precedent. Instead of the recognised version, ‘All Scripture is given for instruction,’ some of the good people we have referred to seemed as if they read confusion. The old Commonwealth men blundered terribly in this way; but every age has had men guilty of similar blunders. Poor Granville Sharpe had an interview with Mr. Pitt, to plead the cause of humanity, and wasted the golden opportunity by attempting to explain to that great Minister—to whom the explanation was all unintelligible—the meaning of the little horn in Daniel. In spite of Christianity, men still cling to Jewish rites and Jewish creeds, as if the Temple of Solomon still wore its ancient splendour, as if the seed of Abraham still enjoyed their sacred birthright, as if the sceptre had not departed from Judah, and Shiloh had never come. Go into the churches of the metropolis any time you like, and the probability is that in more than half the texts will be taken from the Old Testament, and the certainty is, that in almost all, all the arguments and illustrations will have a similar source. Thus we have a composite order of preaching. It seems as if the preacher knew not on which side to take his stand, under which king to speak or die.
The hand is Esau’s, but the voice is Jacob’s. You hear as much of David as of Christ, as much of the ceremonial of a worship of form and ceremony, as of the simplicity introduced by Him who was born in a manger, and had not where to lay his head. To break free from all this—to act in the living present—to let the dead past bury its dead—to speak to the men of to-day in the language of to-day, is a great advantage to a preacher, even if it require, on his part, a little extra care in the composition of his sermons; and no one knows this better than the popular Assistant Minister of St. John’s, Waterloo Place, Regent Square, London—the Rev. Mr. Bellew, formerly of St. John’s Cathedral, Calcutta.
To give a man the position Mr. Bellew has acquired, however, something further is needed. Peculiar qualities of thought or utterance, especially the latter, are essential to a man if he would be talked of on all sides—run after by fine lords and ladies—in request all over London for charity sermons—and admitted to plead in the august presence of Lord Mayors and Princes of the blood. In the first place, then, it must be remembered that Mr. Bellew preaches with all the studied earnestness of the actor, and every
syllable tells as distinctly as if it were Macready declaiming on the stage. Then he is an Irishman, and what Irishman is not fluent and born to drive in the pulpit; and what is wonderful, though an Irish Protestant, Mr. Bellew avoids the rôle, somewhat overdone, of a McNeile, or a McGee, or a Maguire, and does not commit the absurdity of making his every sermon a wearisome protest against Popery and the Pope. Why should Irish clergymen get wild on this head? It is not, says Goëthe, by attacking the false, but by proclaiming the true, that good is to be done. And it is the same in religion; the Irish Protestants have little to complain of—their history is written in the tears and blood of millions whom they have wronged for ages. By the violation of all right—by means that will ever stain the Irish Protestant Church with shame—by laws the most infamous the malice of man could devise, have they got to be where they are; let them take the goods the gods provide and be thankful. If anything could make a man sympathize with Roman Catholics, it would be the history of the Protestant Church since its first establishment there by the strong arm of law. On all other matters Mr. Bellew seems equally to avoid the
errors of partisanship; he ignores the foolish ceremonial disputes of his own Church—the petty doctrinal discussions, which are the more fiercely agitated the more trivial and worthless they in reality are. His Christianity is something proud, and majestic, and divine,—a universal remedy for a universal disease,—not a skeleton of dead doctrine, or a bone of contention, or an obsolete word, but a living, healthy, beneficent power.
But Mr. Bellew has other attractions. Not only are his sermons broad and catholic in tone,—not only are they enunciated with oratorical effect,—not only are they heightened by the charm of a commanding presence,—but they are in themselves highly polished, full of passages of rare eloquence, and retain the attention of the hearers. They all open well, the exordium is always spirited, and its tone is maintained to the end of the discourse. Thus one commences as follows, “Eternity is the answer to life’s question—immortality is the hallowed reward of life’s holy works.” Another has, “Life is the expression of religion.” In another we get a quotation from Tacitus pregnant with meaning, “Truth is established by investigation and delay.” Then
the circumstances of the text are well brought out. If Paul speaks at Corinth, we see that licentious city with its groves and temples; if on Mars’ hill he proclaims an Unknown God, the orator, with a lustre on his face brighter than any genius could bestow, is in our midst; around him are the restless Athenians, and in the background, the marble statues of their deities—of silver-eyed Minerva, and Apollo, lord of the silver bow. If some divine word of the Great Teacher himself is the subject of discourse, then the Hebrew landscape is painted as only those can paint who have trod the steps—as Mr. Bellew has done—where, more than eighteen centuries ago, the Christ and his sorrowing disciples trod. Occasionally a little pompous verbosity may be detected; instead of simply telling us how the earth’s great ones are despised too often by the world, Mr. Bellew says, ‘My experience of life, and the more I read from all history, sacred and profane, modern and ancient, is this—the veritable heroes of humanity have generally been decorated with the epithets of popular insult.’ This is a little too much in the mouthing vein, and reminds us of the singular encomium on Mr. Bellew in the Morning Herald, to the effect
that our preacher ‘unveils the plan of salvation in the most graceful and attractive manner’—as if Mr. Bellew was a Madame Mantilini, and the plan of salvation was the last new fashion. Perhaps for this singular criticism Mr. Bellew is in some part accountable. Our readers may have seen a caricature of two popular preachers, under the title of Brimstone and Treacle. Brimstone is supposed to represent the youthful hero of the Surrey Music Hall: the pulpit Adonis, curled and scented and lack-a-daisical, called Treacle, is supposed, though very wrongly, for Mr. Bellew is no man-milliner, to typify the subject of this sketch. In spite of grey hair and sallow cheeks, Mr. Bellew has somewhat too much the appearance of a lady’s man, and his Christianity is evidently that which will do credit to the best society; nor is this to be wondered at. Has he not an uncle a Bishop, and has he not the élite of the beau-monde to hear him?
THE REV. THOMAS DALE, M.A.
In the good old times, before the Reform Bill was carried and the Constitution destroyed, at a period long prior to the introduction of cheap ’busses and penny steamers and the new police, stood an old church in the north of London, in which the parishioners of St. Pancras were accustomed to meet for public worship. In spite of its unadorned appearance, it was a venerable pile. According to some, it was the last church in England where the bell tolled for mass, and in which any rites of the Roman Catholic religion were celebrated. In its burying-ground twenty generations now sleep the sleep of death. Grimaldi the clown, Woollet the engraver, William Godwin, Mary Wolstonecraft, Walker, immortalized by his Pronouncing Dictionary, Woodhead, the reputed author of the ‘Whole Duty of Man,’ Jeremy Collier, the writer against stage plays and the successful combatant of Dryden, Ned Ward, author of the ‘London Spy,’ Theobald, the hero of the early editions of the ‘Dunciad’ and the editor of ‘Shakspeare,’ Boswell’s friend,