Nooks and Corners / being the companion volume to 'From Kitchen to Garret'

by J. E. Panton

When the god-parents are chosen the christening-day should be fixed, and this should be the very first day that the mother and child can go out of doors. The clergyman who performs all the family services should be asked of course, and the time selected should be about the middle of the day, and, if possible, the font should be nicely decorated with white flowers. Of course the correct thing would be to have a public service with the congregation; the church always looks dismal and horrid when empty, and, according to the rubric, the service should be public; but I should never advise this. In the first place, the mother is never quite strong enough to stand the long service; and, in the second, babies do howl so that the congregation is made miserable, and, therefore, what is really an excellent theory is a practice to be avoided. Unless the christening is postponed, a thing I cannot contemplate for one moment, a child’s first outing should be to church; there is no doubt whatever in my own mind about that.

Take this for granted, and half the misery of a christening disappears; never allow it to be postponed, and it is done as a matter of course. If the god-parents selected cannot be present, they must be represented by proxy; and they should never be waited for, any more than they should be chosen for any reason save that we are fond of them, that they are related to us, or such friends that we know they would do the best they could for us were we to die and leave the children to the mercy of the world at large—as regards their mental welfare, I don’t mean their bodily. I repeat here, that no one has the smallest right to bring a child into the world for whose existence he cannot in some measure duly provide.

Without emulating the Roman Catholic habit of confession, I much like to feel that each family possesses some clergyman among its friends, who stands to it in some measure in the position that a Romish priest does to many households. The finer ceremonies of life and death should be conducted by one man; and it is always a great pleasure to me to feel that he who married us christened all our children, while it is as great a regret that he cannot any more perform any more ceremonies for us, for he has gone where ceremonies are of no avail, and where he has, no doubt, already received his reward. However, though none can take his place, we have still a ‘family priest;’ and I think all the simple ceremonies of our Church are made a thousand times holier by the fact that one man performs them, and that he takes that individual interest in us no strange clergyman ever can. Let anyone see a christening in a town church, hastily performed by a man to whom the infant is nothing but an unpleasant lump of lace and fussy clothes, or at best one more little soldier for the great army, and the same ceremony performed by a man who knows and loves the parents, and I shall need no more words if this does not express all I mean. Let my readers note the conduct of any cemetery chaplain reading the burial service, with which custom has made him hideously familiar, and then hear someone who has known and loved the dead read it; I am sure, after that, I need not plead for the election in each family of some good man as family priest. He is a comfort, indeed, with whom no one can afford to dispense, even in this hurrying, fashionable life of ours.

When the church and all is settled, the baby’s dress is undoubtedly a matter for great consideration. In some families grandmamma produces the robe the child’s father was christened in, and of course that, and nothing else, should be worn. Of course, equally, high neck and sleeves should be added, and a little flannel bodice can be placed with advantage under the fine open-neck bodice of the robe; white ribbons should tie up the sleeves and be placed under the waist, and the cloak should not be either heavy or unduly gorgeous. The hood and cloak must be removed in the church, and the nurse should do this quickly and silently the moment the ceremony begins, placing a big, soft shawl round the child; this allows it to become quiet, and does not ensure the roar which invariably follows if the child is handed to the clergyman the moment its clothes are taken off. It should be rolled in the shawl until the christening service is over, then it can be dressed and shriek if it likes; no one but the nurse will be disturbed by its howling then.

