Most travellers by the Great Northern Railway must have been struck with a feudal castle apparently, just what you might expect to see on the Rhine, but certainly not such a building as you would look for in the immediate vicinity of the Cattle Market and of Mr. Mark Wilks"s overflowing congregation. As you approach it, all around you are genteel villas and desirable residences; the neighbourhood has an air of comfort and respectability; the inhabitants seem substantial and well to do-in short, to belong to the upper strata of that middle cla.s.s which in our land, at any rate since the last of the Barons fell on Barnet Common, has been a powerful influence for good in England and all over the world.
You would scarce fancy that feudal castle, with its "jutty, frieze, and coigne of vantage," was a jail, or that inside it there were shut up between three and four hundred rogues and vagabonds, old and young, male and female, who have outraged the laws of their country, and have been sent there, if possible, to receive punishment for their offences, and to learn to do better for the future. Yet such in reality is the case. You are standing outside the City House of Correction, which was built some few years ago at a cost of 100,000_l._ Into this place it is rare for good characters to obtain an admission. They may knock at the door, but it will not be opened unless they are furnished with an order from the Secretary of State, or one of the visiting magistrates, who are aldermen of London city.
In this necessarily short paper it is not our intention to describe the general arrangements of a place which we fear to too many of its inmates can have but few terrors. There are homes outside of filth, and want, and degradation; where, morning, noon, and night all that is decent, that is tender, or true, or pure is crushed out of man, woman, and child; where you can scarce believe man was made in the image of his Maker, that he is a little lower than the angels; where you feel that rather than have company with such you would a.s.sociate with the beasts of the field, or dwell in some lonely isle "far off amid the melancholy main." To such, such a place as Holloway, with its cleanliness, and fresh air, and wholesome food, educational advantages, and considerate attendance, must be simply-in spite of its drawbacks of the treadmill, &c.-a millennium; and the question arises whether we have hit on the most effectual mode of making the dread of jail an incentive to the criminal cla.s.s to keep out.
Another question also suggests itself: Is it right thus to tenderly treat dishonesty, when honest poverty in our midst undoubtedly fares so bad?
Here, however, that subject cannot be discussed, neither can we touch on that other question, at this time strongly agitating the aldermanic mind, as to the propriety of allowing prisoners to have a religion of their own, and to be attended by their own religious ministers-a question the majority of the court evidently think absurd, for, as Alderman Cotton observed-and our readers must remember Alderman Cotton aspired to the honour of a seat in Parliament,-"if every dissenting sect were to apply for facilities for the celebration of their religious services, what would become of them? They should have to give the Baptists a pool to bathe in, the Mormons a harem, and the Shakers a circle in which they might make their dance." Of course, then, when I write of a Sunday in Holloway jail, I write of a Sunday where the services-there are two, morning and afternoon-are Protestant, and Protestant according to the Church of England. As the worthy chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Owen, is now about to preach, let us accompany him. We follow him up a flight of stairs, and are at church and in jail. To most of us it is to be hoped the sensation is a novel one.
In a small gallery, under which is the clerk and in the middle of which is the pulpit, we take our seat. The chaplain, of course, is seen by all. A red curtain, which we are requested not to remove, hides us from the congregation. However, we can see them nevertheless. On the right of the preacher, part.i.tioned off so as to be seen by none but himself, are the women prisoners; on his left, in another recess, are the boys, little lads for whose offences against society others and older ones are certainly more responsible than themselves. Before us, in rows gradually ascending, are ranged the male adults-pale, melancholy-looking men, who form the princ.i.p.al portion of this sad community. While they are seating themselves let us note the cheerful, neat appearance of the place. Not a speck of dirt is anywhere visible. You might, to use a common but expressive form of speech, eat your dinner off the floor. The wooden ceiling is very light and airy; the windows are plain and plentiful; the walls are bare, but of snowy whiteness. Underneath is the communion-table, and once a quarter such as the chaplain considers truly penitent are permitted to partake of it. Some dozen officials, in uniform, on raised seats, are ranged in different parts of the chapel, and when all have taken their places the service is commenced by singing, in which generally the wife of the chaplain-a lady not unknown in the literary world-a.s.sists by instrumental performance. This part of the service is especially remarkable. The prisoners are fond of singing.
