and undisputed General Councils as of equal authority with Scripture. The Catechism teaches Baptismal Regeneration. The clergy also tell us that they are called by the Holy Ghost, that the Bishop has conferred on them spiritual graces by the laying on of hands. This is the theory of the Church of England. In accordance with this in time past, it drove out the Evangelicals on Bartholomew Day, and has at any rate till our time prosecuted Broad Churchmen for heresy.
The bitterest opponents of this theory are the Evangelicals. It is a singular and noteworthy fact, that the theology dearest to the hearts of the people is that which teaches in the plainest manner the literal inspiration of the Bible, the doctrine of Original Sin, of Predestination, of everlasting d.a.m.nation, of a Devil ever thwarting the designs of a benevolent Deity, and seeking whom he may devour. Yet the character given by Dr. Arnold of the Evangelical clergy is still true, and accounts for the little influence they have in educated circles.
Another fact also becomes increasingly prominent: their readiness to swallow their words, to quietly accept whatever may be offered them by their opponents apparently merely for the sake of position in society.
Every now and then a crisis occurs in the history of the Church. If Baptismal Regeneration, for instance, be ruled to be permissible they must leave, and then when the time comes for them to arise and become martyrs, they quietly pocket their principles and remain. Of course they plead their greater opportunities of usefulness, as if religion were better served by dishonesty than by honesty,-as if the cause of G.o.d were better advanced by falsehood than by truth,-as if position as regards society were of more importance than the man"s consciousness of independence and honourable life. For the ritualist or the Broad Churchman it is no difficult matter to remain in the church in company with the Evangelical; but they, in accordance with his theory, are teaching soul-destroying errors; yet he remains with them, and is, according to his idea, a partaker in their sins.
The characteristic of our day is the Broad Churchmanship, which rejects the common theology as a prejudice well fitted for certain times, but unworthy of credence now. Of this party are the ablest men in the Church; all who are disgusted with the childishness of ritualism-with the narrowness of orthodox formulas, turn to them, and hail them as the regenerators of Church and State. Such men as Dean Stanley and Mr.
Maurice are a power in the land. They walk hand in hand with the poets and men of science of our time. In their teaching is gathered together much that is best and truest in the wisdom of the past. The difficulty of their position is that they are tied down as strongly as they can be to orthodoxy, and half their strength is wasted in the effort to show they have a right to be where they are. Nevertheless it is quite true that there can be no honest faith without honest doubt; that we fight our fears and gather strength; that as we know more, we feel how outworn is the old creed of Christendom. Sir J. D. Coleridge tells us the Articles are Articles of peace-that is, for the sake of uniformity a minister may make statements which he cannot believe. But a man who cannot trifle with words is denied all this liberty; he is tied hand and foot. The State gives him moral prestige, supremacy, wealth, on certain conditions.
The Dissenter is free; the wildest ranter has a liberty which an Archbishop may sigh for in vain. Such is the law. A State Church such as is desired by Broad Churchmen is an impossibility. And yet in spite of the rival and differing parties in the Church, and in spite of the fact that Churchmen themselves are longing to be free of the fetters of the State, I know not that the Church of England, as regards London, was ever stronger than now. The layman has little sympathy with Church squabbles: he goes to church feeling that in doing so he is not committed to any form of belief or worship. Dissent requires some sort of faith as preliminary to fellowship. In the Church you avoid all this: the Puseyism of the pulpit seldom extends to the pew. Then, again, there is a natural yearning in all minds after national union in religious as well as political matters. The higher cla.s.s of Dissenters display this feeling in an extraordinary degree. Their chapels are built like churches-they cling to the steeple which the stern old Puritans considered an abomination-the meeting-house has ceased to exist. Day by day Dissent gets rid of all its characteristics-its ministers a.s.sume a clerical appearance-they adopt the Prayer-book as their model-they now listen to read sermons and read prayers. Of late years their leaders have grown rich and respectable, and anxiously disclaim all connexion with the loud and exciting form of worship that has attractions for the ignorant. You may safely a.s.sume that the teaching of modern Dissent is indirectly in favour of the Establishment. Dissenters tell us they have modified their customs in order to retain their hold upon the young of the wealthy cla.s.ses. But they cannot be retained by means like these.
