CHAPTER III.
He Receives Further Orders.
The complete levelling of his church principles left him at a loss which way to turn. The divided state of his parish, and the number of sects, seemed to be perpetually harassing his mind. He set about converting them by other ways than exhibiting his "card-castle;" he tried to open the doors of the Establishment as wide as he could, so as to admit if possible all classes of religionists to her communion. Of a conversation upon this point with Lord Lyttelton, he says, "In the evening I had a walk with Lyttelton, and was filled with scruples about the Athanasian Creed by him unintentionally. I had a great war with my conscience in the evening, at bed-time." These scruples slept for some time on account of a soporific which Dr. Blomfield administered to him; but they arose again, and were not settled till he became a Catholic. Various discussions procure him "lights about the Methodist practice," and "distressing thoughts;" so he gives up that field of working now for another.
This other field was showing good example of the different works of mercy, and he even tries Catholic ascetism. He takes such an interest in the poor of his parish that he goes to the hospitals, attends dissecting-rooms, and assists at a dispensary until he learns enough about medicine to enable him to make prescriptions for the sick poor. He spends evenings in making pills, and one day when a poor man broke his thigh, Mr. Spencer went and set it for him, and it was so well done that they did not change it when he was brought to the infirmary. The exertion this cost him nearly made him faint.
The next thing he notes is, "I read a most persuasive sermon of Beveridge's about fasting; I examined the question in other books, and by God's grace I am resolved no longer to disregard that duty." He applied for advice about fasting, as was his invariable practice when he took up any idea out of the ordinary line. He went to a neighbouring clergyman, whom he considered well versed in the matter, and, though this gentleman discourages the practice, Mr. Spencer adopts it notwithstanding, since his arguments are too weak. These are the principal events out of his ordinary work, except his giving up card-playing, from the beginning of the year 1824 until the 12th of June, when we find him again in Peterborough, on the eve of receiving priest's orders.
The demolition of his High Church notions, as well as the tone of mind in which he received the former orders, might lead one to anticipate that he received these second orders somewhat after the fashion of a new step in the army. But it was quite the contrary. His notions of orders were higher; he looked upon this step as an important one, and he tells us, some days before, "I walked to-day in The Wilderness at Althorp, ruminating on my approaching ordination." He also read the Ordination Service over and over, a good many times. On the evening before the ordination, whilst the Bishop and various clergymen, and their ladies, with whom he dines, candidates included, amuse themselves with a game of whist, Mr. Spencer refuses to play. We can contrast his reflections now with those used on a similar occasion a year and a half ago:—
"Trinity Sunday, June 13.— A beautiful day. I was awake from six, and thought a great deal of my intended step to-day. At 11 we all attended the Bishop to church, and the prayers, ordination, and sacrament were performed all moat satisfactorily to me. I am now bound by the awful tie of priesthood; and most solemnly, at the time, did I devote myself to the service of my Master. May the impression never fade away!"
Shortly before this he heard of Dr. Blomfield's promotion to the see of Chester, who, in answer to his letter of congratulation, offered him the office of chaplain. He accepted it, in a long letter to his old tutor, immediately he returned from Peterborough. Up to this time Mr. Spencer had been reading the Anglican divines,—Tomline, Jeremy Taylor, Wheatley, Bull, Hooker, &c.; now he begins to read the Fathers of the Church. The first he takes up is St. John Chrysostom On the Priesthood. His opinion upon some of the doctrines he met with there is nicely told in the letter to the Catholic Standard, from which the passage in the last chapter has been quoted.
"I had to make a long journey with my brother, in his carriage, on that long day, June 28, from Althorp, near Northampton, to Southampton. It was before the epoch of railroads; and I see we started at half-past three. I was seeking a book to occupy me during this long journey (N.B. no Breviary to recite in those days), and, in the library at Althorp, I hit upon a copy, in Greek, of St. John Chrysostom on the Priesthood. Nothing better. I had heard this work highly praised, and I hoped to find some animating matter for the exercise of my calling as a clergyman. I was not disappointed in this hope; but when I came to what the saint says about the holy Eucharist, as, of course, the grand circumstance which exalts the Christian priest, I was overcome with surprise. I read, and read it again. Is it possible! I thought to myself. Why, this is manifest popery. He certainly must have believed in the Real Presence. I had no idea that popish errors had commenced so soon; yes, and gained deep root, too; for I saw that he wrote as of a doctrine about which he expected no contradiction. What was my conclusion here? you will ask. Why, simply this—the Saint has erred; otherwise this capital tenet of popery is true—which is absurd. I brought in my Euclid here, as on the previous 31st of December. I see that on the following day I was in the cabin of the vessel in which we crossed to the Isle of Wight, reading Jeremy Taylor's Worthy Communicant. St. John Chrysostom, I have no doubt, had been thrown overboard, not into the sea—which was making me then rather sick—as the volume was not my own to dispose of thus; but he had been thrown overboard with a whole multitude of Saints and Fathers besides, convicted with him, and condemned for popish errors, into the black gulph of the dark ages; or rather, I had, by an act of my judgment, extended the borders of that gulph several centuries back, as the Regent's Canal Company are doing with their reservoir near our house, by Act of Parliament, over some of our land, so as to flood him and his contemporaries, and, of course, all after them till Luther rose to set up a dyke and save on dry land those who had courage to step out on the land of Gospel light which he first had re-discovered. I soon came to look on our English Reformers of the Church of England as the greatest and most enlightened men since the time of the Apostles."
He does not give up his asceticism, though he feels the pain of it; and well he might, for he would sometimes eat nothing until six o'clock in the evening, and be all the day going through his parish, or writing sermons if the day were wet. He says in the journal of one of those days: "A fasting day till dinner made me very miserable, and makes me doubt the excellency of this means .... dinner did me good." He improves upon the fasting, however, by adding another day every week, when he finds that it really helps him to eradicate his passions and raise up his mind to heaven. The bodily pain consequent on want of food was not the only thing Mr. Spencer had to endure from his fasting. It was a practice that had a popish air about it; his friends and members of his family grew indignant that he should be making himself peculiar. He had to bear the brunt of all their remarks; he did so willingly, and would sit down to the family breakfast to feed on their rebukes and send his portion down untasted, whilst the rest took their meal. He also reads Thomas-a-Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," and we see evidences of that remarkable spirit for which he was afterwards distinguished—thanking God for everything. He becomes a secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: that institution was a favourite of Dr. Blomfield's, and he may have induced Mr. Spencer to patronize it. When Mr. Spencer saw how well it worked in its department, he thought of a scheme for improvising something of his own. He does not give particulars of what it was; but he submitted it to his Bishop, who "threw cold water on it," and Mr. Spencer simply thanks God for being thwarted. He is completely wrapped up in his clerical duties, so much so that he does not give the full time to his summer vacation in Ryde; he is always impatient to get back to his parish when some pressing business requires him to leave it; and even, while away, he is perpetually visiting clergymen, and talking upon matters belonging to his office. He seems though, ever since the destruction of his High Church principles, to be getting every day more Evangelical in his words and actions.