There is weekly a cla.s.s for this purpose, and they enter into it with all their heart and soul. Of course the tunes are very simple and old-fashioned, such as we used to hear, but they are sung with a fervour of which few outsiders can have an idea. One could not help thinking of Longfellow"s lines:
"Loud he sang the Psalms of David, He a negro and enslaved."
The book used is the collection of Psalms and Hymns issued by the Religious Tract Society, and those selected are chiefly of a penitential and consolatory character. The soothing influence of this part of the service is, according to the experience of the chaplain, very great indeed. It was also very evident that the men took great pleasure in the responses, and one could not but hope that it was not all a.s.sumed; that when they confessed themselves "miserable sinners," that when they exclaimed, "We have followed too much the desires and devices of our own hearts," or that when after the chaplain read each one of the Commandments they prayed, "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law"-that to some, at any rate, these words were full of meaning, and did represent actual workings of the mind. In chanting also they join, and the way in which they find out the proper places in the Prayer-book, or in which they turn up the portions of Scripture read, or find out the text, or repeat the Creed, is a model to others, and gives an ill.u.s.tration of the existence of a very desirable influence which the men appear to be under. It must be remembered that they are there by themselves, that no external eyes are on them, that to many of them the service is an unaccustomed novelty, and that to those to whom it is not it affords a welcome relief after the monotony of the week. Be this as it may, nowhere in London or the country, at home or abroad, have I seen a quieter or better-behaved congregation. If you did not see the prison garb, and the number on the arm, and the little bra.s.s plate on the breast, you might fancy you were in the midst of an earnest Christian people, who for purposes of their own excluded women, and babies, and old men. The chaplain"s sermon generally occupies from fifteen to twenty minutes, and is of a character adapted to his audience; yet I must confess the attention paid to it was not equal to that which was shown in the more active parts of the service. The pulpit has yet to learn to be plain and practical; and chaplains, it is to be feared, with very remarkable exceptions, are inclined to be conventional. Still, the preacher did his best, was kind and simple, and when he speaks of such topics as G.o.dly sorrow for sin, and of turning away from it to G.o.d, or of the many ways in which men fall from rect.i.tude, many evidently, especially of the younger ones, seem desirous to understand and realize it, and to lay hold of something spiritually soothing and appropriate.
In many faces was to be seen an expression of great earnestness, forming a contrast to the unconcerned look of the indifferent. As the chaplain visits them all the week, and reads prayers to them every day, his influence must of course, whether in the pulpit or out, be great. Be this as it may, to many it is manifest that to them has arisen unmixed advantage from spending a Sunday in jail.
HIGH CHURCH REVIVALISTS.
What is a mission? In a book of the mission edited by the Society of St.
John the Evangelist, at Cowley, Oxford, I read-1. It is a special call from G.o.d. "Jonah preached a mission to Nineveh, and the whole city repented and was saved. Lot preached one night to Sodom, but they would not hearken, and were destroyed by fire." 2. It is a time of special grace. The men who have devoted twelve days to a mission in London have taken a bold and brave step in connexion with the Church of England. As much as Sodom or Nineveh, London, with its pauperism, and vice, and crime; with its n.o.bles stooping to the foul companionship of the jockey and the courtesan; with its high-born daughters rushing to see _Formosa_ at Drury Lane; with its merchant princes deeming it no disgrace to be honest as the world goes, or as the times will allow-needs if it would be saved from the fearful fate of Sodom, or the decline of Nineveh, that it should be specially preached to and called on everywhere to repent. For twelve days, then, some hundred churches have been open nearly all day long, in addition to the Sunday services, which have been conducted as usual. At All Saints, Margaret Street, for instance, the first service began at a quarter to seven in the morning, and the last did not close till past nine P.M. Church people are not partial to innovations. It was only this week a lady was complaining to the writer that in the parish in which she resided a week-evening service had been introduced.