It has almost become a proverb, that in the third generation they will pa.s.s through the chapel to the church. Half the great mercantile houses of London and the empire were founded by Dissenters whose sons, as they have grown rich and cultivated, feel more and more the awkward isolation of Dissent. Increasingly this feeling is spreading among Dissenters, and the Church, if it were wise-its history is a career of blunder upon blunder-would have laid its plans to recover such. All the levers of society have been at its disposal. The Establishment rolls in wealth; there is no other Church in the world so wealthy; the aristocracy are bound to support it. Literally, there is in our land no career for a Dissenter. Dissent is a stigma in society. Even men who have no religious predilections would scorn the name of Dissenter. The schools, the universities-all have wealth and honour for those who will conform; and for those who conscientiously refuse to do so-exclusion and disgrace.
In London, within twelve miles of the Post-office, there are some seven hundred churches and chapels connected with the Church, and about treble that number of officiating clergy. At St. Paul"s it is estimated that on special occasions as many as 7000 or 8000 persons take part in the services. For the special evangelization of the metropolis there is what is called the Bishop of London"s Fund. In the summer of last year the Bishop of London stated that towards the sum proposed to be raised for that purpose, 360,000_l._ had been subscribed. By means of that subscription 200 clergymen have been added to the diocese, and contributions made to the erection of 69 new churches and of 20 parsonages. Sites also had been secured for 33 more churches, 27 schools, 15 parsonages, and 4 mission stations. 15,000_l._ had been expended for educational purposes; upwards of 9000_l._ for 53 Scripture readers; about 2000_l._ for 27 parochial mission women, and 2670_l._ towards the rent and expenses of mission rooms. It says something for the Church that it has thus raised funds for such purposes. When Bishop Blomfield appealed for 10 new churches for Bethnal Green, and raised sufficient money both to build and to a great extent endow them, it was feared that he had called forth such an expression of Christian liberality as would exhaust the resources of wealthy Church people in the great metropolis for many years to come. Since that time it is estimated that 1,700,000_l._ have been expended in London on churches and endowments. I am not aware that any other religious sect can say as much. The _Times_ estimated that there are as many as 85 clerical charities in London.
In the City of London the Church does not seem to thrive. The _Church Times_ published a kind of census of fourteen of the City churches drawn up after personal inspection during service time not long ago. It gives the value of the benefice, and the number of persons actually present when the correspondent entered the church.
Annual Value. No. Present.
St. Bartholomew the Great, 680 40 Smithfield St. Anne and Agnes, St. Anne"s 626 25 Lane St. Michael le Querne, Foster 300 closed Lane St. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish 230 18 Street St. Nicholas Cole Abbey 270 closed St. Bennet"s, Paul"s Wharf 254 6 St. Nicholas Queenhithe, 260 11 Thames Street Allhallows, Bread Street 382 3 St. Martin Pomray, Old Jewry 410 1 St. Margaret, Bread Street 287 3 St. Peter le Poor, Old Broad 1725 20 Street St. Martin Outwich, 1100 6 Bishopsgate Street St. James, Mitre Square 300 20 Allhallows with St. Bennet, 650 9 Lombard Street 7074 162
In the City there are 105 churches, parochial and district, and in the City the superiority of the Church over Dissent is manifest. The Jews, the Greeks, the Roman Catholics, the Wesleyans, the Baptists, the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians altogether have but twenty-six chapels in the City.
From the beginning of the long reign of George III. to its close-that is from 1760 to 1820-there were not six new churches erected in the metropolis.
