As the representatives of a Deity who tenderly cares for every one of His creatures, the clergy themselves are bound to cultivate all their own powers and gifts of sympathy. The best of them do this with the important result that after some years spent in the exercise of their profession they become really and unaffectedly more sympathetic than laymen generally are. The power of sympathy is a great power everywhere, but it is so particularly in those countries where the laity are not much in the habit of cultivating the sympathetic feelings, and timidly shrink from the expression of them even when they exist. I remember going with a French gentleman to visit a lady who had very recently lost her father; and my friend made her a little speech in which he said no more than what he felt, but he said it so elegantly, so delicately, so appropriately, and in such feeling terms, that I envied him the talent of expressing condolence in that way. I never knew an English layman who could have got through such an expression of feeling, but I have known English clergymen who could have done it. Here is a very great and real superiority over us, and especially with women, because women are exquisitely alive to everything in which the feelings are concerned, and we often seem to them dead in feeling when we are only awkward, and dumb by reason of our awkwardness.
I think it probable that most readers of this page will find, on consulting their own recollections, that they have received warmer and kinder expressions of sympathy from clerical friends than from laymen. It is certainly so in my own case. On looking back to the expressions of sympathy that have been addressed to me on mournful occasions, and of rejoicing on happy ones, I find that the clearest and most ample and hearty utterances of these feelings have generally come either from clergymen of the Church of England, or priests of the Church of Rome.
The power of sympathy in clergymen is greatly increased by their easy access to all classes of society. They are received everywhere on terms which may be correctly defined as easily respectful; for their sacred character gives them a status of their own, which is neither raised by association with rich people nor degraded by friendliness with the poor or with that lower middle class which, of all classes, is the most perilous to the social position of a layman. They enter into the joys and sorrows of the most different orders of parishioners, and in this way, if there is any natural gift of sympathy in the mind of a clergyman, it is likely to be developed and brought to perfection.
Partly by arrangements consciously devised by ecclesiastical authorities, and partly by the natural force of circumstances, the work of the Church is so ordered that her representatives are sure to be present on the most important occasions in human life. This gives them some influence over men, but that which they gain by it over women is immeasurably greater, because the minds of women are far more closely and exclusively bound up in domestic interests and events.
Of these the most visibly important is marriage. Here the priest has his assured place and conspicuous function, and the wonderful thing is that this function seems to survive the religious beliefs on which it was originally founded. It seems to be not impossible that a Church might still survive for an indefinite length of time in the midst of surrounding scepticism simply for the purpose of performing marriage and funeral rites. The strength of the clerical position with regard to marriage is so great, even on the Continent, that, although a woman may have scarcely a shred of faith in the doctrines of the Church, it is almost certain that she will desire the services of a priest, and not feel herself to be really married without them. Although the civil ceremony may be the only one recognized by the law, the woman openly despises it, and reserves all her feelings and emotions for the pompous ceremony at the church. On such occasions women laugh at the law, and will even sometimes declare that the law itself is not legal. I once happened to say that civil marriage was obligatory in France, but only legal in England; on which an English lady attacked me vehemently, and stoutly denied that civil marriage was legal in England at all. I asked if she had never heard of marriages in a Registrar’s office. “Yes, I have,” she answered, with a shocked expression of countenance, “but they are not legal. The Church of England does not recognize them, and that is the legal church.”
As soon as a child is born the mother begins to think about its baptism; and at a time of life when the infant is treated by laymen as a little being whose importance lies entirely in the future the clergyman gives it consequence in the present by admitting it, with solemn ceremony, to membership in the Church of Christ. It is not possible to imagine anything more likely to gratify the feelings of a mother than this early admission of her unconscious offspring to the privileges of a great religious community. Before this great initiation it was alone in the world, loved only by her, and with all its prospects darkened by original sin; now it is purified, blessed, admitted into the fellowship of the holy and the wise. A certain relationship of a peculiar kind is henceforth established between priest and infant. In after years he prepares it for confirmation, another ceremony touching to the heart of a mother when she sees her son gravely taking upon himself the responsibilities of a thinking being. The marriage of a son or daughter renews in the mother all those feelings towards the friendly, consecrating power of the Church which were excited at her own marriage.
Then come those anxious occasions when the malady of one member of the family casts a shadow on the happiness of all. In these cases any clergyman who unites natural kindness of heart with the peculiar training and experience of his profession can offer consolation incomparably better than a layman; he is more accustomed to it, more authorized. A friendly physician is a great help and a great stay so long as the disease is not alarming, but when he begins to look very grave (the reader knows that look), and says that recovery is not probable, by which physicians mean that death is certain and imminent, the clergyman says there is hope still, and speaks of a life beyond the grave in which human existence will be delivered from the evils that afflict it here. When death has come, the priest treats the dead body with respect and the survivors with sympathy, and when it is laid in the ground he is there to the last moment with the majesty of an ancient and touching form of words already pronounced over the graves of millions who have gone to their everlasting rest.[16]
Part II. Art.
I have not yet by any means exhausted the advantages of the priestly position in its influence upon women. If the reader will reflect upon the feminine nature as he has known it, especially in women of the best kind, he will at once admit that not only are women more readily moved by the expression of sympathy than men, and more grateful for it, but they are also more alive to poetical and artistic influences. In our sex the æsthetic instinct is occasionally present in great strength, but more frequently it is altogether absent; in the female sex it seldom reaches much creative force, but it is almost invariably present in minor degrees. Almost all women take an interest in furniture and dress; most of them in the comfortable classes have some knowledge of music; drawing has been learned as an accomplishment more frequently by girls than by boys. The clergy have a strong hold upon the feminine nature by its æsthetic side. All the external details of public worship are profoundly interesting to women. When there is any splendor in ritual the details of vestments and altar decorations are a constant occupation for their thoughts, and they frequently bestow infinite labor and pains to produce beautiful things with their own hands to be used in the service of the Church. In cases where the service itself is too austere and plain to afford much scope for this affectionate industry, the slightest pretext is seized upon with avidity. See how eagerly ladies will decorate a church at Christmas, and how they will work to get up an ecclesiastical bazaar! Even in that Church which most encourages or permits æsthetic industry, the zeal of ladies sometimes goes beyond the desires of the clergy, and has to be more or less decidedly repressed. We all can see from the outside how fond women generally are of flowers, though I believe it is impossible for us to realize all that flowers are to them, as there are no inanimate objects that men love with such affectionate and even tender solicitude. However, we see that women surround themselves with flowers, in gardens, in conservatories, and in their rooms; we see that they wear artificial flowers in their dress, and that they paint flowers in water-color and on china. Now observe how the Church of Rome and the Ritualists in England show sympathy with this feminine taste! Innumerable millions of flowers are employed annually in the churches on the Continent; they are also used in England, though in less lavish profusion, and a sermon on flowers is preached annually in London, when every pew is full of them.