FOOTNOTES:
[4] Caddled, worried.
[5] Wosbird, bird of woe, of evil omen.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Most Interesting Building in the World.
London, October 2, 1902.
The Birthplace of the Shorter Catechism.
Some months ago, when the kind urgency of my friends made it plain to me that I should go abroad for a while, and when it was decided that certain young students of the Shorter Catechism in my family should go with me, I promised them a visit to the birthplace of that marvellous compendium of biblical doctrine, which for two hundred and fifty years has been such a weariness to the flesh of Presbyterian children throughout the English-speaking world, especially on Sunday afternoons, and which is such a priceless possession of their adult years when once thoroughly acquired in youth; but I told them that the condition on which alone I could take them with a clear conscience to the spot where that matchless little book was written, was that they should memorize it perfectly beforehand, and I had the satisfaction before leaving home of hearing them all recite it without a mistake; and, in order to retain with ease what was thus acquired with toil, they have continued to recite it regularly from beginning to end every Sunday afternoon. This is, of course, nothing more than hundreds of other children have done, and I do not mention it as anything remarkable, but only as suggesting one reason for the eager interest with which we were looking forward to our visit to a certain part of Westminster Abbey. And so, on the very first morning after our first arrival in London, as soon as we had finished breakfast, we hurried down to the gray old minster, where, in the midst of the roaring city, so many of the restless makers of the world's history, literature and art are now quietly sleeping; for we intended, after seeing where the Westminster Assembly sat, to give a full morning to the other historical memorials of the Abbey.
The Coronation Postponed.
Imagine, then, our disappointment, on reaching the place, to find the Abbey closed, and to learn from the policeman at the door that no one knew when it would be opened again, certainly not for several weeks. You see, the building had been elaborately decorated for the coronation of King Edward VII., for this is where all the Kings of England have been crowned, from the time of William the Conqueror down; and while we were crossing the ocean King Edward became very ill and had to undergo a surgical operation, as we learned on landing at Southampton, and so the great ceremonies planned for June 26th had to be postponed. But the costly draperies used in the decorations were still in position, and had to remain till it should be seen whether the King would be well enough in a few weeks to receive the crown; and of course the public could not be admitted to the Abbey till these sumptuous fabrics had either served their original purpose or been removed. Happily the King did recover in a few weeks, to the great joy of his subjects, who, chastened and subdued by their sovereign's sickness at a time so critical, came to the coronation on the second date appointed, August 9th, in a more thankful, if less jubilant, temper.
The Abbey still Closed.
Meantime, however, we had gone on to Scotland, after three weeks in London, feeling sure that on our return there would be nothing to prevent our seeing the great Abbey to our hearts' content. But no; after two full months in Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands and the west of England, we found the Abbey still closed. The work of removing the temporary structures and hangings used at the coronation was still going on, a fact which suggests forcibly the extent of these preparations, and, perhaps, also the leisureliness of English workmen, who are probably not accustomed to doing things as rapidly as Americans. But we had no idea of being deprived altogether of a sight of the interior of the Abbey by their slowness. London is a place of endless interest to visitors; and so, though we had already given three weeks to the principal sights of the city, we contentedly settled down for two weeks more there, till the work in the Abbey should be finished. At last it was all done, and on October 1st the building was again opened. We were among the first on the ground, and gave two full days to as thorough an examination of the building and its unparalleled contents as was practicable within that time.
The Assembly of Divines.
Of this inspection of the Abbey and its monuments in general we shall have something to say after a while, but for the present let us turn our attention to those parts of the building which are associated with the work of the famous Assembly of ministers and other scholars who met here in 1643 by ordinance of Parliament "to establish a new platform of worship and discipline to this nation for all time to come," and to whose pious and learned labors, extending through more than five years and a half, and occupying one thousand one hundred and sixty-three sessions, the world is indebted for the Larger and Shorter Catechisms and that great Confession of Faith "which, alone within these islands, was imposed by law on the whole kingdom," and which, by its fidelity to Scripture, its logical coherence, and the majesty and fervor of its style, still commands the adherence of a multitude of the clearest and strongest minds in Christendom.
The Two Places of Meeting.
The two parts of the Abbey especially connected with the work of the Assembly are at the two opposite ends of the building: the Chapel of Henry VII. at the eastern end, and the Jerusalem Chamber at the western; the one the most beautiful chapel in the world, the other a plain but comfortable rectangular room. Immediately after the service with which the Assembly was opened, and in which both houses of Parliament took part, and which was probably held in the choir of the Abbey, where the regular daily services now take place, the members appointed to the Assembly ascended the steps to the Chapel of Henry VII., and there the enrollment was made and the earlier sessions held. That was in summer, but when the weather became colder the Assembly gladly forsook the architectural magnificence of this chapel, called by Leland "the miracle of the world," for the comfortable warmth of the homely room at the other end of the Abbey; for, as Robert Baillie, "the Boswell of the Assembly," says in his delightful account of the proceedings, the Jerusalem Chamber "has a good fyre, which is some dainties at London."
The Two Types of Worship.
In this removal of the historic Assembly from the cold splendor of the finest perpendicular building in England to the plain comfort and common-sense arrangements of the little rectangular room where they were to reason together through so many months concerning the teachings of Scripture, one may see a parable of the Assembly's action in rejecting the ritualistic type of worship, with its predominating appeal to the æsthetic sensibilities through elaborate ceremonies, and its adoption of the New Testament type, with its predominating appeal to the mind through the oral teaching of truth. They were convinced that the spiritual life can be really nourished and developed only by the intelligent apprehension of the truth. Their own statement of the matter, drawn up in this very room, is that "the Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith unto salvation." And so those churches which have adopted the standards then framed by the Westminster divines have steadily magnified the didactic element of public worship, accentuating the teaching function of the minister to the extinction of the priestly.
Interior of the Jerusalem Chamber.
We pass from the nave of the Abbey through a door on the south side into the ancient cloisters, and, turning to the right, ring at the door of the janitor. A cherry-cheeked woman appears, and, when we state that we wish to see the Jerusalem Chamber, she brings a key, turns with us again to the right, which brings us to the southwest corner of the Abbey, and ushers us through an ante-room into the celebrated meeting-place of the great Assembly, a rectangular room, running north and south, about forty feet in length by twenty in breadth, with a large double window in the western side opposite the spacious fireplace referred to by Baillie, and another fine window in the northern end, which, by the way, contains the finest stained glass in the whole Abbey.
A long table, covered with a plain green cloth, occupies the centre of the room, with chairs around it ready for convocation; for the room is still regularly used for the meetings of ecclesiastical functionaries, occasionally also for special gatherings of wider interest, the most notable of which, since the Westminster Assembly, was the series of sessions held here by the company of scholars who had been appointed to revise the common English version of the Scriptures, and who, in 1885, brought that immensely difficult and important work to a successful conclusion by their publication of the Revised Version of the Old Testament.
This room has been the scene of many other memorable events, as we shall presently see, but none of them, nor all of them, can equal in interest and importance the work of that great Assembly which two hundred and fifty years ago formulated that lofty ideal of human life so familiar to us in the answer to the first question of the Shorter Catechism: What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever—a statement which has probably had a deeper and wider influence for good in the Anglo-Saxon world than any other twelve words ever written by uninspired men.
Exterior of the Jerusalem Chamber.
