FOR TOWN AND COUNTRY, No. CLXXXII. FEBRUARY, 1845. VOL. XXXI. THE BISHOPS, THE CLERGY, AND THE PEOPLE. THERE are two names and two watchwords which have long passed into the household language of England. The names are Nelson and Latimer. Of the watchwords the history and scene were different, resembling each other in this, that they were uttered amid the excitement of noblest feeling, within sight of smoke, conflict, agony, and death. The first was heard when, along the fierce armament that darkened the waters of Trafalgar, the voice of Nelson, translated into language, and not only seen, but felt, proclaimed from every towering mast, "England expects every man to do his duty!" The second arose when, in the wonder, and hatred, and sympathy, and scorn of a pressing multitude, two whitehaired old men were conducted to the stake, and, while a faggot kindled was thrown down at the feet of As it was with the Martyr of the Sea, so it has been with the Martyr of the Church. His bodily form passed away, but his spiritual presence still abode among men. Transfiguring faith arrayed him in the light and bloom of Paradise. Children were taught his name and dying words at the knees of mothers. It seemed to be considered a sacred duty to watch over the candle he had lighted. It was like a legacy of a beloved child or relative, by some expiring patriot committed to the bosom of his country. Its position and nature exposed it to unnumbered dangers. It was open to every wind of doctrine that blew under heaven. Sometimes the flame wavered and appeared to be beaten down by a sudden gust of controversy; but it Ridley, the accents of his companion in glory and death sounded in his car, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England as I trust shall never be put out." These are the names, and these are the watchwords, familiar to our children at their play, and our old men at their chimney corners. There was a prophetic energy in the utterance. Not in vain that appeal to the heart floated from ship to ship. What England expected every man to do, he did; and not in vain the blood of her bravest children reddened those agitated waters. The voice of her Admiral still swells above the wind and storm; and the thunder of the "Victory" still echoes through the navies of the world. VOL. XXXI. NO. CLXXXII. was never extinguished; it soon pulse and an intenser brilliance. sprang up again with a stronger imTorch after torch was kindled at it, until at length ascended a broad column of light; a watchfire seen far over the waves of this troublesome world, and warning many, buffeted by storm and driven by hurricanes, from making shipwreck of their faith; and shore the news of danger, flashing a signal, spreading from shore to into the drowsy eyes of sentinels, and summoning the soldiers of truth to arm against every threatened invasion of tyranny and superstition. One might compare it to the sudden beard of flame (φλογὸς μέγαν πώγωνα) that blazed before the eye of Eschylus. There is little exaggeration in the comparison. The declaration of the length and breadth of the land; martyr did truly run throughout the wherever it shone, another fire an K swered it with a rushing blaze. The message of consolation, and warning, and defiance, and hope, was transmitted from height to height: "Eastward far, anon Another fire rose furious up, anon Another and another; all the hills, Each hehind each, held up its crest of flame; Along the heavens the bright and crimson flame O'erleaps black Tamar, and on Heyton rock It waves a sanguine standard; Haldon burns, And the red city glows a deeper hue. In those portentous characters of flame on. Faithful spirit after spirit grew up into all the manliness and majesty of religious simplicity and health; spending and spent; content to be beggars upon earth, that their foreheads might look radiant with the riches of heaven. The image of Brown was strictly true. They smiled upon the instruments of torture, embraced the flames of persecution, and reclined, with all the dignity of conquerors resting from toil, in the cherishing arms of fire. The history of the Reformation, after the death of Latimer and Ridley, contains episodes of solemn beauty and thrilling pathos-beauty, that Raffaelle might have painted, and pathos, that Shakspeare might have spoken. And here it should be remarked, that as of our Admiral, so of our Martyr, the watchwords were no idle sounds. They bore a striking resemblance to each other. The expectation of England that every man would do his duty, fluttering from the mast-head, and the play the man, Master Ridley, calling from smoke of the funeral pile, only breathe and teach the same lesson. And thus our ships and our churches preserved the exhortation of our heroes. The memory of Nelson illuminated the dismalest cabin; the candle of Latimer shed glory over the loneliest wayfarer to immortality. Both were loved and watched. the But the warriors of the Reforma tion and their descendants passed away; a cold and dreary season set in-a twilight of faith after the sun set. The eighteenth century was marked by a general dimness of spiritual things. The great doctrines of the Gospel were withdrawn from close contact with the mind and passions of men; the religious community resembled one vast fashionable chapel, where sittings