When the Great Fire had devoured the eighty-nine parish churches of London, Sir Christopher Wren superintended the building of fifty-three at the same time that he was building St. Paul"s. Various Acts were pa.s.sed in the reign of Queen Anne and George I. to increase church accommodation in London, and Commissioners were appointed to apply the coal duties from the year 1716 to the year 1724, to the building of fifty-two new churches. Much of the money was misappropriated and only eleven were built, and a subsequent fund of 360,000_l._ was granted, to be paid in instalments of 21,000_l._ a year. In 1818, Parliament was prevailed on to vote a million and a half for building churches throughout the country as a thank-offering for the termination of the war; and in the same year the Incorporated Church Building Society was founded, to build, enlarge, and repair churches; of which many, such as those in Bethnal Green, Hackney, St. Pancras, Battersea, were in London. Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, persuaded the vestry of Islington to vote 12,000_l._ for church building. In 1836 Bishop Blomfield inaugurated the Metropolis Churches Fund, to which he himself gave up sinecure patronage at St.
Paul"s to the extent of 10,000_l._ a year. Sixty-eight churches were built by this fund at the cost of 136,787_l._, before it was merged, in 1854, in the Diocesan Church Building Society. During the twenty-eight years of his episcopate, Bishop Blomfield consecrated 108 churches in London. The whole number of churches ten years ago, writes Mr. Bosanquet in 1868, was only 498. Now Churchmen aim at absorbing the entire metropolis. "But in order to secure for every 2000 of our population one clergyman," said the present Archbishop of Canterbury in 1867, "we shall need twice as many additional clergymen as we have yet, with a proportionate number of schools." And here as elsewhere it seems to be true that supply creates demand. As soon as a church is opened it is well filled.
The Bishop of Winchester"s Fund, also known as the South London Church Extension Fund, is a similar effort to supply the spiritual need of that part of London which belongs to the diocese of Winchester.
THE DEAF AND DUMB AT CHURCH.
In London there are two thousand persons born deaf and dumb. To the sweet music of speech, whether in the way of conversation or lecture, grave or gay, or song however sacred and Divine, they are insensible. It follows almost as a natural consequence that they are mute, that from their lips can never come the thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
It is almost impossible for us to measure adequately the greatness of their loss or the depth of their desolation. How in some degree to make it up to them, to raise them in the scale of being, to teach them to think, and feel, and learn, and to enable them to communicate to others the results, is certainly not one of the least praiseworthy of the many praiseworthy Christian efforts of our day. With this view two courses of action have been followed. A Jewish school has been established at 44, Burton Crescent, where the system of teaching by articulation and lip-reading is pursued. For some time a similar system has been in successful operation in Rotterdam. As to the merits of the system a warm dispute has been for a considerable time in progress in America. Its advocates tell us that when these results shall have been made known, and the attention of the philanthropist and man of science shall have been directed to them, the days of the old system of dactylology, or communication by the aid of fingers, will be numbered. They ask, triumphantly, What parents will be content that their children shall continue to communicate their thoughts and wishes by the aid of signs, when it can be proved to a demonstration that 999 deaf mutes out of every 1000 possess the faculty of speech, and that such faculty can be successfully utilised? Mr. Isaac tells us, that at Burton Crescent, after only eighteen months" instruction, a deaf child who had never previously uttered a clear sound, recited a verse of the National Anthem in a way that brought tears into the eyes of many hearers. The questions are put by the teacher in audible language; and the deaf mute, by aid of lip-reading-another marvel of the system in which the eye does duty for the ear-comprehends every question, and gives answers audibly and distinctly. The a.s.sociation in aid of the Deaf and Dumb, of which the Rev. Samuel Smith is the able and indefatigable secretary, are, however, doubtful of the new system-and certainly lip-reading seems liable to give facilities for great misapprehension as to the speaker"s meaning-and prefer to continue the system which the society was organized in 1840 to teach, and under which it has worked more or less successfully ever since. Under this system has sprung up a deaf and dumb church-going public. On Sundays there are five or six places opened for such in London; on Tuesday evenings there are two, the princ.i.p.al one being held in the fine old church of St. Lawrence Jewry, near the Guildhall-one of Sir Christopher Wren"s churches-in which are monuments to Wilkins, the learned Bishop of Chester, and Archbishop Tillotson, whose lot was no peaceful one, and of whom it is worthy of remark that in the language of Jortin he broke through an ancient and fundamental rule of controversial theology, "Allow not an adversary either to have common sense or common honesty." Poor Tillotson, you see, never got over the disadvantages of Dissenting training.