The Jerusalem Chamber, in which the Westminster Assembly of divines held its long sessions and did its immortal work, is a low building which runs along the southern half of the front of the Abbey, and is easily seen to the right of the main door in any picture of the great western facade. It strikes one at first as an architectural blunder, except as a foil to the lofty front of the main structure, but it has served many great practical uses. It was built about five hundred years ago, in the old days of monastery, as a guest chamber for the Abbot's house. I may pause here a moment to remind my younger readers of the fact that the word "minster," as in "Westminster," is equivalent to monastery, from the Latin monasterium, and the still more curious fact that the word has been preserved more nearly in its Latin form in the Monster Tavern and the Monster Omnibuses, well known in the immediate neighborhood of the Abbey, which derive their name from the same ancient monastery now known as Westminster.
Origin of its Name.
The name, Jerusalem Chamber, seems to have been derived from the tapestries with which the walls were originally hung, and which portrayed different scenes in the history of Jerusalem. Before the meeting of the Westminster Assembly, however, these had been replaced by another series of pictures representing the planets, and it is to these that Baillie refers when he tells us that the room was "well hung." To the same keen observer, whom nothing escaped, we are indebted for the information that the light from the great window was softened by "curtains of pale thread with red roses." But the curtains and tapestries that Baillie saw have in turn given place to those which the visitor now sees on the walls, and which do not call for special notice here.
Death of Henry IV.
The first tapestries, however, those which gave the room its name, are connected with one of the most memorable events that ever occurred in this historic apartment, the death of Henry IV., in fulfillment, as the King thought, of the prophecy that he should die in Jerusalem. In his old age Henry projected a visit to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, by way of penance for his usurpation, and when the galleys were already in port to bear him on his journey, he came to pay his parting devotions at the shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. There he was seized with a chill, and, as the old chronicler says, "became so sick that such as were about him feared that he would have died right there; wherefore they, for his comfort, bare him into the Abbot's place, and lodged him in a chamber, and there upon a pallet laid him before the fire, where he lay in great agony a certain time." When borne to the bed, which had meantime been prepared for him in another room, the scene occurred which is so graphically described by Shakespeare:
"King Henry. —Doth any name particular belong
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?
Warwick. —'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.
King Henry. —Laud be to God!—even there my life must end,
It hath been prophesied to me many years
I should not die but in Jerusalem;
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."
Imprisonment of Sir Thomas More.
But Henry IV. was not the only man who looked death in the face in this room. Many years later, when Henry VIII. was just beginning that infamous career of divorcing and beheading wives, and burning Protestants as heretics, and hanging Romanists as traitors for saying that the Pope was superior to the King in matters of religion—a career which has made his name one of the most detestable in history—Sir Thomas More, the noblest Englishman of his time, was arrested for his refusal to swear that Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn was lawful, and on his way to the Tower of London was confined for four days in the Jerusalem Chamber. Shortly afterwards, under the act of Parliament which directed that every one who refused to give the King a title belonging to him was to be put to death as a traitor, Sir Thomas More was executed on Tower Hill because he could not honestly give Henry the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England.
Other dead bodies, too, besides that of Henry IV. have lain in this room. The body of Dr. South, the witty and eloquent court preacher, lay in state here. It was South who, when reading from the seventeenth chapter of the Acts the accusation of the Thessalonian mob against Paul and Silas—"These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also"—remarked that it was well for the apostles to turn the world upside down, because the devil had turned it downside up.
Funeral of Joseph Addison.
From the Jerusalem Chamber the body of the illustrious essayist, Joseph Addison, after lying in state for four days, was carried forth in that memorable funeral procession at dead of night which was led by torchlight round the shrine of St. Edward and the graves of the Plantagenets to the chapel of Henry VII., the body being finally laid to rest opposite the Poet's Corner in the South Transept. "Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it; who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism." So wrote Lord Macaulay of Addison, reminding us, at the same time, how Addison "was accustomed to walk by himself in Westminster Abbey, and meditate on the condition of those who lay in it"; and now Macaulay himself lies there close to the grave of Addison.
Sir Isaac Newton.
But the most illustrious man whose body has ever lain in state in the Jerusalem Chamber is Sir Isaac Newton, the great philosopher, whom his friends called "the whitest soul they had ever known," and of whom Pope wrote the celebrated couplet:
"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said, Let Newton be, and all was light."
Such are some of the great names associated with the Jerusalem Chamber—Henry IV., Thomas More, Robert South, Joseph Addison, Isaac Newton—and to some of them the whole world is indebted, as to Sir Thomas More for his calm refusal to purchase his life at the cost of his convictions, and to Joseph Addison for all that he was as an author, a man, and a Christian, and to Sir Isaac Newton for his lofty character and his unparalleled services to the cause of human knowledge; but, after all, it may be doubted whether the world is more deeply indebted to any of them than to that body of thoroughgoing scholars and profound thinkers who in this room two centuries and a half ago formulated the statement that "effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel"—and one hundred and six other propositions concerning the most momentous interests of human existence, which for luminous condensation of truth have never been surpassed in all the history of the human expression of the doctrines of Scripture.
An Architectural Triumph.
Westminster Abbey is not wanting in architectural interest. Indeed, it is pronounced by Mr. Freeman the most glorious of English churches, and is said to be the one great church of England which retains its beautiful ancient coloring undestroyed by so-called "restoration." The exterior is singularly impressive, whether viewed from the east, where the exquisite lacework of Henry VII.'s Chapel, with its richly decorated buttresses, rivets the attention at the first glance; or from the north, where we face the north transept, the front of which, with its niches, its rose-window, and its great triple entrance, is pronounced by Mr. Hare the richest part of the building externally; or even from the west, where, in spite of the two comparatively late and feeble towers, we have a noble front, the loftiness of which is well brought out by "the low line of grey wall which indicates the Jerusalem Chamber." The interior is still more beautiful, and, as we have already seen, this beauty culminates in Henry VII.'s Chapel, the loveliness of which is absolutely unrivalled in the whole world. In his very sympathetic essay on Westminster Abbey in The Sketch Book, Washington Irving says of this wonderful chapel: "On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal ornament, incrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb."
Coronations and Burials.
But the intrinsic beauty of the building is only a small part of the explanation of the unique place which it holds in the interest of mankind. The two real reasons are suggested by Waller's lines:
"That antique pile behold,
Where royal heads receive the sacred gold:
It gives them crowns, and does their ashes keep;
There made like gods, like mortals there they sleep,
Making the circle of their reign complete,
Those suns of empire, where they rise they set."
Coronation and burial! Here the nominal kings are crowned. Here they and the real kings—those who by their genius and character really rule the race—are buried.
The Stone of Scone.
In the chapel of Edward the Confessor stands a scratched and battered wooden chair, six hundred years old, beneath the seat of which is inserted a thick, flat block of reddish sandstone. This is the celebrated Stone of Destiny, about the adventures and travels of which so many incredible stories have been told, from the time of its alleged use by the patriarch Jacob as a pillar at Bethel, till the time of its arrival at Scone, near Perth, in Scotland. It is certain that from the middle of the twelfth century all the Scottish kings were crowned on this stone, till it was captured and carried to London by Edward I., and that in the oak chair beneath which the stone was then enclosed all the kings of England since the time of Edward I. have been crowned, the last being Edward VII., on the 9th of last August. It has never been carried out of the church but once. That was when it was taken to Westminster Hall, across the street, that in it Oliver Cromwell might be installed Lord Protector. Thus it was that "the greatest prince that ever ruled England," as Lord Macaulay rightly calls him, the man who refused to wear the crown, but who wielded so much more of real power than any of those who did wear it that he placed England in the forefront of European nations and made her mistress of the seas, was not inducted into his office in the Abbey, where all the other sovereigns have been crowned since William I., but in Westminster Hall, which is also a place of extraordinary historical interest. The chair which holds the Stone of Scone, and the mate to it, made later and used for the queen consort, are, of course, covered with rich upholstering at the coronations, and much of the defacement of them is the result of driving nails into the wood for this purpose.
