So, too, with the musical service. There was no anthem, and so far from the burden of the singing resting upon the choir, Stone often announced a hymn thus: “The congregation alone singing all except the first and last verses.” More “hearty” congregational singing than at his church I have never heard outside the Metropolitan Tabernacle (unlovely name for a Christian Church!) when under that great preacher and true minister of God, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, five thousand voices unaccompanied by organ or any other musical instrument joined in singing the Old Hundredth. High Churchman as doctrinally Stone was, he was not a Ritualist. Incense and vestments were never used in any church of his, and though his people turned naturally to him for help and advice in trouble, “Confessions,” in the accepted sense of the word, were unknown. He was never in conflict with his Bishop, or the other ecclesiastical authorities, if only for the reason that his loyalty and his fine sense of discipline made him constitutionally incapable of breaking the law. He knelt reverently in prayer before and after Consecration, and at other times, but genuflexions and ceremonious and constant bowing to the altar on the part of the celebrant, his assistants and the choir, were absent from the service for which he was responsible.
On one slight but significant act of reverential ritual he, however, laid stress. Whenever, in church or out of church, Stone spoke or heard spoken the name of our Lord, he never failed, no matter where or with whom he was, reverently, even if unnoticeably, slightly to bow his head. “God the Father and God the Holy Ghost,” I once heard him say, “no man has ever seen. But God, the Son, for our sakes, stooped to become Man, and to be seen of men. For that reason, a reason surely which should make us more, not less loving and adoring, some have doubted or denied His Godhead. Hence when I hear that Holy Name, I incline my head in adoring worship, as a protest if you like against the base ingratitude which—because for our sakes He stooped to become Man—would deny that He is more than man, and in acknowledgment of Him as my Redeemer, my Lord and my God.” He was indeed so entirely a poet that no word or name, which stood for that which he revered, was ever by him lightly uttered or used. Between his mother and himself—his father died either just before, or soon after, I came to know the son, and I never saw the two together, though I know that their relationship was ideal—existed the most beautiful love and devotion, and if only for her sake, the very word “mother” was consecrate upon his lips. Four times only is the halo seen around the head of mortal. Around the head of a little soul newly come from God, there is seen the rainbow-hued halo of childhood; around the head of lad or maiden, man or woman, who, in love’s supreme and sacred season, is lifted nearest to God, there radiates the rose-coloured halo of love; around the head of those who have newly gone to God, glows the purple-royal halo of death; and around the head of a young mother, fondling her first-born, shines out the white and sacred halo of motherhood.
To Stone the halo of motherhood was visible, even around the head of those whom this world counts and calls “fallen.” Motherhood was to him, in itself, and apart from the attendant circumstances, so sacred and beautiful, that the very word “mother,” as he spoke it, seemed surrounded by the halo of his reverence. The widowed Queen whom he knew and loved, and by whom he was held in regard and esteem, was to him no less our Mother—the type and symbol of English Motherhood—than she was our Sovereign. Of the august and ancient Catholic Church of which he was so loyal a son he rarely used the simile “The Bride of Christ,” which one frequently hears in sermons, but spoke of her, and with eyes aglow, as the Mother of her people; and it was of England, our Mother, that he sang with passionate love in many of his poems. So, too, the words “Holy Communion” assumed, as he spoke them, a meaning that was sacramental. The reverent lowering of his voice was like the dipping of a battleship’s ensign.
Again, in that portion of the service, in which, preceding the reading of the Ten Commandments, the Celebrant says, “God spake these words, and said,” many clergymen lay no stress on any particular word, but speak or intone all six in one more or less monotonous voice. It was not so with Stone. He spoke the passage thus:
“God——” the Holy Name was uttered with intense reverence and solemnity, which recalled to the congregation how awful is the Source whence these ancient Commandments come. Then there was a pause that every hearer might attune his or her thought to reverent attention, and the Celebrant would continue—“spake these words, and said,” passing on thence to the First Commandment.
And, lastly, I would say that I never heard human voice thrill with such devotion, such worshipping and wondering adoration, as that with which he spoke the name of our Saviour. That Name, the Holy and adored Name of Jesus, was so linked with all that he held sacred that he never uttered it without pausing before and after the Holy Name, that no less hallowed a word should be neighbour to that Name on his lips.
VII
Upon one incident in my long friendship with Stone I look back with pain and sorrow. He came in late one night, just as the last post had brought me the news—I would not write of such things here except in so far as it bears upon my friend—that the whole edition of my first little book had been sold out.
To-day the writing of a book, if only because it may be the means of bringing influence to bear upon others, is, I am of opinion, an occupation to be followed diligently, conscientiously, and with pleasurable zest. None the less, as compared with what some men are doing in the way of direct personal service to God, to their King, their country and their fellow creatures, it seems to me an occupation too inactive to afford cause for congratulation that one is thus employed. But in those days I desired nothing more than to be a successful author, little imagining that success in authorship does not necessarily mean the making either of literature or of a man.
When Stone came in that night, so full was I of the great news, as I held it to be, about my book, that I must needs rush at him, as volubly and importantly to pour it all out, as if the fate of empires hung upon the issue. He had a genius for friendship, and heard me out patiently and gently to the end, to say: “I am so glad, so very glad, dear fellow, and congratulate you with all my heart,” or words to that effect. Then he broached the subject of his call, a matter of infinitely more importance than any news of mine. It did not concern himself, or I should, I hope, have acted differently, but a member of his congregation, unknown to me, whom Stone was trying to assist in a time of trouble and anxiety. So far as I remember I hastily promised the assistance for which he asked, but, when he essayed to speak further of the matter, I interrupted him rudely, once again and boastfully to speak of my book.