are let for the season. Nothing startling was suffered to discompose the well-bred quiet of the place. Any light of truth streamed in, softened and tinted, through rose-coloured curtains. Still, amid all these discou ragements, the declaration of Latimer lived. The candle was not put out; the flame was there, though oppressed and deadened by the heaviness of the atmosphere. As the eighteenth cen tury wore away, the same characteristics prevailed. The state of pastoral manners described by Cowper might seem to belong to some remote period of our history, although, even in our own day, a few may linger who "Transform old print To ziz-zag MS., that cheats the eyes after the sermon:- "Forth comes the pocket mirror. First we stroke An eye-brow; next, compose a straggling lock; Then, with an air most gracefully per And recognise the slow-retiring fair." Making some allowance for Calvinistic sourness, this sketch undoubtedly presented an outline of well-known features. Nothing could well be nister, except his congregation. But more contemptible than such a miamidst it all, Latimer's candle had him, but the silence was that of innot gone out. Nobody talked of difference, not of scorn; the weapons of the Reformation were not han i dled, out of indolence, not from hatred to the armory in which they were preserved. Into this dark and benumbing atmosphere Whitfield descended, with a burning and bewildering rush; a thunderbolt, hissing and smoking into the rank stagna. tion of a reedy pool, could not have startled the solitary traveller with a more sudden trepidation. We have at this moment no concern with that religious revolution; it certainly lifted the candle of Latimer to a higher pinnacle, it drew the eyes of the multitude to its flame. But we pass on to our own age and to the recent portions of it. Within the last fifteen years of the present century, every person is conscious, if he be conscious of any thing, of a decided improvement in the economy of the Church. Its sanctuaries, its schools, its societies, all seemed to be inspired with new life. Where you passed a wretched cluster of hovels, or a dreary waste of common, you saw, in the next summer, a steeple rapidly rising, and a green resting-place for the weary, sloping down to the footpath of daily traffic. This increased circulation of the national heart was felt at the remotest extremities of the empire. The colonies were remembered and visited. Merchants began to think that a chest of Bibles in no way injured their freight. Joyful intelligence went out to every region of the globe. The little family of the much-enduring pastor, by the woodside of American solitudes, was cheered by the approaching voices of brethren, sworn to the same holy enterprise, hastening to receive the Standard from his exhausted hands; and the rudely sandalled feet of a bishop, trampling down the tall New Zealand grass, recalled the hardships and glory of primitive mission watching the expression thus light- aries. Never had Latimer's candle and his companion lighted had not shone more bright. If Ridley could have walked again along the streets of this magnificent city, over which in other days he held pastoral authority; if he could have traced the road to his own secluded palace of Fulham, where once he dwelt, what mingled feelings of astonishment, admiration, and gratitude, would have rushed to his heart! Surely "the historic Blomfield" (we thank the Jesuit for that word) might rejoice in gone out? But this prosperous condition was far-seeing men discovered that all แ -who, if they had not, in Dryden's up charm." with Aristotle's Religion, instead of using ceremonies to connect and recommend her truths, was made one great ceremony. The Bishop of London, unintentionally, we are convinced, encouraged this absurdity, by mentioning, with approbation, the arrangement lately adopted in several churches, "where the reading-desk is near the east end of the church, by which the clergyman looks towards the south while reading prayers, and towards the west while reading the lessons."* His lordship added, indeed, that this arrangement was not necessary, though convenient. But the allusion was quite sufficient to encourage a fiery Tractarian, cased in Newman, his sword suspended by a patristic catena, and prowling in search of a prejudice to encounter and vanquish. This, however, is a slight example. In matters of costume the folly of innovation was carried into laughable extravagances. single epaulet. Robe-makers gravely informed clerical gentlemen that they could be accommodated with fashionable silk tippets, in the style of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, at the alluring price of 108. 