But to return to the deaf and dumb. Inside this handsome church you will find any Tuesday evening about eight o"clock, some fifty or sixty of them sitting near the reading desk. Most of them are men and women in a humble position in life, engaged in various callings in the neighbourhood, more, however, in the east than the west. The desire to profit by such services seems on the increase. They have, for instance, at St. Lawrence, double the number they had, and the same may be said with regard to the services conducted morning and evening at the Polytechnic Inst.i.tution. Nor are these services held in vain. Every year some are prepared for confirmation, and special celebrations of the Holy Communion are held for their benefit. To the ordinary attendants, including even such as have little need of an interpreter to explain the subject or to help them to follow the services in church, the committee report, "these services and lectures are profitable." "I have felt it a great privilege to attend the services," said one, "which have been a great comfort and benefit to me, and I hope I shall remember what I have heard" (it is to be presumed, by "heard," the writer means what he saw: his language is conventional). "After I left school I felt so lost I could not hear what was said in churches, and now I am very happy in attending them." In another way, also, the religious condition of these afflicted ones is kept in view. The Society employs missionaries engaged in house-to-house visitation. By these missionary agents, acting in concert with the parochial clergy, a personal acquaintance is maintained with the deaf and dumb scattered over London, and a most marked improvement in their character, conduct, and intelligence is the result of the supervision exercised. The society is also engaged in promoting the erection of a church for the deaf and dumb. For this purpose 550_l._ have already been subscribed. In the Old Kent Road there is a Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and in other parts of the metropolis there are societies for their special benefit. Of course no mere outsider can give an account of a service with the deaf and dumb. It is easy to realize songs without words, but not so easy to realize public prayer and preaching in which no audible sound is heard, in which the service is conducted as it were by pantomime. As much as possible the rubric is observed, the deaf and dumb obey the instructions of the Prayer-book, and stand where standing is prescribed, and "sign" the response to the Lord"s Prayer, Creed, Confession, &c. As to the sermon, all that can be said is that it comes up to the Demosthenic standard for eloquence-action, action, action.
Among the deaf and dumb the best preacher must be the best actor. Not merely are the fingers in constant requisition, but every part of the preacher"s face, as much as possible, is speaking all the time, either in the way of exhortation or entreaty. Great use, as we may imagine, is also made of the arms, and the body sways backward and forward as if to lend expression to such ideas as it may be the design of the teacher to convey. The great aim of these services is educational. They are intended to afford such an insight into the meaning and use of the Book of Prayer, that the deaf and dumb may be enabled to join intelligently in the public worship of the Church of England, and undoubtedly it is desirable that the terrible sense of isolation so natural under the circ.u.mstances should be got rid of, that the deaf and dumb should feel that they are part and parcel of the universal Church. Nevertheless there must be a deaf and dumb pulpit from which may flow the ever fructifying stream of Christian truth-a pulpit which the deaf and dumb may feel exists especially for them. Of this pulpit at present the Rev.
Samuel Smith is the most distinguished orator, and as you watch him, though you cannot understand him, you cannot but wonder at his marvellous skill. Evidently his heart is in his work; equally evident is it that he has to complain of no wandering eyes. Every hearer is intent, many seem really devout and find the privilege one not lightly to be esteemed. The deep strain of the organ is not there, you miss the song of praise, you hear no penitential chant. From no living tongue falls the sweet promise of salvation and eternal life, from those sealed and silent lips escapes no audible prayer. Yet we know that
"G.o.d reveals Himself in many ways,"
and that He may be met with even among the deaf and dumb.
A SUNDAY IN JAIL.