As if two services on a Sunday were not quite enough. And truly, as times go, she had reason to complain. Two such sermons as one generally hears read in that lackadaisical, sing-song manner, which seems to be the only thing clerical the raw curate picks up at Oxford or Cambridge, are quite enough. If such were the preachers employed in the recent mission (I see their number is set down at forty-eight), it must have proved a failure. At All Saints, so far from the mission being a failure, it has been, I should think, a success. I have always respected the Ritualistic clergy; I have always given them credit for honestly attempting to develope the Catholic element, of which there is a considerable leaven, in the historical English Church; I have always felt that amongst them rather than amongst popular evangelical preachers, whose favourite haunts are the drawing-rooms of dowagers, or Broad Churchmen, the delight of sceptical peers, are to be found the men most ready to take up the cross and bear the yoke; but I had no idea they could preach, or if they did that men of sense could listen. I have found out my mistake. I have been one of the thousands who have listened to Mr. Body, of Wolverhampton, and I never heard or saw within the walls of a church a man so absorbed in his message, so carried away with its import, so imbued with a sense of its Divine reality. I may also add that a more awkward-looking, ill-favoured clergyman I never saw ascend the pulpit stairs.
But these people were all Ritualists-believers in form? Well, they are; there was an exaggeration of form, I frankly admit; there was a great deal more crossing the forehead and the breast than we English approve of; there was far too much of appearance of devotion. A man may worship G.o.d in a hearty, cheerful way as well as on his knees and with elongated jaw. The preacher himself at times a.s.sumed an air of needless imbecility as he stood with drooping head and with hands folded, as if engaged in secret prayer; lank and pale, and with a sickly smile upon his face, as was the manner of mediaeval and pre-Raphaelite saints. And then of course, like most of the services of all churches, of whatever denomination, the harlot, and the publican, and the sinner to be called to repentance, kept away. It is a sign of respectability to attend a place of worship, and people who come to church in neat broughams, who are partial to diamond studs, who wear brilliants on their fingers, are eminently respectable; still there were poor sinners there, and the place was full, and many were evidently deeply smitten, for the apostolic fervour of the pulpit crept from row to row till the sinner and the sceptic ceased to sneer, and all seemed mastered and subdued. Before the service began half the audience seemed engaged in silent prayer, and at the close that silent prayer was resumed.
It is difficult to describe this new burning and shining light. A _verbatim_ report of his sermon would convey no meaning. Who cares to read the sermons of Whitefield or Wesley? I heard him twice. In the afternoon he gave an address on the subject of prayer. There he stood in the pulpit, without gown or surplice, dressed in plain black cloth, mouthing and ranting apparently in the wildest manner, just as on the boards of the theatre they love to represent a Chadband or a Stiggins.
His dark short hair was brushed right down to his eyes. The princ.i.p.al feature was his enormous mouth, over which an unripe moustache seemed struggling into life. One moment his face was brought down to a level with the pulpit, the next it was shot forward almost into the faces of the occupants of the nearest seats, and the next he seemed to spring on his toes, with each arm extended over his head, and as far apart as possible. In the same manner the tones of his address were proportionately varied. One moment he spoke in a whisper, the next in a quiet, conversational manner, the next there came a thundering blast as if he sought to arouse the dead. Was this art, or was this pa.s.sion? The former, says the sceptic. The tragedian can mouth it just as grandly, on the stage. But as the greatest tragedians are the men who, like Kean, felt-ay, even to their inmost core-all the agony they endeavoured to realize and express, so I would say of Mr. Body that the intenseness with which he realized what he said elevated him, and enabled him to embody, as it were, the sublime of human pa.s.sion. For instance, at All Saints over the altar is a crucifix. In his evening sermon he was pleading that as much now as ever was it our duty to confess Christ before man. It was grand for the Crusaders to save the Holy Land from the Infidels. It was grand the way in which St. Agnes and St. Polycarp died, in which the early Christian martyrs lived and died. Nowadays the Church and the world were far too friendly, and what was the result? That we tried not how much we could do for Christ, but how most easily we could save our souls. We sang the song of martyrs, we acted the part of cravens.