Whither the Paths of Glory Lead.
But the main attraction of Westminster Abbey is neither its architectural glory nor its connection with the crowning of the nation's sovereigns, but the fact that it is the chief sepulchre of Britain's great men. Not only is the building "paved with princes and a royal race," their memory a mingling of grandeur and of shame, but the uncrowned glories of the nation, the true and pure and gifted, lie there as well under our feet, or are commemorated in stone before our eyes. Some English sovereigns are buried elsewhere, as Charles I. at Windsor, and Victoria at Frogmore; some preëminent men of action also, as Nelson and Wellington at St. Paul's Cathedral; some authors, too, of the first order of genius, as Shakespeare at Stratford, Milton at St. Giles, and Goldsmith in the Temple yard at London; and so on, but nowhere else on earth have the ashes of so many great men been brought together as in Westminster Abbey. Moreover, to many who are buried elsewhere monuments have been erected in the Abbey; for instance, to the three poets who have just been mentioned. That of Shakespeare is a marble figure holding a scroll on which are inscribed these lines from the Tempest, peculiarly appropriate in the building where so much greatness is buried:
"The Cloud capt Towers,
The Gorgeous Palaces,
The Solemn Temples,
The Great Globe itself,
Yea all which it Inherit,
Shall Dissolve,
And like the baseless Fabrick of a Vision
Leave not a rack behind."
In St. Margaret's Church, hard by the Abbey on the north side, lies the decapitated body of another great Englishman of the Elizabethan era, Sir Walter Raleigh, whose History of the World contains a passage which expresses, as no other within my knowledge has done, the feeling that comes to a thoughtful man as he walks through this solemn burial place of genius and power: "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two words, Hic jacet."
A sober autumn day, with the leaves changing and the atmosphere touched with melancholy suggestive of the passing of worldly glory, prepared us to feel the full force of Raleigh's sentiment, and, as we stepped through the doorway into the subdued light of the minster, and saw the multitude of white marble statues and tombs stretching through dim aisles and clustering in gloomy chapels, we were "hushed into noiseless reverence," and understood what Edmund Burke meant when he said, "The moment I entered Westminster Abbey, I felt a kind of awe pervade my mind which I cannot describe; the very silence seemed sacred."
POET'S CORNER, WESTMINSTER.
The Monuments of the Nave and Transepts.
Remembering that "too many tombs will produce the same satiety as too many pictures," and determined not to fill our minds with "a hopeless jumble in which kings and statesmen, warriors, ecclesiastics and poets are tossing about together," we began at the Poet's Corner, as every one should do on his first visit, and, merely glancing at the monuments of subordinate interest, gave our time to those of the men with whose lives and works we had some acquaintance from our former reading, thus spending a whole morning in the two transepts and the nave. What a list of glorious names is afforded by even this meagre selection! Chaucer, Spencer, Browning, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, Burns, Scott, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Southey (the last eight named being represented by monuments, but buried elsewhere); Thackeray, Addison, Macaulay, Garrick, Samuel Johnson (with his degree of LL. D. chiselled after his name in the unscholarly form of "L. L. D."—a thing which would have mortified him, and which one would not expect to find in Westminster Abbey), Charles Dickens; Dr. Busby (for fifty-five years head-master of Westminster School, celebrated for his extremely free use of the rod and for having persistently kept his hat on when Charles II. visited his school, saying that it would never do for the boys to think any one superior to himself);—all these and many more in or near the south transept; then in the nave, Major André (hanged by Washington as a spy), Lord Lawrence ("who feared man so little because he feared God so much"), David Livingstone, Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Matthew Arnold, Charles Kingsley, Wordsworth, William Pitt, Charles James Fox, "Rare Ben Jonson"; then, in the north transept, Lord Mansfield, Warren Hastings, and others, among them the monument of the "Loyall Duke of Newcastle" (1676) and his literary wife, a most voluminous writer, who was in the habit of calling up her servants at all hours of the night to take down her thoughts, much to the disgust of her husband. When complimented on her learning, he said, "Sir, a very wise woman is a very foolish thing."
Pagan Sculptures in a Christian Church.
A great deal of bad taste has been displayed in the monuments of this transept. There is a colossal tomb by Nollekens, the worst but one in the Abbey, commemorating three sea captains. It represents Neptune reclining on the back of a sea-horse, and directing the attention of Britannia to the medallions of the dead, which hang from a rostral column surmounted by a figure of Victory. "Is that Christianity?" asked a visitor, pointing to Neptune and the trident. "Yes," wittily answered Dean Milman, "it is Tridentine Christianity"—a remark which has an exceedingly keen edge, though it may not be appreciated except by those who have some knowledge of the relation sustained by the Council of Trent to the beliefs and practices of the Romish Church. The sculptors were for a time "weighed down by the pagan mania for Neptunes, Britannias, and Victorys." Goldwin Smith says, "Some of the monuments might with advantage be removed from a Christian Church to a heathen Pantheon, while some might be better for being macadamized."
The Nightingale Monuments.
The most striking monument in the Abbey, though Walpole calls it "more theatrical than sepulchral," is that of Lady Elizabeth Nightingale. In the lower part of the sculpture a skeleton figure, Death, has broken through the iron doors of the grave, and, grasping the ledge above him with one bony hand, is in the act of hurling his dart with the other at the lady, who with her husband occupies the upper part of the sculpture, and who is represented as falling back into the arms of her horror-stricken husband, while he makes frantic but futile efforts to shield her from the stroke. Wesley said Mrs. Nightingale's tomb was the finest in the Abbey, as showing "common sense among heaps of unmeaning stone and marble"; but Washington Irving, while granting that the whole group is executed with terrible truth and spirit, says it appears to him horrible rather than sublime, and asks, "Why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead; or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation."
CHAPTER XX.
The Royal Chapels in Westminster Abbey.
London, October 2, 1902.
A Hard-hearted Verger.
We had reserved our last day in London for a visit to the eastern part of the great Abbey, where nearly all the kings and queens of England are buried. There is a charge of sixpence for admission to this part of the building. When we had paid our fees a black robed, bullet-headed, hard-voiced verger led us rapidly, along with a big crowd of other sightseers, from one chapel to another, pointing out one or two objects of special interest in each, and speaking a few words of explanation. Thus we were "railroaded" through the Royal Chapels in the most tantalizing manner. When we were all turned out of the iron gate at the end of this rapid round, with our heads full of a jumble of kings and queens, and other notables, our little party lingered to parley with our burly conductor, in the hope of getting more time in this fascinating part of the Abbey; but, though a shilling is a wonder-worker in England, and though we offered to pay another fee each for the privilege of remaining a while longer, our guide was for some reason obdurate. It should be added, in justice to him, that this was only the second day that the Abbey had been opened to visitors, after being closed throughout the greater part of the summer on account of the coronation, and consequently there was a much larger number of visitors for the vergers to handle than usual.
A Courteous Sub-Dean.
We were not yet beaten, however. After a brief "council of war," two of us walked out through the cloisters, rang at the door of the sub-Dean's residence, and, learning that he was not in, left a note for him, explaining our disappointment at having waited so long for the Abbey to open, only to find that we could get but a hasty glance at some of its most interesting parts, and asking him to give us permission to visit those parts at our leisure. On his return home, the sub-Dean, Canon Duckworth, very courteously wrote the desired authorization that we should visit the chapels "without a guide," and this permission was of use to some members of the party that afternoon.