6d., or sixpence extra in a stamped envelope. This privilege, with others of a like order, may still be enjoyed, by applying to a descendant of the dark ages, who appropriately dwells at Bolton-le-Moors. Then, in building churches, no architect, with any sense of his own interest, ventured to say a word in favour of the old squire's pew, even though it had been the identical one where Sir Charles Grandison stood up with so imposing a dignity to hear one of South's sermons. There was really some excuse for the poor women who interpreted Puseyism to be a new system of pews. It was not to be expected that a clergyman, arrayed in a tippet of the fourteenth century, would feel authorised to preserve the customs of modern times-he would not offer such an insult to his mediæval acquaintance. Accordingly, instead of bowing at the name of the Saviour when repeated in the Creed, he courtesied; and we have ourselves had the felicity of occupying the north side of the Communion Table, while these singular genuflexions were being exhibited. In this case the definition of the Pauline Rabelais was only partially fulfilled, for, while the "posture was there, we knew that the "imposture" was wanting. Another of these antique eccentricities was the introduction of flowers to decorate the Communion Table, sometimes varied from day to day, so as to bear some fanciful analogy to the history of the saint commemorated. Traces of this imaginative worship even shewed themselves in the diocese of London, not without the censure of the bishop, who denounced it as "something worse than nearly to the honours paid by the frivolous, and approaching very Church of Rome to deified sinners." The practice prevails in the Armenian Church, and, when the present Bishop of Jerusalem visited Bethlehem, his attention was drawn to the vases of flowers upon their altars. Now flowers-silent hymns, as they • Charge, 1842, p. 30. his curate, in deacon's orders, to wear a scarf only over one shoulder,-an ensign, under the old rules, with a One vicar permitted have been called-are among the loveliest objects in this visible world. We like to see the lily as introduced into Italian pictures; nay, we consider the use of flowers in our old English customs, marriages, and funerals, to be often very interesting and affecting. But think of their employment in churches, and symbolical too! This saint, if poor, represented, of course, by a violet, since it grows low, and loves the shade; that saint, a member of the Upper House, with a park in Hampshire, and a townhouse in Belgrave Square, metaphorically indicated by a strong sunflower, or a hollyhock, warranted of fast colours. ridiculous. Whatever harm may re- After flowers came lights. But there was more plausibility in this innovation, because they were emblematical, not of fictitious saints, but of Him who makes all true saints. By some oversight the Bishop of London saw no objection to candles upon the altar, provided they were not burning except when the church is lighted up for evening service. But the lights, if set up at all, ought to be burning, their object being to shew that Christ was the Light of the world. Mr. Robertson has collected some valuable information upon this subject. It is clear that the injunction of Edward VI. authorised the setting up of two lights upon the high altar before the Sacrament, with a direct symbolical reference to the Saviour. But the same writer has properly drawn attention to the wording of the injunction; the clergy are to suffer the two lights to remain -suffer them out of consideration to the feelings of the people, who had been accustomed to their presence. Mr. Robertson seems to establish the fact that in parochial churches these lights have never been restored. "They seem to have been wanting in most or all cathedrals until the time of Laud, and to have been generally retained in churches of this class, since the Restoration." Another innovation, far more extensively introduced, is the practice of intoning the prayers. Now with regard to flowers, and lights, and tippets, it may be sufficient to say that the first custom is superstitious, the second pleasing, the third It is an absurdity and an iniquity," wrote Bishop Gibson," which we justly charge upon the Church of Rome, that her public service is in a tongue unknown to the people; but, though our service is in a known tongue, it must be owned that, as reading it without being heard, makes it, to all intents and purposes, an unknown tongue, so confused and indistinct reading, with every degree thereof, is a gradual approach to it." The habit of intoning occasions the very obscurity which Gibson deprecated. The prayers may, indeed, be said or sung, but not read and sung. This happy distinction, together with one or two other epigrammatic felicities that struck us during the delivery of the Bishop of London's charge at St. Paul's, has been omitted (we think) in its publication. We repeat, that this mode of slurring the liturgy, is productive of positive injury. When the prayers and lessons are mumbled over in this sing-song way (the derisive name in the sixteenth century was "Mumble-Matins "), much of the devotion of the first, and even more of the instruction of the second, are lost. "You preach the prayers," is the retort of the intoners to their objecting brethren. Now there may be, and often is, justice in the censure; but because Tomkins cannot play one of Mozart's masses upon the organ, is Bumble to try it on the hurdy-gurdy? Because A. declaims Paul's pleading before Agrippa, as if he were Sir Thomas Wilde personating the indignation of Mr. Carus Wilson at some Jersey jurat;-is that any reason why B. should drop all emphasis, and stifle every inflection of feeling, as if he were a Westminster scholar at Trinity, determined to outrage the Dean? The fact is, and, however mortifying, it ought to be told, very few of the English How to Conform to the Liturgy, p. 62. |