"Look," said the preacher, turning round to the crucifix, "look at the Saviour on the Cross. Who placed him there? who made those wounds there?-the world. And you try to be friendly with the world." So intense was the power of the speaker that all seemed awestruck, as if before their very eyes stood the Saviour with His wounded and bleeding limbs. Another wonderful thing about the preacher is his common sense.
"Look here, now," said he, "here are a million of people who do not go anywhere on a Sunday in London. Suppose each one of you now resolve to go to the east of London and bring the people to church. Suppose you were to be street preachers. I don"t see why you should not. I don"t see why some of you laymen should not come and preach in this pulpit. Do you want your commission? Here it is, "Let him that heareth say Come,"
and if you did this you would accomplish more good between now and Christmas than would be done by the Society for the Employment of Additional Curates if they worked till Doomsday." Well, there is a freshness, and a vigour, and a common sense about this style of remark one does not often meet in the pulpit. And the service itself, too, was the perfection of common sense. It began in the evening at eight. It was over by nine. It began with a short prayer and a hymn which did not take ten minutes, and it ended the same way. There was a service after to which many stopped, but short as the service was I fear the speaker had overtaxed himself. He speaks from the chest deeply, hoa.r.s.ely, and his throat gave him a good deal of trouble at the end. Sometimes in his homely Saxon and ironical way he reminds you of George Dawson, but then George Dawson never stirred the depths. The only man I have ever seen equally effective was J. B. Gough, but then Gough was no orator, and could only act one character, while Mr. Body is a master of powerful language, and words never fail. He can read and sing also as well as he can preach, and while I write I seem to see him as he stood giving out the hymn after the sermon, as a general might marshal his troops-
"Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching on to war, With the cross of Jesus Going on before."
A SUNDAY WITH THE LUNATICS.
One of the earliest of the Gospel stories is that which tells how the Saviour healed the man possessed with devils. It is only of late that we have learned to imitate His example. For hundreds of years society has gone on torturing the mad, hardening the hardened, depraving the depraved. We are now retracing our steps; we are atoning n.o.bly for sins of omission and commission on the part of our ancestors. It would do good to some of the noisy poor who waste their time in low pot-houses talking of their rights, when all that a man has a right to is what he can earn, to look over such places as Hanwell and Colney Hatch, where pauper lunatics are lodged in a palace, waited on by skilful male and female attendants, spend their days in light and airy rooms as clean as wax-work, have four meals a day, and every reasonable want supplied. I have no doubt that many a careworn City man, as he has been hurried backwards and forwards past such places by the train, has often wished that in some such stately pile he had a niche where he could come of a night, after the day"s work was over, to breathe the fresh air, to tread the fresh gra.s.s, and to smell the fresh flowers. I propose to gratify this wish,-come with me, respected reader, and in the twinkling of an eye you will find yourself in Colney Hatch.
It is on Sunday, a day when the asylum is closed to the public. Far and near this bright sunshiny afternoon there seems resting over all a Sabbath calm. On the neighbouring rails no trains are running; the doors of the Station Hotel are shut; no traffic occupies the road and distracts your attention. You gaze on fields as yet yellow with no ripening corn, meadows as yet uncarpeted by flowers, trees as yet leafless. Farther off on the distant ridge we see lofty mansions.
"All bright and glittering in the smokeless air."
Arrived at the gate we ring a bell; the porter opens it to us. We enter our name in the visitors" book, and descend the gravel slope on which the asylum is placed. All round is a wide extent of land in which the lunatics take exercise and occasionally work. There are none outside now, for it is the hour appointed for Divine service. The door is opened for us by an attendant, who understands our mission. He takes us upstairs and we find ourselves seated in a little gallery set apart for the leading officers of the asylum. Just below us is the pulpit; on a line with it, but a little farther off, is the reading-desk; opposite us, at the other end of the room, is the organ. From the floor on which the pulpit is placed there is a gradually ascending series of benches; on our right are ranged the female, on our left the male inmates of the house.