Meantime it occurred to us that all vergers might not be equally ungracious, so, pending the Canon's answer to our note, we approached that one of the vergers who seemed to have the most benevolent face, informed him that we had just been through the chapels, but that our guide had given us very little time, and had not shown us the wax effigies at all, which we were very anxious to see, and asked him if he could not afford us a better opportunity. Unlike him of the stony heart into whose hands we had fallen at first, this one promptly and kindly granted our request, though doubtless expecting a fee, which, by the way, he deserved and received, and not only came with us himself to show us the wax effigies, but then gave us liberty to roam among the chapels at our pleasure. It was now dinner-time, but we gladly did without dinner in order to improve the opportunity thus secured, and set about a leisurely and thorough examination of the contents of the chapels and adjoining rooms in the eastern half of the building.
The Wax Effigies.
The wax work figures in a chamber over one of the chapels are very interesting, and should not be missed by visitors to Westminster, and yet I went through the Abbey some years ago without even knowing that they were there. We had a good look at them this time. They are effigies of notable personages, dressed exactly as they were in life. These effigies were carried at the public funerals of those whom they represent. The earlier custom was to carry the embalmed bodies of the kings and queens, with faces uncovered, at their funerals, but from the time of Henry V. these life-like representations were carried instead. Here is Queen Elizabeth, ugly and overdressed, as usual, with the diadem on her head, the huge ruff round her neck, the long stomacher covered with jewels, the velvet robe embroidered with gold and supported on panniers, and the pointed high-heeled shoes with rosettes—"gotten up," perhaps, pretty much as she was when, just a year before her death, she had allowed the Scottish ambassador, as if by accident, to see her "dancing high and disposedly," that he might disappoint the hopes of his master, King James, by his report of her health and spirits; she was then an old woman. There are few subjects more perilous for a man to write about than a woman's dress, and I may as well tell my readers that in the foregoing description of Elizabeth's finery I have closely followed good authorities.
Another of the effigies shows us the swarthy and sensual face of Charles II. He is dressed in red velvet, with lace collar and ruffles. Here, too, is the strong face and slight figure of William III., represented as very much shorter than Mary, his wife, who stands nearly six feet in height beside him. The fat figure of Queen Anne, and the very small one of Lord Nelson, with the empty sleeve of course, are among the most interesting. There are eleven in all still existing. A good many have disappeared.
Mutilated Monuments.
The shrine of Edward the Confessor is raised upon a kind of platform mound, said to have been made of several shiploads of earth brought from the Holy Land, and is surrounded by the tombs of Edward I., the good Queen Eleanor, Richard II., Henry V., and others. Above the grand tomb of Henry V. are hung his shield, saddle and helmet. Upon it lies the headless effigy of the great king, which was cut from English oak and plated with silver-gilt. The head, which was of solid silver, with teeth of gold, was stolen from the Abbey centuries ago. Other tombs have suffered in the same way. The coffin of Edward the Confessor has been robbed of its funeral ornaments. The sceptre has been stolen from the hand of Queen Elizabeth. One of the beautifully modelled fingers of the recumbent marble statue of Mary, Queen of Scots, has been broken off, carried away as a souvenir, perhaps, by some conscienceless vandal.
In the two aisles on the opposite side of Henry VII.'s Chapel lie the remains of these two rival queens, Elizabeth and Mary, the one beheaded by the other,—a striking instance of the equality of the grave, and reminding us of Macaulay's description of the Abbey as "the great temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried."
I have only touched in the briefest manner a few of the many interesting monuments which throng the royal chapels. But there is one thing that I must write to you about before leaving the subject of Westminster Abbey finally, and that is the vacant space in the Central Eastern Chapel, where the body of the greatest man that ever ruled England once lay, and the story of why his body is not there now.
We have seen that Lord Macaulay speaks of Westminster Abbey as "the great temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried." In the same strain, Sir Walter Scott writes:
"Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand and still the tongue
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke again,
'All peace on earth, good will to men';
If ever from an English heart,
Oh! here let prejudice depart."
These are fine sentiments, and certainly the policy of the authorities of the Abbey has been broad enough in some respects, far too broad indeed, as many think, in the matter of admitting the bodies of men of skeptical views and evil lives to lie here alongside of the great and good in God's house.
Monuments Denied to Notable Persons.
But in some other respects the policy has been a narrow one. The erection of a monument here to Louis Napoleon, the late Prince Imperial of France, who fell in Zululand while fighting in the cause of England, was prevented by what has been called "the illiberal clamor of an ignorant faction." By the way, within the precincts of the Roman Catholic Oratory of Brompton, in West London, stands a statue of Cardinal Newman, the most distinguished of modern apostates, who forsook the English Church for the Romish; it was intended for Oxford, but was refused by the University, and not allowed a place in the streets of London. These two are not very good examples of the kind of narrowness to which I refer,—one can hardly blame the English churchmen for the treatment accorded to Newman's statue,—they are simply instances which naturally come to mind in connection with the general subject. I will give an example presently of the complete triumph of prejudice in the exclusion from the Abbey of the greatest man of action that England ever produced.
The Objection to Milton.
Meantime, as leading up to that, let us note the remark of Dr. Gregory to Dr. Johnson when, in 1737, the monument of Milton was placed in the Abbey: "I have seen erected in the church a bust of that man whose name I once knew considered a pollution of its walls." He was referring to the action of Dean Sprat in cutting away a part of the fulsome epitaph on the tomb of John Philips which compared him to Milton, of whom he was a feeble imitator. "The line, 'Uni Miltono secundus, primoque paene par,' was effaced under Dean Sprat, not because of its almost profane arrogance, but because the royalist dean would not allow even the name of the regicide Milton to appear within the Abbey—it was 'too detestable to be read on the wall of a building dedicated to devotion.' The line was restored under Dean Atterbury," and, as already noted, a bust of the great Puritan genius was installed in the Abbey a few decades later, so that the triumph of prejudice in this case was short-lived.
General Meigs and President Davis.
The story reminds one of the action of General Meigs in removing the name of President Davis from the record-stone of the Cabin John Bridge near Washington. This magnificent aqueduct bridge, one of the largest and most beautiful single stone arches in the world, was erected by Jefferson Davis while Secretary of War for the United States, and of course his name, with those of the then President and other high officials of the government, was placed on the completed structure. When the Civil War came on, and Mr. Davis was elected President of the Confederate States, General Meigs had the misfortune to lose a son in battle in Virginia. One can feel profound sympathy with him in such a bereavement, but does it not seem a small and childish thing that he should then have had Mr. Davis' name chiselled off the bridge in revenge? And has not his action, like Dean Sprat's, defeated itself? The blank made in the inscription excited curiosity and gave rise to questions, which brought out the whole story, and thus reminded many people who might otherwise have forgotten it, what eminent services Jefferson Davis had rendered to the united country before the unhappy division which made him the President of that portion of it with which his greater fame is now associated.
The Vindication of Cromwell.
To but few men in her long history is England so deeply indebted as to Oliver Cromwell. Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, written by a bitterly hostile and prejudiced contemporary, effectually blackened Cromwell's character for some two hundred years, the misrepresentation being continued by other royalist writers, such as Sir Walter Scott in Woodstock. Carlyle's publication of Cromwell's own letters proved that he had been grossly slandered, and put it beyond question that the Protector was a sincere and godly man and a true patriot, as well as the greatest man of action that had ever lived in England. This is the view taken of Cromwell by the more recent biographies of him, which have been coming from the press in significantly rapid succession, such as Hood's, Gardiner's, John Morley's and President Roosevelt's. So that in several senses Cromwell is coming to his own again, though his work seemed at one time to have failed utterly, and to have been swept clean away by the restoration of Charles II. to the throne.
