One pleasure of the high days was having the fine old hymns for Easter or Christmas, which no bad singing can spoil, as a variety on Sternhold and Hopkins, but I still bear in mind the absolute depression caused by that doleful production, the hymn called “The Lamentation of a Sinner.” To this day it seems to me that it would be better for such a composition to be omitted from our service.
Although it appears to be the correct thing for those who have been before the public in later life to have reminiscences (or for their biographer to invent them), of their precocious piety, I cannot remember that I was ever much given that way. I think that I was as a child kept in steady paths of proper behaviour, and amongst the items taught was certainly scrupulous observance of the fifth commandment in all its branches. Any deviation from truth was another point, the wickedness of which was most sedulously inculcated; and I should say that from my earliest days I was thoroughly well grounded in as much simple and necessary religious information as my small head could carry.
But I did not indulge in fine sentiments, felt or expressed, and I think that my first absolute feeling on religious matters was roused when in one of our spring visits to London, I went regularly on Sunday morning with the family to attend the service at the Vere Street Chapel, where Mr. Scobell was then vicar, and some clergyman of high standing occasionally preached. One thing that was very charming to a girl who had not heard anything of the kind before, was the hymn singing. The splendid hymn “Thou art the way,” imprinted itself on my mind, as likewise a part of a sermon by Mr. Scobell, on the basis of our trust in God. He enumerated various of the high characteristics of the Deity; His boundless power, His holiness and other characteristics of His majesty. With the mention of each characteristic he put the question, “Does this give you a claim for acceptance?” until he came to the climax, “His love,” with the words “but His love, that you may trust.” Perhaps if the good man had known how these words would abide to old age as a comfort to one who was then amongst the youngest of his congregation, it would have given him pleasure.
The Archbishop of Dublin, the celebrated Dr. Whately, also preached at this Chapel, and I heard him deliver his grand sermon on “the doubts leading to the assured belief of St. Thomas.” I suppose this time was what in some circles would have been called my “awakening,” but we in our family neither thought nor spoke of these things; and any allusion to such matters would have brought on me (possibly very rightly) an awakening of another kind, which would have entirely disinclined me to favour the family with any religious views, beyond what might be shown in behaving with propriety and above all doing as I was bid to the best of my ability.
Reverting to early recollections of ecclesiastical matters, or things in which the clergy might have been expected, ex-officio, to interfere, there certainly was room for improvement, but this was not peculiar to the olden time. Some of the curious circumstances of which accounts reached my young ears are better forgotten. One thing that I remember was the very different position relating to sporting, and also to the divergence in dress from the great precision now in vogue. A clergyman of somewhat high position, being, I suppose, pressed for time on one occasion, performed the funeral service in his “pink” visible beneath his surplice. Another, subsequently a favourite with all his poorer parishioners for his kindness, when a candidate for orders, was encouraged by his father to the necessary mental labour by the promise that if he passed his examination he should have a double-barrelled gun! In a locality not far from the edge of Monmouthshire, I myself saw the incumbent of one of the small livings with his coat off loading a manure cart! He comes back to my memory as doing the work quietly and gravely, and with no more appearance of derogation than if he had been budding the roses in his garden; still the work must have taken a considerable amount of time from the purposes of his ordination.
The “Oxford” or “Tractarian Movement” of 1833-45[[15]] made an enormous commotion, and perhaps for a retired locality nowhere more than in our own parish.
After the death of the old vicar, amongst a succession of clergy the most noted was Dr. Armstrong (presented 1846).[[16]] With him came the full tide of the Oxford Movement, and as he was a highly accomplished man, eloquent in the pulpit, of charming society manner in the drawing-room, and with his heart fixed on driving his own views of reform and restoration forward, the holders of differing ecclesiastical views in the parish were soon very thoroughly by the ears. My father as “squire” and chief resident landowner had always tried (much to his own discomfort at times) to uphold the cause of decency and order. But with the new arrangements came all sorts of trouble from an excess of ceremonial, and peace seemed to have vanished. The attempted setting up of confession caused much trouble, and difference of lay and clerical opinion in the restoration of the Church was a fertile cause of ill-feeling. One special point was the right claimed by the vicar to prevent any of the general congregation entering the church by the chancel door. We had always gone in that way, and it was not convenient to reach the family pew by going round two sides of the church, so my father stuck to his legal rights, and the door was not visibly fastened. But one unlucky day when we, the ladies of the family, arrived as usual and tried to go in, to our consternation it appeared impossible to turn the latch. It was a remarkably pretty handle—I suppose an imitation of mediæval ironwork—but it required more than common woman’s strength to make this unlucky invention act in admitting us to the church. However, we were not to be kept out by this ingenious device. Muscularly I was remarkably strong from working in wood and stone, and I was perfectly happy to forward my father’s wishes, so thenceforward for many a week I went to church with a round ruler in my pocket, and slipping this into the hanging bit of ironwork, I easily raised the latch and gave my mother and sisters entrance to church. I did not object to my part of the ceremony in the least—rather liked it, in fact—but looking back from graver age it seems to me that it would have been better if the vicar had not driven the squire to defend the rights of the congregation by such forcible measures. After a while the latch (or the vicar’s view on the subject) was loosened, and we obtained entrance without, like the violent, being obliged to take it by force.
The real troubles of the times were endless. It was even possible for a sincerely religious man to absent himself from the reception of communion on the ground that he was not able to participate with Christian comfort and in a charitable frame of mind. Within the church building itself the condition of things was not satisfactory. The openings beneath the very “open” seats, whereby was secured free circulation for dogs and draughts, were unpleasant in various ways.
The appointment of our skilled and accomplished vicar, Dr. Armstrong, to the Bishopric of Grahamstown in South Africa, for which he was eminently fitted, was hailed by many of us with heartfelt gratitude. In later years, under the kindly care of the Rev. Percy Burd (successor in 1862 of the Rev. Alan Cowburn) who, without thinking it necessary to push everything to extremities, attended with the utmost care to proprieties of detail of worship in church, to social friendliness, and to care of the poor, we passed along in paths of comfort and peace, for which some of us were deeply grateful.