It may be that there are some four or five hundred present. Here and there amongst them you see their well-clad keepers. The lunatics attend this service willingly, it is a pleasure for them to come, it is a punishment for them to keep away. On the whole they behave very well, and, as is often the case outside the walls of lunatic asylums, the females greatly preponderate. From our gallery in this clean, cheerful chapel we look down upon the group below. The sight is an unmitigatedly sad one; we fail to see a single pleasant face. The chapel, considering who are the audience, is almost light and cheerful. It is painful to turn from its white walls and rafters to the crowd beneath and realize how much darker and more cheerless is the human face when it is void of intelligence. In this chapel you do not see the worse cases, they are properly concealed from the spectator"s eye; it is enough to know that they are equally wisely and carefully tended with those before you. The women are far more troublesome than the men. All are hideously ugly, such as Fuseli might dream of after a supper of pork-chops, such as, perhaps, that wonderful painter at Brussels, whose pictures form the chief modern attraction of the place, could have painted in that queer little imitation Roman ruin in which he lived and died, but such as no living artist, at any rate in England, could portray. You feel inclined to exclaim with Banquo-
"What are these, So withered and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants of earth, And yet are on"t?"
Some sit as living corpses, others with scowling eye, flesh-and-blood pictures of despair. Others there be who have driven themselves mad with their bad tempers and unruly tongues. You can read all that in many a repulsive and reddened face. This one had led a gay life; what a termination for a career of pleasure! That one has become what she is by drinking; this one by the grand pa.s.sion which underlies all human life, past or present, all philosophy, subjective or objective, all religion, true or false. Amongst the men you do not see so many thoroughly dead and vacant faces; you will also see among them more diversity of action and a greater a.s.sertion of individuality. Some look angry, some silly, but few have that G.o.d-forsaken appearance sad to behold anywhere, but especially on the face of what might have been possibly under happier circ.u.mstances a tender, loving woman. But the tones of the organ indicate that the service is commencing. Men and women are now hushed and still; in spite of an occasional friendly word with a neighbour, whom very probably they pity as "As mad as a March hare," males and females come and go quietly and comfortably. Most of them have Prayer-books, and make a proper use of them; they join in the responses with great fervour, and repeat the Apostles" Creed, and bow at the name of Jesus quite as decidedly and uncompromisingly as do any of the sane outside. As to the singing, it may be briefly said that it is loud, and is all the better and more harmonious for the organ, which, especially at the end of the last verse, is prolonged unusually, and with a view to the drowning sounds of an unnecessary character. Indeed, this tendency to individual utterance is the chief danger of such a meeting as this. You can detect notes occasionally very undeniably loud and defiant, and, as it is, one female at the close of the sermon begins talking so loud as to require that two female attendants should take her off as quickly as possible; not that any one is disturbed-oh no! nothing of the kind. In a Belgravian chapel or church such an interruption would have created a far greater disturbance. Here no one is surprised, the preacher goes on just the same, and not a lunatic takes the trouble to turn round and look at the disorderly sister. Out she goes, and no one cares. With this one exception the service was most decorous. One very plain young female appeared to me to be too much taken up with her fruitless endeavour to attract the eye of a very plain young person of the opposite s.e.x, who did not in any way seem to respond. Another also seemed to be smiling joyfully many times, when in the sermon there was nothing to call forth such an external manifestation. Many also seemed to hear with intelligent attention, but as a rule the audience listened to the preacher with that resigned and spiritless expression with which most church-goers are but too familiar. Yet the preacher was short and simple, and spoke of matters in which all could take an interest; and which all could understand, of Him who hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, who was bruised for our iniquities, and with whose stripes we are healed. It is cheering to think that even here some do not hear of Him in vain.