Treatment of his Dead Body.
It is of the indignities visited upon Cromwell's remains at the time of this Restoration that I wish to tell you. The great men of the Commonwealth and several members of Cromwell's family were buried in the extreme eastern end of the Abbey. After the Restoration they were disinterred from this honorable place of sepulture, and the only member of the Protector's family who was allowed to remain in the Abbey was his second daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, "as being both a royalist and a member of the Church of England."
The bodies of Cromwell, his son-in-law, General Ireton, and Bradshaw, the judge who had condemned Charles I., were dragged through London on sledges and hanged at Tyburn, and their heads were set up on the high roof-gable of Westminster Hall, the very building in which Cromwell had been made Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. It is safer to kick a dead lion than a living one. Fancy these valiant royalists treating Cromwell that way in his lifetime!
History of Cromwell's Head.
Cromwell's head having been embalmed before his burial, "remained exposed to the atmosphere for twenty-five years, and then one stormy night it was blown down, and picked up by the sentry, who, hiding it under his cloak, took it home and secreted it in the chimney corner; and, as inquiries were constantly being made about it by the government, it was only on his death-bed that he revealed where he had hidden it. His family sold the head to one of the Cambridgeshire Russells, and in the same box in which it still is, it descended to a certain Samuel Russell," who, being in need, sold it to James Cox, the keeper of a famous museum. Cox in turn sold it, about the time of the French Revolution, for $1,150, to three men, who made a business of exhibiting it at half a crown per head in Bond Street, London. At the death of the last of these three men, it came into the possession of his three nieces. These young ladies, being nervous at keeping it in the house, asked Mr. Horace Wilkinson, their physician, to take charge of it for them, and finally sold it to him; and in his house at Sevenoaks, Kent, the head of Oliver Cromwell remains to this day.
It is a ghastly story, though I have been careful to leave out the most gruesome details.
To-day, immediately in front of Westminster Hall, where his head was first exposed in dishonor, stands a bronze statue of the Great Protector, with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other,—erected within the last five years,—and doubtless the day will come when a monument of "the greatest prince that ever ruled England" will be given its rightful place in Westminster Abbey.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Cathedrals vs. The Gospel.
London, October 2, 1902.
Original Significance of the Cathedrals.
Before saying what I had in mind when I remarked, in a former letter, that in some respects the English cathedrals had proved to be hindrances to vital religion, I wish to cite what Goldwin Smith says of the significance and beauty of these glorious monuments of mediæval piety: "Nothing so wonderful or beautiful has ever been built by man as these fanes of mediæval religion which still, surviving the faith and the civilization which reared them, rise above the din and smoke of modern life into purity and stillness. In religious impressiveness they far excel all the works of heathen art, and all the classical temples of the Renaissance. Even in point of architectural skill they stand unrivalled, though they are the creations of an age before mechanical science. Their groined roofs appear still to baffle imitation. But we do not fully comprehend the marvel, unless we imagine the cathedrals rising, as they did, out of towns which were then little better than collections of hovels, with but small accumulation of wealth, and without what we now deem the appliances of civilized life. Never did man's spiritual aspirations soar so high above the realities of his worldly lot as when he built the cathedrals." The last proposition is not true. What Professor Smith wished to say was that never did an outward, material expression of man's religion so far surpass all his other outward conditions. But even when thus stated, it must be remembered that these great structures were not erected by those who inhabited the "hovels" referred to, but by kings, or nobles, or prelates who lived in palaces and rolled in wealth. Still, the cathedrals were built as an expression of religion. Religion in the Middle Ages expressed itself chiefly in the erection of these costly and splendid buildings, as it now expresses itself chiefly in missionary activity.
Their Æsthetic Influence.
Passing by, for the present, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury and Winchester, which excel all others in historical interest, and St. Paul's, which, though the largest of all, is modern, we may agree fully with Smith's estimate of the relative merits of the different cathedrals and the effect produced by them: that "Salisbury is the most perfect monument of mediæval Christianity in England"; that in height and grandeur the palm is borne off by York; in beauty and poetry, by Lincoln; that Norman Durham, "half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot," is profoundly imposing from its massiveness, which seems enduring as the foundations of the earth, as well as from its commanding situation; that Ely also is a glorious pile, on its unique mound among the fens; and that Wells and Salisbury are "the two best specimens of the cathedral close, that haven of religious calm amidst this bustling world, in which a man tired of business and contentious life might delight, especially if he has a taste for books, to find tranquillity, with quiet companionship, in his old age. Take your stand on the close of Salisbury or Wells on a summer afternoon when the congregation is filing leisurely out from the service and the sounds are still heard from the cathedral, and you will experience a sensation not to be experienced in the New World."
Having shown by these citations that Goldwin Smith is not indifferent to the æsthetic influence of the cathedrals, I wish now to quote from him a final paragraph which states very well the practical point to which I referred in the outset:
Their Romanizing Tendency.
"The cathedral and the parish church belong to the present as well as to the past. Indeed, they have been recently exerting a peculiar influence over the present, for there can be no doubt that the spell of their beauty and their adaptation, as places of [Roman] Catholic devotion, to the Ritualistic rather than to the Protestant form of worship have had a great effect in producing the Neo-Catholic reaction of the last half century. Creations of the religious genius of the Middle Ages, they have been potent missionaries of the mediæval faith."
I wish to call special attention to this ominous feature of the influence of English cathedrals upon the forms, and thus eventually upon the spirit, of Christian worship. I am not unsusceptible, I think, to the glorious beauty of these stately buildings, or the spell of their exquisite music, or the fascination of their spectacular forms of worship. I shall never forget the solemn impression made upon my mind the first time I ever entered a great cathedral, when, at Chester, I stepped from the broad glare of outer sunshine into the cool, dim light of the minster, and heard the choir of white-robed, sweet-voiced boys responding with a prolonged, musical "A-men," accompanied by the great organ, as the priest intoned the English service. But I am clear, nevertheless, that Goldwin Smith is right in saying that by their adaptation to the ritualistic rather than the Protestant form of worship the cathedrals have been potent missionaries of the mediæval faith.
The Roman Catholic ideal of Christian worship is very different from that of Protestants. Its functionary is a priest, who offers sacrifice, and performs the ceremonies of an elaborate ritual. Its appeal is chiefly to the senses and the æsthetic sensibilities. Protestants, on the other hand, hold that the minister is not a priest, but a teacher; his function is not the performance of ceremonies, but the inculcation of truth. The truly Protestant churches appeal chiefly to the mind rather than to the senses, they rely upon ideas rather than ceremonies, because they know that only by the intelligent apprehension of truth can the spiritual life be really nourished and developed. In a Romish church the central thing is the altar. In a Protestant church the central thing is the pulpit. In short, Romish churches are built for ceremonies, and Protestant churches for preaching. The cathedrals were erected as Romish churches. There was little or no thought of their being used for preaching. They were erected as expressions in stone of religious aspiration; they are "frozen music"; they are places for processions, and incense, and altars, and pictures, and vestments, and chants, but they are not adapted to preaching. They are too large, for one thing. No man could make himself heard throughout some of them. Nor was it intended that he should.
Their Charm for the Greatest of the Puritans.
It is an extraordinary paradox that the finest expression in any language of the idea which lay in the minds of those who built the cathedrals was given by a Puritan writer:
"But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale;
And love the high embowe'd roof
With antique pillars massy proof:
And storied windows, richly dight,
Casting a dim, religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voic'd choir below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may, with sweetness through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes."
