The barber's chair; and, The hedgehog letters

by Douglas William Jerrold

Letter III.—To Mrs Hedgehog of New York.

My dear Grandmother,—We’re all safe for a time; the Pope hasn’t quite got hold of us yet. You recollect when I was a boy, how I would fling stones, and call names, and go among other boys pelting ’em right and left, and swearing I didn’t mean to hurt ’em, but played off my pranks only for their good? And then, when I used to get into a terrible fight, you remember how you used to come in at the last minute, and carry me off home just as I was nearly giving in? And then, how afterwards I used to brag that if grandmother hadn’t taken me away, I’d have licked twenty boys; one down, another come on! Well, well; the more I see of life, the more I’m sure men only play over their boys’ tricks; only they do it with graver faces and worse words.

What you did for me, the Archbishop of Canterbury has done for the Bishop of Exeter. Almost at the last minute he has wrapped his apron about the Bishop and carried him out of the squabble. And now the Bishop writes a letter as long as a church bell-rope, in which he says he only gives up fighting to show that he’s obedient—more than hinting, that if he’d been allowed to go on, he’d have beaten all comers, with one hand tied behind him. At all events, he’s very glad there’s been a rumpus, as it proves there’s pluck on both sides.

Yes; he says, “Whatever may have been the temporary results, I do not and cannot regret that I deemed it necessary publicly to assert those principles of Church authority, which it is alike the duty of all of us to recognise and to inculcate. The very vehemence with which the assertion of them has been resisted proves, if proof were necessary, the necessity of their being asserted, and of our never suffering them to fall into oblivion.” If this isn’t talking in the dark, I don’t know what a rushlight is. You might as well say that the “vehemence” with which a man resists a kicking, “proves the necessity” of kicking him. Because folks wouldn’t at any price have surplices forced down their throats, and offertory-bags poked into their pews, why, that’s the very reason you should try to push both surplice and bag upon ’em. As I say, it shows there’s blood on both sides; and it’s a comfort to know that both parties are ready for a tussle. Well, I’ve heard this sort of preaching from a Tipperary cabman, and never wondered; but it does sound droll from a bishop. I’ve read something somewhere about the thunder of the Church, and have now no doubt that it must be very serviceable; it must so clear the air after a certain time. Here, for months, has Exeter been thundering in the newspapers—crack, crack, crack! it’s gone almost every morning, till people wondered if the steeple of their own parish church was safe; and now, at last, he sits himself down, and smiling as if his face was smeared with honey, folds his hands and softly says, “Thank heaven! we’ve had a lovely storm.” Talking about thunder, I once read a poem—one of those strange, odd things that give your brain a twist—called “Festus.” There was a passage in it that certainly did bother me; but now I can perfectly understand it. Somebody says to another—

“Why, how now!

You look as though you fed on buttered thunder.”

Now, the Bishop of Exeter—I say it with all respect, grandmother, for you know you always taught me to love the bishops—is this very man. You’ve only to read his letters, really so noisy, and yet, as he declares, meaning to be so soft—to be sure that what he lives and thrives upon is buttered thunder. The Bishop, of course, isn’t alone in his happiness at the row. One of his best friends, the Morning Post, believes it will do a deal of good. True piety, like physic, wants shaking to have its proper effect. The Post talked a little while ago about “the means which have made the Church arise from its slumbers like a giant refreshed;” that is, getting up in a white surplice, to be refreshed with ready money from the pews. I don’t know how it is, but I don’t think the Church ought to be compared to a giant. All the giants I know are people of very queer character. The best of ’em gluttonous, swaggering, overbearing chaps, with nothing too hot or too heavy for ’em to carry off: now, these are not at all the sort of creatures that we are likely to think of when we’re reading the Bishop of Exeter’s letters. No; they rather remind us of a shepherd playing on his pipe—I’ve only read of these things—to his sheep and lambkins. The Morning Post further says:—

“We are not among those who feel alarm at the present state of the Church. The fermentation will throw off the scum, and what is good will remain.”

Now, grandmother, you know enough of boiling to know that “the scum” always floats on the top. Now, is anything on the top to be thrown off? Don’t flurry yourself; the Post doesn’t mean that. What it means is, that a whole lot of the vulgar members of the Established Church will be so fermented by the surplice, the offertory, and other Popish ingredients—grains of Paradise, as they tell us—that they’ll be thrown clean out of it. You know how Bill Wiggins once poisoned the pond, so that the fish was floated dead ashore. In the same way the Church may get rid of its small fry, and “what is good will remain.” Then the Church will be something like. Now, it’s old and weather-stained, with time blotches and cracks about it. But how fine it will look with crucifixes and pictures of the Virgin inside—a clean white surplice always in the upper pulpit—and the whole building beautifully and thickly faced with Roman cement!

But at this present writing, it isn’t all over in the city of Exeter. The Bishop, having had his fling, one of his journeymen, the Rev. Mr Courtenay, minister of St Sidwell’s, comes in for a little more than his share of the performance. Don’t think I’m profane, dear grandmother—no, quite the reverse. But you have in your time been to Astley’s, and seen the riding in the ring. Well, the principal rider comes, and does all manner of wonders whilst cantering and galloping, and going all kind of paces. When he’s done, he makes his bow and goes off. And then after him comes the clown. Well, he’s determined to outdo all that’s been done before him, and for this purpose goes on with all sorts of manœuvres. Now the Bishop of Exeter has made his bow, and the Rev. Mr Courtenay is, at the time I write, before the public. He will preach in a surplice; and that he may do so with safety—for all the folks in Exeter are in a pretty pucker about it—he goes to and from church, as I may say, in the bosom of the police. Oh dear! isn’t it sad work, grandmother? this noise about black and white gowns, when Churchmen ought to think of nothing but black and white souls? Black and white! as if there was a pattern-book of colours for heaven! However, how it will end nobody knows; but if the matter goes on as it promises, it is thought the Rev. Mr Courtenay will call to his aid the yeomanry, and be escorted to St Sidwell’s by a body-guard armed with ball-cartridge. It is said he has bespoken two howitzers to keep off the mob from the church doors.