LAY WORK IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
Dissenters have taught Churchmen a lesson, which they are, at any rate in our time, not slow to learn. The theory of the Church has been up to our own day almost exclusively sacerdotal. Its parochial system is, as Canon Champneys termed it upon one occasion, "a great allotment system," and to work that system there was the priest with his a.s.sistant deacon. That time has gone. There was time also when it was quite sufficient to argue against anything that it was a custom practised among the Dissenters.
The reader of Wilberforce"s Life will remember how anxious was that good man that the Dissenters should not take up the question of sending the Gospel to India, as if they did he feared their activity would put a stop to all Church action in the matter. It is not so now. The pressure of public opinion, the dreadful ma.s.s of heathenism which had grown up while the Church slumbered, the growing influence of Dissent, the increasing spirituality of the clergy, the zeal and liberality of their people, have in London completely altered the position of the Church of England.
Never were her services so well attended, never were her clergy more useful than now. At the West-end the Church is the fashion. In the East, where the poverty is too great to admit of the existence of a church on Dissenting principles, the Church is in some parishes the only place of worship, and the Church clergyman the only religious teacher. I have heard of one parish where the utmost that the clergyman could get for religious and charitable purposes from his wealthiest parishioners was but ten shillings; and of another, where the clergyman spent five hundred a year in charity. It is in these parts of London that the Church is most useful, most successful, most untiring in its operations, most lavish of its spiritual and temporal good. The laity give munificently. For example, the Countess of Aberdeen gives three hundred a year for the support of a clergyman in the East, who preaches in a church built by Lord Haddo; the Marquis of Salisbury has subscribed 300_l._ for a similar purpose; and the clergy, whether vicars or curates, devote themselves unremittingly to the performance of their sacred duties. Under these circ.u.mstances they find themselves unequal to the task, and appeal to the laity for help.
The a.s.sociation of Lay Helpers for the Diocese of London was formed in the year 1865, and "readers" have been admitted in the chapel of London House with a form of service drawn up for the purpose in the form following:-
John, by Divine permission, Bishop of London, to our beloved and approved in Christ, A. B., Greeting: We do, by these presents, give unto you our Commission to act as Reader in the parish of C, within our Diocese and jurisdiction, on the nomination of the Rev. D. E., Rector [or Vicar] of the same, and do authorize you, subject to his approval, to read Prayers and to read and explain the Holy Scriptures in the School thereof, or in other rooms within the parish, and generally to render aid to the Inc.u.mbent in all ministrations which do not strictly require the service of a Minister in Holy Orders.
And we further authorize you to render similar aid in other Parishes in our Diocese, at the written request, in each case, of the Inc.u.mbent. And we hereby declare that this our Commission shall remain valid until it shall be revoked by us or our successors (whether _mero motu_, or at the written request of the said D. E.), or until a fresh admission to the said parish of C. shall have been made. And so we commend you to ALMIGHTY G.o.d, Whose blessing we humbly pray may rest upon you and your work. Given under our hand and seal, &c.
At present the a.s.sociation consists of 44 lawyers and medical men, 141 clerks, 48 mechanics and labourers, and 156 ranged under the head of miscellaneous. They aim to strengthen the hands of laymen already at work by bringing them into closer relationship with the Bishop and with one another, and to call out more lay help by making known the kind of work in which the clergy want a.s.sistance. Recently the a.s.sociation has been very active on the subject, and has held many meetings in all parts of the metropolis. At these meetings undoubtedly much good has been done; a distinguished layman has taken the chair; a paper carefully prepared has been read upon the subject, and then a discussion of more or less interest and value has ensued.
Great care is taken in the appointment of suitable agents. They must be communicants sanctioned by the Bishop; a register of the names and addresses of the members is kept, showing what description of work each unemployed member may be willing to undertake, and also of the place and nature of the work in which each unemployed member is engaged. Upon the application of inc.u.mbents, members of the a.s.sociation are put into communication with them, with a view to such arrangements for lay a.s.sistance in parochial work as may be mutually agreed upon. Once in every year the members attend Divine service and receive the Holy Communion together. Once, at least, in every year a meeting of the members is held under the presidency of the Bishop if possible, in order to consult together upon one or more of the various branches of work in which they are engaged, and to make such regulations as may be found necessary or expedient. I hear also of the formation of Parochial a.s.sociations of Lay Helpers which hold monthly or occasional meetings of a desirable character. The executive committee of the a.s.sociation is appointed yearly by the Bishop.