Thus Milton in Il Penseroso, the interpretation of which I must leave to the students of that exquisite poem. Only let it not be forgotten that in his Eikonoclastes, Milton ridicules the organs and the singing men in the King's chapel, as well as the "English mass-book" of the "old Ephesian goddess called the Church of England." I am sorry to say, Milton is at times vituperative in his prose writings.
A Half-reformed Church.
Let us be more respectful in our references to the Church of England. It contains many good people and has done much good work. Still, it is an indisputable fact that it never has been a thoroughly reformed church. Its origin as a separate church was different from that of the Reformed churches. Not through the protracted struggles of people and ministers did it win out clear from Romanism, with generally diffused and clear convictions of truth, as was the case with the really Reformed churches, but by the act of Henry VIII. detaching a certain portion of the Catholic Church from the papacy, for interesting domestic reasons, and making himself the head of the church. That was the origin of the Church of England as entirely distinct from the Church of Rome. Henry did not wish to become a Protestant at all, nor did he wish the people to change their religion, and, as a matter of fact, he had people burned alive for being Protestants. Of course, Protestantism did make progress afterwards under Edward VI. and Elizabeth, but there never was a sufficiently decisive break with Romish doctrine and Romish forms of worship. And, the architecture of the cathedrals and parish churches being what it is, there has been a constant tendency to relapse to the Romish model outright.
If we seem to attribute too much influence to mere architecture, let it be remembered that the structure and arrangements of the college buildings at Oxford, which did not admit of family life, but were designed for the mediæval clerical students who were celibates, have had a tendency to revive the monk, and that, as a matter of fact, these Oxford colleges produced Newman and the other leaders of the Anglo-Catholic reaction in our day, to say nothing of Laud and his reaction two centuries ago.
Relics of Romanism.
How easily the cathedrals may aid Roman Catholicism, and how strong is the lingering influence of what Macaulay calls "that august and fascinating superstition," may be seen not only in the general character of the services, but also in certain details. Each cathedral has what is still called a Lady Chapel, that is, a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary. In the Lady Chapel of Winchester Cathedral is a series of highly prized wall paintings, of whose edifying character the reader may judge when he learns that one of them represents "the Virgin commanding the burial of a clerk of irreligious life in consecrated ground, because he had been her votary"; while another depicts a miracle by an image of the Virgin, which is bending its finger, so as to prevent a young man from taking off a ring, given him by his lady love, which he had placed on the image that it might not be lost or injured while he played at ball. "By this the young man was won to monastic life." Does this mean that he jilted the girl, or that she discarded him for losing her ring?
Again, the inscription on the tomb of the builder of that cathedral, William of Wykeham, the same who built the round tower at Windsor Castle, records his work as bishop, politician, and founder of colleges, and concludes with this injunction:
"You who behold this tomb cease not to pray
That, for such great merits, he may enjoy everlasting life."
Finally, the most striking effigy on any tomb in Winchester Cathedral is that of a great dignitary of the Romish Church, Cardinal Beaufort, represented here by a very fine recumbent figure in scarlet cloak and hat. He was enormously wealthy, was four times Lord Chancellor of England, was present at the burning of Joan of Arc at Rouen, and is said to have burst into tears and to have left the horrible scene; but he persecuted the Lollards and gave a half million pounds to put down the Hussites in Bohemia, in which crusade he was general and legate. Yet here he lies, one of the most honored figures, in what is generally regarded as a Protestant church.
These points are sufficient to indicate what I mean by saying that the cathedrals have in some respects had an unfavorable influence upon the doctrine and worship of the Church of England.
Presbyterians also have Felt the Effect of them.
If at the Reformation every cathedral in Great Britain had been pounded to pieces by the iconoclasts, it would have been an immeasurable calamity to art, but it might have been a real gain for religion. At any rate, it is ritualism rather than religion that is now promoted by the cathedrals. Nor is the English Church the only one that has inherited these splendid but baleful monuments of mediæval Romanism. The Presbyterian Church has come into the possession of a few. The people of Scotland at the time of the Reformation, remembering their oppression and impoverishment by the great church establishments, and disregarding the more moderate counsels of their leaders, smashed most of these buildings which fell to them, witness Melrose Abbey and many others—John Knox speaks of "the rascal multitude" that destroyed the buildings at Perth—but one or two they spared, for example, the Cathedral at Glasgow. It is maintained by some that the same tendency to ritualism manifests itself in these Presbyterian cathedrals as in others, though, of course, not to the same extent. Certainly our simple and scriptural forms of worship, with the prominence which they give to the preaching of the Word, suit a warm, home-like church, where everything can be heard, much better than they do a cold and vast cathedral of stone which is too large for any congregation that ever assembles in it, and where the voice of the preacher is lost among the lofty arches.
While the Presbyterians have in some cases not freed themselves completely from the Romish associations, and in the great buildings which were erected for Romish worship show something of the same tendency to undue ritualism, still I think it will be generally conceded that they severed the connection with Rome more effectually, on the whole, than any other church.
Protestant Simplicity more Impressive.
Nor did their worship lose in real religious impressiveness. Even Sir Walter Scott (who, though a Presbyterian elder, had a strong leaning to the ritualistic churches), in the twentieth chapter of Rob Roy, puts into the mouth of his hero this description of the Presbyterian service in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral:
"I had heard the service of high mass in France, celebrated with all the éclat which the choicest music, the richest dresses, the most imposing ceremonies, could confer on it; yet it fell short in effect of the simplicity of the Presbyterian worship. The devotion, in which every one took a share, seemed so superior to that which was recited by musicians as a lesson which they had learned by rote, that it gave the Scottish worship all the advantage of reality over acting."
The more I see of the high church "service" the more incomprehensible it seems to me that any thoughtful man can take any other view than the one thus expressed by Scott. The service he describes was indeed conducted in a cathedral, but it was in the crypt, the part best adapted to intelligent Protestant worship, on account of its smaller dimensions and better acoustics.
CHAPTER XXII.
Some Things for High Churchmen to Think About.
London, October 3, 1902.
It does not follow, from what I said in my former letter about the different forms of service in use among Episcopalians and Presbyterians, respectively, that the latter necessarily disapprove of the use of written prayers. So far is this from being the case that Calvin and Knox themselves wrote liturgies, though neither they nor their successors believed in the rigid prescription of fixed forms, but insisted upon ample freedom for the use of such original prayers as occasion demanded. The Book of Common Prayer itself, which is the product of every Christian age and Christian people, including Reformers, Presbyterians, Puritans and Lutherans, as well as Romanists and Anglicans, and which is used constantly by the Episcopal churches throughout the English-speaking world, owes no little to the influence of men of our faith and polity, and especially to that of the illustrious Genevan reformer, John Calvin. The General Thanksgiving, called "the chiefest treasure of the Prayer-Book," is said to have been composed by the Rev. Dr. Edward Reynolds, a distinguished Presbyterian member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and afterwards Bishop of Norwich. These prayers, as well as other parts of the Book of Common Prayer, are constantly used, in whole or in part, by many Presbyterian ministers when leading the public devotions of their people, and the more such models of prayer are studied by Presbyterian ministers in general the sooner will they cease to deserve the reproach that their manner of conducting this important part of public worship is sometimes rambling, slovenly and unedifying. No minister of our time of any denomination was more acceptable and helpful in the conduct of this part of the service than the late Rev. Dr. Moses D. Hoge, of Richmond. His prayers were characterized in a preëminent degree by good taste and propriety of expression, as well as by unction. He was a diligent student of the best liturgies, such as those of Calvin, Knox and Cranmer. His biographer, speaking of "the elaborate and laborious preparation that he made for this service, as evinced by his papers," says: "Dr. Hoge's peculiar power in prayer was not merely the result of what is called the 'gift of prayer.' Not only his celebrated prayers on great public occasions were carefully written out, but from his early ministry he wrote prayers for every variety of occasion and service, and formulated petitions on every variety of topic."
