form of religion obliterated from the face of the world, would recreate religion, as the spring recreates the fruits and flowers of the soil, bidding it bloom again in beauty, bear again its rich fruits of utility, and fashion for itself such forms and modes of expression as may best agree with the progressive condition of mankind.’
And this religion of humanity is to be met with in Finsbury Square. I am not aware there is anything new about it. Every school-boy is familiar with it in Pope’s Universal Prayer; but latterly, in Germany, in England, and across the Atlantic, it has been preached with an eloquence of peculiar fascination and power. Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson have been the high priests in the new temple, which fills all space, and whose worship is all time. In England, as an organisation, whatever it may have done as a theory, it has not succeeded. Here William Johnson Fox, originally a student at the Independent Academy, Homerton, then a Unitarian minister, and now the member for Oldham, and the ‘Publicola’ of the ‘Dispatch,’ has been its most eloquent advocate. If any man could have won over the people to it, he,
with his unrivalled rhetoric—rhetoric which, during the agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, will be remembered as surpassing all that has been heard in our day—would have done it; and yet Fox never had his chapel more than comfortably full—not even when the admission was gratis, and any one who wished might walk in. But now the place has a sadly deserted appearance. You feel cold and chilly directly you enter. The mantle of Fox has not fallen on his successor; and what Mr. Fox could not accomplish, most certainly the Rev. Mr. Ierson will not perform.
At half-past eleven service every Sunday morning commences at the chapel in South Place. You need not hurry: there will be plenty of room for bigger and better men than yourself. The worship is of the simplest character. Mr. Ierson commences with reading extracts from various philosophical writers, ancient and modern; then there is singing, not congregational, but simply that of a few professionals. The metrical collection used, I believe, is one made by Mr. Fox, and is full of beautiful poetry and sublime sentiments; but the congregation does not utter it—it merely listens while
it is uttered by others for it. Singing is followed by prayer. ‘Prayer,’ says Montgomery (James, not Robert)—
‘is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpress’d,
The motion of a hidden fire,
That trembles in the breast.’
Mr. Ierson’s prayer is nothing of the kind: no fire trembles in the breast while it is offered up. It is a calm, rational acknowledgment of Divine power and goodness and beauty. Then comes an oration of half an hour, the result of no very hard reading, and the week’s worship is at an end, and the congregation, principally a male one, departs, not much edified, or enlightened, or elevated, but, perhaps, a little puffed up, as it hears how the various sects of religionists all, like sheep, go astray. Such must be the inevitable result. You cannot lecture long on the errors of Christians, without feeling convinced of your own superiority. The youngest green-horn in the chapel has a self-satisfied air. Beardless though he be, he is emancipated. The religion which a Milton could make the subject of his immortal strains—which a Newton could find it consistent with philosophy to accept—which has
found martyrs in every race, and won trophies in every clime—he can pass by as an idle tale or an old wife’s dream.
Mr. Ierson himself is better than the imaginary disciple I have just alluded to. He has got to his present position, I believe, by honest conviction and careful study. Originally, I think, he was a student at the Baptist College, Stepney; then he became minister over a Baptist congregation at Northampton, and there finding his position at variance with his views, he honestly relinquished his charge. I fear such honesty is not so common as it might be. I believe, in the pulpit and the pew, did it exist, our religious organisations would assume a very different aspect. The great need of our age, it seems to me, is sincerity in religion—that men and women, that pastor and people, should plainly utter what they think. I believe there is a greater freedom in religious thought than really appears to be the case. ‘How is it,’ said I to a Unitarian, the other day, ‘that you do not make more progress?’ ‘Why,’ was the answer, ‘we make progress by other sects taking our principles, while retaining their own names:’ and there was truth in the reply.
Still, it is better that a man who ceases to be a Churchman, or a Baptist, or an Independent, should say and act as Mr. Ierson has done. He will lose nothing in the long run by honesty—not that I take it Mr. Ierson has achieved any great success, but he gives no sign of any great talent. He is not the man to achieve any great success. People who believe his principles will stop at home unless there is in the pulpit a man who can draw a crowd. Fox could scarcely do this. Such men as Ronge, or Ierson, or Macall, who lectured to some forty people in the Princess’s Concert Booms, cannot do it at all. Mr. Brooke might, if he could be spared from Drury Lane—so could Macready or Dickens, or Thackeray; but in these matters everything depends upon the man.