The English Church, as established by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose sun shines alike on the evil and on the good.
J. H. Shorthouse, John Inglesant.
Mr. Shorthouse, like most people who have come over to the Church from Dissent, set an inordinate value on the principle of Establishment. He seemed (and in that particular he resembled Archbishop Tait) incapable of conceiving the idea of a Church as separate from, and independent of, the State. The words "as established by the law of England" in the passage which stands at the head of this chapter appear to suggest a doubt whether the English Church, if she ceased to be "established," could still discharge her function as the divinely-appointed dispenser of sacramental grace to the English people. Those who, like Mr. Gladstone, believe that no change in her worldly circumstances could "compromise or impair her character as the Catholic and Apostolic Church of this country," would omit Mr. Shorthouse's qualifying words, and would say, simply, that the English Church, whether established or not, offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come, and that she is, has been, and always will be, "historically the same institution through which the Gospel was originally preached to the English Nation." But this is not the place for theorization; so, for the moment, I am content to take Mr. Shorthouse's statement as it stands, and to say that a loving pride in the English Church has been the permanent passion of my life. I hold with Dean Church, a man not given to hyperbole, that "in spite of inconsistencies and menacing troubles, she is still the most glorious Church in Christendom."
I was baptized in the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Woburn, formerly a chapel dependent on the Cistercian Abbey hard by, which the first Earl of Bedford received as a gift from Henry VIII.[62] This truly interesting church was destroyed, to please an innovating incumbent, in 1864; but my earliest impressions of public worship are connected with it, and in my mind's eye I can see it as clearly as if it were still standing. It had never been "restored "; but had been decorated by my grandfather, who inherited the ecclesiastical rights of the Abbots of Woburn, and whose "Curate" the incumbent was.[63] My grandfather was a liberal giver, and did his best, according to his lights, to make the Church beautiful. He filled the East Window with stained glass, the central subject being his own coat of arms, with patriarchs and saints grouped round it in due subordination. Beneath the window was a fine picture, by Carlo Maratti, of the Holy Family. The Holy Table was a table indeed, with legs and drawers after the manner of a writing-table, and a cover of red velvet. The chancel was long; and the south side of it was engrossed by "the Duke's Pew," which was enclosed within high walls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace. The north side of the chancel was equally engrossed by a pew for the Duke's servants. The choir, male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ in a gallery at the West End. The whole Church was pewed throughout, and white-washed, the chancel being enriched with plaster mouldings. On the capital of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing the arms of some family allied to our own. The largest and most vivid presentment of the Royal Arms which I have ever seen crowned the chancel-arch.
Our clerical staff consisted of the incumbent (who became a "Vicar" by Act of Parliament in 1868) and a curate. Our list of services was as follows: Sunday—11 a.m., Morning Prayer, Litany, Table-prayers, and Sermon; 6 p.m., Evening Prayer and Sermon. There was Evening Prayer with a sermon on Thursdays, and a prayer-meeting in the schoolroom on Tuesday evenings. There were no extra services in Lent or Advent, nor on any Holy Days except Good Friday and Ascension Day. The Holy Communion was administered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the month, and on Christmas and Easter Days; and after Evening Service on the third Sunday. The black gown was, of course, worn in the pulpit, and I remember a mild sensation caused by the disuse of bands. The prayers were preached; the Psalms were read; and the hymn-book in use was "The Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal"—a quaint compilation which I have never seen elsewhere. It would not be easy to describe the dreariness of the services; and the preaching corresponded to them. This is curious, for Evangelical preaching generally was rousing and effective. I remember that we heard preaching of that type from strangers who occasionally "took duty" or "pleaded for Societies"; but our own pastors always expatiated on Justification by Faith only. I cannot recall any other subject; and, even in enforcing this, "Pulpit-eloquence," topical allusions, and illustrations whether from nature or from books, were rigidly eschewed. "As dull as a sermon" is a proverbial saying which for me in early boyhood had an awful truth.