The Huguenot Presbyterians in Canterbury Cathedral.
When we visited Canterbury Cathedral, the other day, we were reminded of another striking proof of the liberty of Presbyterian usage in this matter. The place is, of course, one that brings to mind innumerable events of interest, ranging all the way from the tragedy of Thomas a Becket's death to the comedy of the struggle that took place in St. Catherine's Chapel, Westminster, in 1176, between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, a scuffle which led to the question of their precedence being decided by a papal edict, giving to one the title of Primate of all England, to the other that of Primate of England. One cannot help thinking, in connection with it, of the official titles of the two great Presbyterian bodies in our country, the technical title of the Northern Church being the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and the technical title of the Southern Church being the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Fuller's Church History gives a racy account of the scene referred to: "A synod was called at Westminster, the Pope's legate being present thereat; on whose right hand sat Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, as in his proper place. When in springs Roger of York, and finding Canterbury so seated, fairly sits him down on Canterbury's lap (a baby too big to be danced thereon); yea, Canterbury's servants dandled this lap-child with a witness, who plucked him thence, and buffeted him to purpose." But far more interesting to us than the story of this undignified behavior on the part of these two dignitaries, and even more interesting than the thrilling story of Becket's murder, was the chapel in the crypt, where for three hundred and fifty years the Huguenots, who were welcomed by Queen Elizabeth and given the use of this part of the cathedral, have continued to use the ancient Presbyterian forms of worship which they brought with them when driven from France by Roman Catholic persecution. And it is a very interesting fact that the liturgy (in French) which they use is almost the same as the Book of Common Prayer, but immensely significant that the congregation continues to observe the Lord's Supper seated, after the Presbyterian form. The communion plates and cups, which we had the pleasure of taking up in our hands, were brought by the refugees to England three hundred and fifty years ago, but are still in use.
The Concomitants and the Intoning.
From what has now been said, it is clear that it is not altogether the use of the Prayer-Book which gives to the American Protestant worshipping in an Anglican church that curious feeling of strangeness and formalism. It is rather the Romish-looking arrangements about the "altar," the crosses and candles and cloths, the vestments and processions, the turning of the people towards the east when they pray, the "vain repetitions" of certain parts of the liturgy, such as the Lord's Prayer, which sometimes occurs four or five times in one service, and the "intoning" of the service, that is, the literally monotonous recitation of the prayers, without any rising or falling inflection, every word being uttered in precisely the same tone, without the slightest variation. I do not mean that all these features always occur in every service. Sometimes one or more of them will be omitted, such as turning to the east in prayer, or intoning. For instance, Canon Hensley Henson, whom we heard a short time ago at St. Margaret's, Westminster, where the late Canon Farrar preached so long and so brilliantly, and who, though quite radical in some of his views, is the most thoughtful preacher among the ministers of the Anglican Church in London at the present time, did not intone the prayers which he offered, though his assistant did. I do not know whether Canon Henson's usage is from necessity or choice—whether it is because he cannot intone or because he does not care to do so, preferring to address the Almighty in the same natural and expressive tones which he uses in communications with his fellow-men.
Canon Hensley Henson at St. Margaret's.
Canon Henson does not look the least like the typical Englishman. His appearance is antipodal to that of the beefy, bluff, full-blooded John Bull. He is slender, clean-shaven, boyish, white, his face "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." His body may be delicate, but there is no lack of vigor about his mind. The strength and charm of his preaching, due chiefly to the freshness of the thought and the purity and clearness of the language—for he has no marked advantages of presence or voice or manner—draw great crowds to St. Margaret's. We had to wait at the door for some time to let the pewholders have a chance, but when the word was given the crowd at the door poured in and quickly overflowed all the vacant seating space. Shortly after he began his sermon, which was read throughout, three ladies rose to leave the church, and I was not a little astonished to hear him stop and say, with what I thought was a touch of irritation, "I will wait till those ladies get out." No doubt it is vexatious to have people leave the church during the sermon, but no minister has a right to pillory anybody in that fashion, unless it is somebody who is known to be in the habit of interrupting the service in that way. The minister has no right to assume that people are doing a deliberately discourteous or culpably thoughtless thing. The probability is that one of the ladies in the group referred to was sick or faint and had to withdraw. This kind of rudeness may be naturally expected from some of the men who in our country have done so much to degrade the fine name of "Evangelist," but surely one does not expect it from a gentleman like Canon Henson.
Canon Henson on Anglican Narrowness.
While bound to criticise Canon Henson for this breach of good manners, I hasten to express my cordial admiration of his courtesy, courage, and Christliness in general, and especially of the power of his statement of the claims of Christian love against the Anglican custom of refusing to commune with Nonconformists. The most remarkable sermon preached by any clergyman of the Established Church during our sojourn in England was a sermon preached by him before the University of Cambridge on the text, "There shall be one fold and one Shepherd," in which he advocated the admission of Nonconformists to the sacrament. Hear him:
"The primary need of the hour is more religious honesty. In the classic phrase of Dr. Johnson, Churchmen beyond all others need 'to clear their minds of cant.' 'Let love be without hypocrisy' is the kindred protest of St. Paul. Bear with me while I bring these considerations to a very simple, indeed an obvious application. On all hands there is talk of Christian unity. Not a Conference or a Congress of Churchmen meets without effusive welcome from Nonconformists. A few weeks ago I sat in the Congress Hall at Brighton and listened to a series of speeches by prominent Nonconformists, all expressing the warmest sentiments of Christian fraternity. I reflected that by the existing law and current practice of our church all those excellent orators and their fellow-believers were spiritual outcasts; that, if they presented themselves for the Sacrament of Unity, they would be decisively rejected; that, in no consecrated building, might their voices be heard from the pulpit, though all men—as in the case of Dr. Dale, of Birmingham—owned their conspicuous power and goodness. The contradiction came home to my conscience as an intolerable outrage, and I determined to say here to-day in this famous pulpit, to which your kindness has bidden me, what I had long been thinking, that the time has come for Churchmen to remove barriers for which they can no longer plead political utility, and which have behind them no sanctions in the best conscience and worthiest reason of our time. I remembered that in my study, at work in preparation of the sermons which expressed my obligation as a Christian teacher, I drew no invidious distinctions. Baxter and Jeremy Taylor, Dale and Gore, Ramsay and Lightfoot, Döllinger and Hort, George Adam Smith and Driver, Ritschl and Moberley, Fairbairn and Westcott, Bruce and Sanday, Liddon and Lacordaire, these and many others of all Christian churches united without difficulty in the fellowship of sacred science; it was not otherwise in my devotions. Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Nonconformist were reconciled easily enough in the privacy of prayer and meditation. The two persons whom I venerated as the best Christians I knew, and to whom spiritually I owed most, were not Anglicans. Only in the sanctuary itself was the hideous discovery vouchsafed that they were outcasts from my fellowship. I might feed my mind with their wisdom, and kindle my devotion with their piety, and stir my conscience with their example, but I might not break bread with them at the table of our common Lord, nor bear their presence as teachers in the churches dedicated to his worship. It seemed to me that the love so lavishly expressed in that Congress Hall must, at least on our side, be a strangely hollow thing. It is true that the presiding bishop reminded the Nonconformists that there were doctrinal differences which could not be forgotten or minimized, but this obstacle was effectively demolished by the debates of the Congress—debates which revealed the widest possible doctrinal divergence between men who, none the less, communicated at the same altars and owned allegiance to the same church."