The work to be done is various. At all the meetings which I have attended I have found the princ.i.p.al stress laid upon house-to-house visitation and mission-house services. It has been found that the poor have a reluctance to attend the church, but they will attend a mission-house service, and to preach and pray at such place lay help is urgently required. Other subjects specified are teaching in Sunday-schools and getting children to attend, conducting Bible-cla.s.ses, tract distribution, seeking out the unbaptized and unconfirmed, encouraging the newly confirmed to come to Holy Communion, and inducing the poor to attend church. Under the head of week-evening work such subjects are indicated as teaching in night and ragged schools, management of working-men"s clubs and youths" inst.i.tutes, a.s.sistance at popular lectures, penny readings, and other means of recreation, attendance at penny banks, clothing funds, and school and parochial libraries, visiting the poor, a.s.sisting in church services. Day work is much the same. Other subjects not already mentioned are superintending the distribution of relief, reading and speaking to working men on religious subjects in workshops; collecting and canva.s.sing for funds for parochial and mission purposes, and acting as secretaries to parochial inst.i.tutions and religious and charitable societies. Especial stress is laid upon the clergy being relieved of their secular duties as relieving officers. It is felt that clergy laden with an infinity of secular work, essential to the good of the parish and the carrying out of their plans, are thus more or less incapacitated for the performance of the higher functions of their office. When we think what are the manifold duties of the clergy, it is no wonder that sermons made to represent original compositions, and which may be read as such, meet with a ready sale.
Parochially London has grown wonderfully of late. The census of 1861, for instance, enumerates twenty-three parochial districts as formed out of the old parish of Kensington. Bishop Blomfield consecrated in all no less than 198 churches during the twenty-eight years of his episcopate, of which no less than 107 were in London.
Lay organization may be said to have commenced but recently. The first District Visiting Society of which I have heard, writes Mr. Bosanquet, was founded in connexion with St. John"s Chapel, Bedford Row, of which Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, was visitor. The Parochial Women Mission Fund was established in 1860. This a.s.sociation does not send its agents into any parish without a written application from the inc.u.mbent, who selects both the agent and her lady superintendent. There are now about 100 agents at work in London, acting chiefly in the capacity of Bible-women. For the young men connected with the Church there is a Church of England Young Men"s Society in Fleet Street, with fifteen branches in London and the suburbs; of 200 members on the books, more than half are engaged as teachers in Sunday-schools or other lay work. Then there is the Metropolitan Visiting and Relief a.s.sociation, 21, Regent Street, formed in 1843, to distribute the contributions of charitable persons in such parts of the town as most need them, by means of the clergy and their district visitors. For that part of London which is in the diocese of Winchester there is the South London Visiting and Relief a.s.sociation. How well laymen can work is understood in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, where more than 500 of the lowest and the poorest in that district may be seen any Sunday afternoon at two Bible-cla.s.ses conducted by laymen. Another lay agency in operation is the Workhouse Visiting Society.
In spite of all these organizations the Church of England as regards London has not yet fulfilled her mission. The harvest is plentiful, the labourers are few. Clergymen in the East say they would be glad of lay help from the West; but it does not come. In some parts of London there are parishes containing from 15,000 to 30,000 people, and in such a clergyman is almost unable to do his duty, in spite of his curates and paid lay agents. In most cases the number of visitors is quite insufficient. Mr. Bosanquet refers to a friend of his who had told him that some months after entering on a very poor cure in the south of London he had twenty-eight districts for visitors, but that twenty-seven were hopelessly vacant, and that the twenty-eighth was taken by his wife.