Baptism is a sacrament, and therefore there are no fees to be given to the clergyman, but the father goes into the vestry to give particulars about the name, &c., for registration in the church books, and he should then make the clerk some small present—5s. would be ample for most middle-class families, while 1l. would be princely. If the clergyman has come some distance one should take care he was no loser by it, delicately and nicely, and if one is rich some present should be given to the church itself to mark the ceremony; there is always something a church lacks that we can give without ruining ourselves; in fact, all these simple ceremonies should teach us to love the Church with the singular attachment even Dissenters have for it, and should make us more to each other as a congregation than we otherwise would be had we no religion to bind us together. The christening over, the baby should be taken, according to a dear old Yorkshire superstition, to be shown to some friend who will give it bread, salt, sixpence, and a new-laid egg; and if this superstition be respected, and, moreover, if the infant be taken up in the world before it is taken down (i.e. carried upstairs before it goes down), my old nurse used to declare that it must be lucky and could defy any amount of bad fortune. She invariably climbed by a stool up to a high settee with our children because our house had not a third story, and much she used to amuse us with these small vagaries; they were a matter of real moment to her, and we indulged her. Why not? If they did no good they most certainly could do no earthly harm.

Now, before we pass on from the christening ceremony to speak of weddings—a much more enthralling subject—I want to say one word on the matter of family gatherings. I know quite well I am venturing almost on forbidden ground, and that such an idea as a family party is beneath contempt in these days, when we want nothing but amusement, and dislike running the chance of being bored more than anything else. Still, I am going to speak about them, and I trust that I may show that they are not only unobjectionable if properly managed, but that they are absolutely necessary if we are to keep up anything like a good feeling amongst the members of one family.

The reasons why, as a rule, families separate and fall apart are, first of all, because some go up while others remain stationary, and others creep slowly down the hill; and, secondly, because there are none of the small civilities and amenities of life practised among relations that render society possible and pleasing. If a sister thinks another sister’s conduct is not just what it ought to be she tells her so, without considering that she has no more business to take her to task than she has to call on and scold her next-door neighbour; they frankly discuss the manner in which the respective children are brought up, and, indeed, often make themselves so interfering and disagreeable that the family party ends in tears and in mutual vows against any attempt at the same thing again.

Now, as regards the first offence, it is one we ought to be able to bear with equanimity, especially if we are remaining stationary while others are flourishing on a plain above our heads. In the first place, the honour and success of the one member is the property of all, and we can glory in it too, while, if we are at the top of the tree, no one will envy us that position if they share it in some measure, and if we take care that they are not hurt by our assuming airs that are as ridiculous as they are unkind. A man who forgets and ignores his poor relations is a snob, and is invariably laughed at by those who know of their existence; while if he never forgets them, and is good to them always, he reaps a reward no one can deprive him of in the tender affection, pride in his attainments, and unselfish delight in his success, which would be turned to gall and wormwood were he to turn his back on and ignore those whose flesh and blood he shares, and who must always be his relations, try how he may to shift them off his shoulders entirely.

Give this feeling, and I maintain that we can have family parties which are quite successful, more especially if we remember the second pitfall and refrain from these hideously spiteful remarks some families seem to regard in the light of indispensable tonics; and we should always try that our simple ceremonies of christenings, birthdays, Christmas, and weddings should include all those of our immediate kin who are near enough to share them. Let all be asked, let them see you are glad to see them, and give them your best (not your second best, please), and I am quite sure the family party will be as successful as any other you may be induced to give. Of course the party need not be all family; a judicious admixture of outsiders is always to be recommended, more especially if we are at the top of the tree and can take this opportunity of introducing some of our ‘best’ people to those who are pleased to meet them, although their present means may not allow of their entertaining them in their own houses in the same manner that we can.

These differences cannot be helped, and indeed they should be a source of pleasure to all, as I said before, and undoubtedly would be were family feeling cultivated among us in a manner that it certainly is not in most English homes. Therefore all these ceremonies should be made an occasion for family parties, and at Christmas time, too, all should meet who can, at the house of the eldest of the family, should the father and mother be unable to have their gathering or be dead, as is so often the case; and there should be regular preparations for enjoyment, a ‘surprise’ (my annual surprise considerably shortens my life), a Christmas tree, games, and a good supper, all mapped out just as if we expected the greatest strangers and wished to impress them with our forms of hospitality. Take rather more pains about the arrangements and details of a family party than any other; I am quite sure that if you do you will be amply rewarded.