What Canon Henson could see in Virginia.
Such a discourse from such a man in such a place naturally created a sensation in England. It would not have done so, as to its main point, in Virginia. Why? Well, the fundamental reason is that the average Virginia Episcopalian represents a much higher type of Christianity than the average English churchman, broader, sweeter, truer. Indeed, if there are in any church anywhere people of lovelier character, truer charity, and more genuine devotion to our Lord than the evangelical Episcopalians of Virginia, many of whom it has been my good fortune to know long and intimately, I have never heard of them. I only wish the type was more common in some other parts of the country. Now, the things so trenchantly stated by Canon Henson in the foregoing excerpt are mere matters of course to the mind of your evangelical Low Churchman in Virginia. To him it is no uncommon thing to break bread with Christians of other denominations at the table of our common Lord or to hear the gospel preached by ministers of other churches from the pulpits of his own. I have heard it said that this fraternal attitude is deprecated by some of the younger clergy in Virginia of late, and that through their opposition this open recognition of other Christian people and their ministers is less common than it used to be. I should be sorry to believe it, and I know some facts which seem to disprove it. Four or five years ago I myself was invited to deliver the Reinicke Lecture to the students of the Episcopal Seminary at Alexandria, Va., and did so with a feeling of as cordial welcome as I had ever received anywhere in my whole life. I have been repeatedly invited to preach in Episcopal pulpits. When the General Assembly of our church meets in Lexington, Va., next May, you may rely upon it Presbyterian ministers will be invited by the rector of the Episcopal church there to supply his pulpit on Sunday, just as they are by the pastors of the other churches. More than that, I have a friend in the Presbyterian ministry, now a pastor in Baltimore, who not long ago, by invitation of the vestry of an Episcopal church in a Virginia town, not only occupied the pulpit and preached, but also wore the surplice and administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
Are Virginia Episcopalians Becoming Less Liberal?
It may be true that there is a reaction going on even in Virginia against this spirit of Christian fellowship, and that things of this kind are less frequent than formerly; but, if so, I am satisfied that it is a reaction with which the Virginia laymen have nothing to do, and which they will oppose as soon as they become aware of it, [6] and I am sure, too, that clergymen will not be lacking who will make a strong stand against it.
Decreasing Attendance in the Anglican Churches in London.
One or two other facts which may well be pondered by High Churchmen have been brought to light by the census of church attendance in London, recently taken by the Daily News of that city. The census shows that, while more than one-half of the five millions of people in London are Christian worshippers, there has been a decrease in church attendance of over one hundred thousand since 1886, that this decrease has been almost entirely in the congregations of the Church of England, and that the attendance in the Established and Nonconformist churches is now about equal.
The census shows further that in wealthy districts the Established Church, as we might expect, has the majority. As was also expected, Nonconformists have a majority in middle-class districts. But, contrary to all expectations, Nonconformists are a majority in the working-class districts and among the very poor. It was often said that only the ritualists were getting hold of the poor, and many supposed the Salvation Army was doing great things amongst the lowest people. It is one of the surprises of the census that ritualism fails to attract the non-churchgoing classes.
In the proportion of the sexes present, in almost all cases the Episcopal churches showed two women to one man; in nonconformist churches the proportion of men was greater, being two men to three women. Does not this preponderance of men in the nonconformist congregations indicate clearly that if the Church of England is to retain her hold upon men she must lay less stress upon the appeal to the æsthetic sensibilities and more upon the appeal to the mind; that she must make less of the ornamental features of public worship and more of the didactic; less of millinery, music and marching, and more of the preaching of the gospel? As the British Weekly puts it:
"The great means of attracting the people is Christian preaching. Whenever a preacher appears, no matter what his denomination is, he has a great audience. Nothing makes up for a failure in preaching. The churches of all denominations, if they are wise, will give themselves with increased zeal and devotion to the training of the Christian ministry. I have no doubt that it is for lack of a trained order of preachers that the Salvation Army has failed in London. Nor will any magnificence of ritual or any musical attractions, or any lectures on secular subjects, permanently attract worshippers. It can be done only by Christian preaching."
An Episcopalian Estimate of Presbyterian Preaching.
In this connection the following clipping from The Evangelist is not without interest, as showing that both the disease and the remedy are at least partially recognized by some observers within the English Church:
"A recent writer in The Guardian, one of the leading Church of England papers, laments the decay of preaching within his own communion, and is forced to contrast the conditions obtaining in Presbyterian churches with those which prevail in Episcopalian ones, to the obvious disadvantage of the latter. While it is true that the Church of England has some great preachers, as it always has had, the ordinary village vicar is scarcely mediocre. Such is not the case among the Presbyterians—in Scotland, with which the writer is familiar—or in America, Canada, Australia, or in missionary lands, where the same standards and ideals are in effect. Here are the characteristics of Presbyterian preaching as described by a Church of England critic:
"'Their ministry lays itself out for the cultivation of prophetical power, and not without success. In general, they are students of Hebrew, which the English clergy are not. The consequence is that for a good Old Testament sermon you must go north of the Tweed. In England we confine ourselves almost exclusively to the New Testament, not merely because of its transcendent importance, but because it is ground with which we are more familiar. But the loss to our people is great.
"'Then, again, the Scottish ministers are students of German theology. More or less they are at home in the writings of the great German thinkers, both orthodox and liberal. We, as a rule, are not....
"'One more point. In travelling through Palestine some years ago, with a view to the study of biblical geography, I was greatly struck with the preponderance of Scottish ministers who were there on the same purpose intent. I think it no exaggeration to say that they were in numbers to the English clergy as five to one. Evidently they regard it as a necessary part of that same biblical equipment they are so careful about, that they should with their own eyes realize the scenes of the sacred narrative. A pilgrimage to the Holy Land is now so easy, and is, moreover, to any thoughtful Christian teacher so fruitful in results, that it is a marvel it should not be made an ordinary addition to a university or theological college course. To any one who will go with a reverent mind and open eyes, and with his Bible as his Baedeker, it is an unparalleled experience for life. If it is objected to on the score of expense, I ask, How do the Presbyterian ministers, and a large proportion of Nonconformist ministers also, manage to accomplish it?'"
The Guardian itself, in an editorial comment on the decreasing attendance of men in the Anglican churches, says frankly that a large number of men are "repelled by the extremely low standard of preaching which prevails, and the comparative success of Nonconformity may be due in part to the attention which is devoted to the preparation of the sermon." "Another source of offence is the over-elaboration of musical services, and the practical exclusion of the congregation from any real share in prayer and praise. It is a fatal policy which drives the devout but unmusical away from our churches to chapels in which they can find greater simplicity and greater heartiness. One of the surprises of the census has been that the Nonconformists have been found to be strong not only in middle-class districts, but in the regions where poverty abounds. The poor, we believe, are attracted by greater simplicity, and it must be acknowledged that the services of our Prayer-Book are difficult for the uninstructed to follow and to appreciate. There is a stage at which a greater elasticity of worship is needed, and for this we make no adequate provision."
According to the latest statistics, the relative strength of the Established Church and the free evangelical churches is as follows:
| Sittings. | Communicants. | |
|---|---|---|
| Established (estimated), | 7,127,834 | 2,050,718 |
| Free, | 8,171,666 | 2,010,530 |
| S. S. Teachers. | S. S. Scholars. | |
| Established, | 206,203 | 2,919,413 |
| Free, | 391,690 | 3,389,848 |