Speech at the Victoria Brotherhood, Newport,
March 4th, 1910.
[THE USES OF THE PARISH ROOM.]
"The Ploughman returning
from his weary work
may just scrape
his boots outside."
In olden days the ordinary village school was the only place available for meetings or for general gatherings of the parishioners, and a long time ago that did very well. But the advance of education is tending to interfere a good deal with our old ideas and places, and it is now almost necessary that every Church, or every parish, should have a clubroom—a room where all classes can mix together and improve the knowledge they have gained at the various county schools—intermediate or otherwise. We want the Parish Room to be open to everyone. The ploughman returning from his weary work may just scrape his boots outside, and he will be perfectly welcome any time he likes to come in. I am sure there is a great deal of learning to be acquired, a great deal of good to be done, a great deal of instruction to be gathered, in a Church Room of this description, when it is managed in the way it ought to be. As you know, there are certain superior people who like essays and that sort of thing, and who, are inclined to sneer at the village concerts and penny readings and little dances which are likely to take place here. But we do not all possess the wisdom of Socrates, the dignity of Pliny, or the wit of Horace. Perhaps I shall put it more plainly if I say we do not possess the wisdom of Shakespeare, the dignity of Wordsworth, or the wit of Byron. But there is quite likely to be as much good sense in a humble gathering of an evening here as amongst those superior people who always try to teach us by telling us what we ought to do, what to think about, and what we ought to remember. Those are the people who advertise the simple life. I fancy most of you are living fairly simple lives, whilst those gentlemen who advocate it so much do not know what the simple life means. Not very far from us is where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and in Gray's beautiful Elegy we are told:
"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of Empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre."
Might not some of those who are laid in the Churchyard close by, if they had enjoyed the advantages we have, have "wakened to ecstasy the living lyre," or been great members of either parish councils or county councils, or even Members of Parliament! I think that before this room has been in existence many years we shall find that some of those attending the gatherings which I hope will take place here, have done their best to make themselves prominent in life, especially in trying to keep before the world the truths of that religion which we have thought so much of and heard so much of to-day.
Opening of Church-room at Llanvaches,
February, 1909.