It has been stated in an earlier chapter that I discovered the Sacramental System of the Church by the simple method of studying the Prayer Book. Certainly I got no help in that direction from my spiritual pastors. The incumbent was, I should think, the Lowest Churchman who ever lived. He was a Cambridge man; a thorough gentleman; well-read; wholly devoted to his sacred calling; and fearless in his assertion of what he believed to be right. (He once refused to let Jowett preach in our pulpit, though the noble patron made the request.) He was entirely insensible to poetry, beauty, romance, and enthusiasm; but his mind was essentially logical, and he followed his creed to its extremest consequences. Baptismal grace, of course, he absolutely denied. He prepared me for Confirmation, and he began his preparation by assailing my faith in the Presence and the Succession. He defined Confirmation as "a coming of age in the things of the soul." I perfectly remember a sermon preached on "Sacrament Sunday," which ended with some such words as these, "I go to yonder table to-day; not expecting to meet the Lord, because I know He will not be there." I have seldom heard the doctrine of the Real Absence stated with equal frankness.
All my religious associations were with the Evangelical school, of which my parents were devoted adherents. My uncle, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell (1804-1886), had been a disciple of Charles Simeon at Cambridge, but had completely discarded such fragments of Churchmanship as lingered in his master's teaching. My mother (1810-1884) had been in early life closely allied with "the Clapham Sect"; and our friendship with the last survivor of that sect, Miss Marianne Thornton (1797-1887), linked us to the Wilberforces, the Venns, and the Macaulays. My acquaintance with Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885) I have always esteemed one of the chief honours of my life. He combined in a singular degree the gifts which make a Leader. He had an imperious will, a perfervid temper, unbounded enthusiasm, inexhaustible energy. Any movement with which he was connected he controlled. He brooked neither opposition nor criticism. His authority was reinforced by advantages of aspect and station; by a stately manner, by a noble and commanding eloquence. But all these gifts were as nothing when compared with the power of his lifelong consistency. When he was a boy at Harrow, a brutal scene at a pauper's funeral awoke his devotion to the cause of the poor and helpless. Seventy years later, when he lay on his deathbed, his only regret was that he must leave the world with so much misery in it. From first to last, he was an Evangelical of the highest and purest type, displaying all the religious and social virtues of that school in their perfection. Yet he left it on record that he had been more harshly treated by the Evangelical party than by any other. Perhaps the explanation is that those excellent people were only kicking against the pricks of a too-absolute control.
Such were the religious associations of my early life; and I am deeply thankful for them. I have found, by much experiment, that there is no foundation on which the superstructure of Catholic religion can be more securely built than on the Evangelical confession of man's utter sinfulness, and of the free pardon purchased by the Blood of Christ. A man trained in that confession may, without sacrificing a jot of his earlier creed, learn to accept all that the Catholic Church teaches about Orders and Sacraments; but to the end he will retain some characteristic marks of his spiritual beginnings. For my own part, I hold with Mr. Gladstone that to label oneself with an ecclesiastical nickname would be to compromise "the first of earthly blessings—one's mental freedom[64]"; but if anyone chose to call me a "Catholic Evangelical," I should not quarrel with the designation.
I said in an earlier chapter that I had an inborn fondness for Catholic ceremonial, and this, I suppose, was part of my general love of material beauty. Amid such surroundings as I have described, it was a fondness not easily indulged. When I was twelve years old, I was staying at Leamington in August, and on a Holy Day I peeped into the Roman Church there, and saw for the first time the ceremonies of High Mass; and from that day on I longed to see them reproduced in the Church of England. During one of our periodical visits to London, I discovered the beautiful church in Gordon Square where the "Adherents of a Restored Apostolate" celebrate Divine Worship with bewildering splendour. The propinquity of our house to Westminster Abbey enabled me to enter into the more chastened, yet dignified, beauty of the English rite. At Harrow the brightness and colour of our School-Chapel struck my untutored eye as "exceeding magnifical"; and the early celebrations in the Parish Church had a solemnity which the Chapel lacked.
But the happiest memory of all is connected with a little Church[65] about two miles from my home. It is a tiny structure of one aisle, with the altar fenced off by a screen of carved oak. It served a group of half a dozen houses, and it stood amid green fields, remote from traffic, and scarcely visible except to those who searched for it. There an enthusiastic and devoted priest spent five and twenty years of an isolated ministry; and there, for the first time in our communion, I saw the Divine Mysteries celebrated with the appropriate accessories.