About a quarter-past-ten we sallied forth, Mary in green corduroy between Grandmother in her Sunday black and Aunt Jael with her go-to-Meeting blue-velvet-ribboned bonnet. I should now behold the inside of the Room, antechamber of Heaven; I should join in public worship with the Saints. Curiosity alone did not stir me; in some vague exalted way, I hoped to get nearer to the Lord.
The Room was a bare little tabernacle in a side-street, built in the Noah's Ark style dear also to Methodism. Grandmother took my hand as we mounted the steps from the street; we passed into the Holy Place. I received at once the curious effect of a light bluish mist which, though brighter, reminded me of the thick blue gloom of my attic, and which was caused by the light blue distempered brick of the walls and ceiling. There were eight windows in the Room, which was many times larger than our parlour and by far the largest place I had ever entered; each consisted of twenty-four small square panes, six in the perpendicular by four breadthways, a source for years to come of endless countings and pattern-weavings and mystical mathematical tricks. There were two of these windows at each end of the room, and two down each side. All eight were set so high as almost to merge into the ceiling. The curious result was that while near the floor it was comparatively dark, the upper part of the room was very light. A symbol, I thought; for Earth is dark, but Heaven bright. Aunt Jael led the way up a druggeted sort of aisle to the front row where we alone sat: the family's immemorial place, though purchased by no worldly pew-rent. In the first rush of newness I but dimly apprehended the benches of black-clad figures we had passed. Immediately in front of us stood the Lord's Table, covered with spotless white damask, and laden with two tall bottles of wine, two great pewter tankards, and two cottage-loaves on plates. Beyond the Table was a low raised dais from which the Gospel was preached at the evening meetings for unbelievers; never used at the Breakings of Bread, for all Saints are equal, and none may stand above his fellows. On either side of the Table, however, respectively to our right and left were the (unofficial) seats of the mighty: Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge and Brother Brawn on one side, Brother Quappleworthy and Brother Browning on the other. On the wall at the far end was a clock, loudly audible in the abysmal silences of prayer.
I did not absorb all the details at a first glance; nor do I really remember the particular texts, expositions and hymns of that initiatory day. What I do always retain and rehearse in my mind is rather one "Type" meeting, from first silence to final benediction; an ideal combination of many different Lord's Days, in which I have unconsciously fitted together Brothers, events, homilies, each in most typical essence.
This morning meeting, the Breaking of Bread, was the meeting par excellence. The Breaking of the Bread and the drinking of wine were the central acts of a tense and devout program of prayer, of reading and exposition of the Word, and of hymn-singing, unaccompanied by any choir or instrument of music. Only Saints were bidden, i. e., those who had testified aloud to the saving grace of the body and the blood, and had taken up their Cross in public baptism. We were no ordinary Dissenting chapel, where "All are welcome":—the more the merrier, more grist to the mill, more pennies on the plate, more souls for the Kingdom. Only the Lord's own chosen testified people were deemed worthy of this solemn privilege of eating His sacred Body and drinking His sacred Blood; and only they were admitted. The only exceptions were a few children, like myself, who could not be left at home by their elders. A few non-privileged adults very occasionally came: old friends of the Meeting who for some reason of reluctance or uncertainty were untestified and unbaptized, or strangers, drawn by sympathy or curiosity; but earthen platter and pewter mug were zealously snatched away if such alien hands essayed to grasp them. (So too was the collecting-box. I have seen visitors with outstretched arm and generous shilling gasp with surprise as the money-box was drawn rudely out of their reach. Unlike worldlywise church or chapel, we would touch none but hallowed gold. The collection was as close a privilege as the communion.)
On an average morning we were fifty or sixty strong; more women than men, more old than young, more wan than hale, more humble than high. With dough of small shopkeepers, masons, artisans, gardeners, old women with pathetic private incomes, washerwomen, charwomen, servants, we had leaven of more comfortable middle-class people like Grandmother and Aunt Jael, or "better" folk still like Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, or best of all dear Brother Quappleworthy, our graduate of the University of Oxford, our cousin by marriage with a peer of England! Believers in the aristocratic principle would have noted with satisfaction that from this blue-blooded minority were drawn almost all the "Leading Saints."
We were a community. The better-to-do helped the poor, and remembered that all were equal before God. Odd folk and sane folk, stupid folk and wise folk: with all their failings, a more gentle, worthy, sincere and trustful company of followers of Jesus of Nazareth could not have been found in this whole world or century. The fault they were farthest from is the one the fool most often imputes: hypocrisy. They were, of course, a varied company; it takes all sorts to make a Meeting.
Our Leading Brothers were Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, with Brothers Brawn, Browning, Briggs, Quappleworthy, Quick, and Quaint. The last was only included just to round things off and to justify Mr. Pentecost's holy pleasantry "The Lord is watching us: let us mind our B's and Q's," for he was really quite an obscure brother who rarely broke silence, and then to pray so pessimistically that he can never have expected his petitions to be heard, let alone answered.
To be Leading Brother implied merely this: to stand out of the ruck of silent members, either in prayer or exposition of the Word. Many an obscure Brother, however, who would never have risked his hand at prayer or exposition occasionally blurted into a morning's modest fame by announcing a hymn. A stir of special interest was always felt in the Meeting on such occasions, and it was whispered that "the Lord was notably working in Brother So-and-So." Giving out a hymn was after all not so mean a performance. Every line of every verse was slowly enunciated by the chooser before we began to sing. The church and chapel habit of reading out only the first verse (or even line!) struck me as very odd and meagre when I first encountered it many years later. Prayer, however, was the favourite form of self-expression. All the Leading Saints were "powerful in prayer."
Exposition either followed or accompanied the reading of a portion of the Word. It was our "sermon." Our five regular expounders were Mr. Pentecost, Brothers Quappleworthy (the chief), Brawn, Browning and Briggs.