This reminds me that some of the ladies of the clergy, especially in the East and poorer districts, labour as energetically as their husbands. I have heard of one lady who has two sewing-cla.s.ses, with a hundred women in each. Commander Dawson, conference secretary of the a.s.sociation of Lay Helpers, looks forward to the time when every communicant will be one of the agents of the society, thus stimulating his fellows, and giving fresh life and courage to his clergyman. It is clear when this consummation is achieved the Church of England, whether established or not, will shine with a saintly l.u.s.tre which has never yet been hers.
Let me give a sketch of
AN EVANGELICAL PREACHER,
"You must go and hear the Church Spurgeon," said an intelligent lady, residing not a hundred miles from Highbury New Park, to the writer.
"Who is he?" we asked.
"The Rev. Gordon Calthrop," was the reply. "He preaches in a temporary iron church, St. Augustine"s, Highbury New Park."
Soon afterwards, on a certain Sunday, we made our way to the church in question. There was very little difficulty in finding it out. As you enter Highbury New Park, leaving Dr. Edmond"s new church on the right, you come into a region of broad roads and handsome villas, into which poverty, which has an unpleasant knack of pushing itself where it is not wanted, actually seems ashamed to intrude. In these houses, almost countryfied, standing in the midst of well-trimmed lawns, shaded by leafy shrubs, between which flowers of the richest beauty bud and blossom, only rich people and people apparently well-to-do dwell, and they all attend at Mr. Calthrop"s church. Follow any of them, as on a Sunday morning the hour of service draws nigh, and bells far and near are calling men to prayer, and you find yourself at St. Augustine"s. Close by, a handsome ecclesiastical structure is rapidly rising, which is to hold 1400 people.
That is the permanent church, the foundation-stone of which was laid by the Bishop of London, and where, it is hoped and believed, Mr. Calthrop may labour for many years to come. As it is, he has been preaching in this iron church, which will seat about nine hundred, for the last five years. He came there a stranger, fearful of the future, doubting what would be the issue. The church was quite a new one. The neighbourhood had been but recently built on, but he came with a heart full of zeal, with an experience ripe and varied, and in a little while it was apparent to himself and his friends that the step he had taken was fully justified by the result. Now he has a crowded church, more than 250 communicants, and a people ever ready to respond to his appeal, and rich in that charity without which a religious profession is but little better than sounding bra.s.s. The sacrament money at St. Augustine"s, as they have no poor of their own, is distributed amongst those of neighbouring churches.
One of the noticeable features in connexion with the place is the attendance of young men from the neighbouring College of St. John"s. For the benefit of my readers let me add, that what was Highbury College is now a place of training for ministerial work in connexion with the Church of England-of young men who have not had, owing to unavoidable circ.u.mstances, the benefit of a University education, but who nevertheless are the right stuff out of which to make useful preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. On Sundays they find employment as Sunday-school teachers in various parts of the metropolis; also on that day, with a view to future usefulness, they go to hear such eminent clergymen as may be preaching in the City or the West-end, but mostly they attend at St. Augustine"s, and under Mr. Calthrop"s preaching they prepare for the great work themselves.
Nor do I know that they could have a better model. Mr. Calthrop is not the Church of England Spurgeon. I am not aware that the Church of England has a Spurgeon. I know none of the other Christian churches of our day that have. It is only once in an age that a Mr. Spurgeon appears, but Mr. Calthrop has no need to fear comparison with Mr.
Spurgeon or any one else. Personally, he is much smaller than the far-famed Baptist orator Mr. Spurgeon, and in figure and face very much resembles the late Douglas Jerrold. His voice is one of wonderful sweetness and power, and as he reads the Liturgy of his Church you feel that with him it is no empty form, to be repeated parrot-like and with railway speed, but the voice of a people humbled on account of sin, and standing trusting, yet trembling, in the presence of their G.o.d.
Exquisitely can he render all its pathos, all its tenderness, all its sorrow, all its fulness of exultation, all its ecstasy of Christian hope.
From the reading-desk to the pulpit the transition is easy and natural.