_Birmingham—The Oratory—Newman._
Going up to London, I tarried for a few days at Birmingham, a town not
pleasing to my fancy, and yet one which no tourist in England would
choose to omit. I found it, indeed, as Leland described it three hundred
years ago, “to be inhabited of many smithes, that use to make knives,
and all manner of cutting tooles: and many lorimers, that make bittes,
and a great many naylors; so that a great part of the town is maintayned
by smithes who have their sea-coal out of Staffordshire.” To this, I
cannot help adding, in the style of old Fuller, that “there be divers
many also who do make buttons; and a great store of all things gilt, and
showy, and not costlie nor precious withal, do come out of Brummagem;
for which also the new bishoppes which Cardinal Wiseman did lately make
therein, be commonly called the Brummagem hierarchie, that is to say,
not so much Latin bishoppes as _Latten_ bishops; latten being much used
in Brummagem, and is made of stone of calamine and copper, or chiefly of
_brass_.” I confess that good part of my interest in Birmingham proper
was to see what this new hierarchy were about.
The Town-Hall has been often enough described and praised, and is, no
doubt, very fine; but I did not go to England to see Grecian temples,
and I took much more satisfaction in any old frame house of three
centuries ago, than in the frigid and formal show of all its columns.
On the whole, I think King Edward’s Grammar School the most interesting
object in the town. Though the buildings were erected very lately, they
are in the true academic style of Cambridge and Oxford. The pile is
massive and imposing, and I was pleased to find that the solid oak of
its noble rooms is the production of American forests. Here I first saw
how English boys are made scholars; the drill being obvious to even a
moment’s glance; every motion and look of the masters, who walk up and
down among the boys in their college gowns, implying a discipline and
method, of which our schools are too commonly destitute. Queen’s College
is also worthy of a visit, and I was much pleased with some of the
pictures which I saw in its hall, among which was an old one of Mary
Queen of Scots, representing her with her child, James Stuart. Who ever
conceived of Mary as a motherly creature, or of the old pedant king as
an unbreeched boy? Yet such were they in this painting, which was no
doubt true, as well as beautiful, in its time. With the churches of
Birmingham I was not particularly impressed. St. Martin’s, the “old
paroch-church” of Leland’s day, scarcely retains any remnant of its
ancient self, except the spire, which leans, and seems likely to fall.
The sovereign hill of the town is surmounted by St. Philip’s, which
ought to be a cathedral, and the seat of a school of the prophets, but
which looks like nothing more than a plethoric Hanoverian temple, in
which indolent and drowsy worldliness would be content to say its
prayers not more than once a week. I was better pleased with a church in
the suburbs, built in George Fourth’s day, and partaking both of the
merits and defects of that period of transition, when the church was in
palmy prosperity as “the venerable establishment.” Here first I saw an
English funeral, evidently of one of the humbler class, all parties
walking on foot, and the coffin carried on a bier. The curate met the
procession at the gate, in his surplice and cap, and then reverently
uncovering his head, led the way into the house of God, the consoling
words of the service gradually dying on my ear, as the rear of the
funeral train disappeared within. The parsonage is close at hand, an
ecclesiastical looking house of most appropriate and pleasing aspect;
and the abode, as I can testify from personal knowledge, of the true
spirit of an English parish priest—such an one as Hooker and Herbert
would have rejoiced to foreknow. In his Church the prayers are
perpetual; the fire never going out on the altar, and its gates standing
open, as it were, night and day. The vicinity is known as “Camp Hill,”
for here was the furious Rupert once in garrison; but a queer old house,
all gables and chimneys, is pointed out, upon the hill, as the former
lodging of his redoubtable adversary, old Noll himself. Hence we stretch
into the country, and gain those pleasant extremes of Warwickshire,
which Leland noteth, not forgetting the return by Sandy Lane, through
“Dirty End,” which, since the days of his chronicle, is euphuized into
Deritend. This place is full of what the Brummagem Cardinal would call
_slums_, and one of them, as if on purpose to affront a portion of my
countrymen, displayed to my astonishment, on a street sign, the name of
“New-England.” Did any returned pilgrim settle down here, and give the
last retreat of his poverty this name?
“Born in New-England, did in London die,”
is a well-known epitaph, which may possibly explain this circumstance;
for, said Dr. Johnson, “who that was born in New-England, would care to
die there,” or words to that effect. Yet I confess, for life or death, I
have scarcely seen any place in our own New-England which would not be
preferable to this, although Leland calls Dirty End “a pretty street
with a mansion of tymber hard on the bank of a brook, with a proper
chapel close by.” Here I stopped before the aged front of the “Old Crown
Inn,” which I take to be the same “tymber” mansion, having all the odd
corners, and juttings-forth, and quaint appurtenances of centuries long
gone by. These out-of-the-way ramblings and searches were far more to my
taste than the gaudy sights of the shops and manufactories.
I went out to Oscott, and took a survey of the enemy’s headquarters, to
begin with. Here Tridentinism shows her best front, and yet it falls far
below what I had been led to expect. The college is built of brick, but
is prettily situated, and commands a fine view from the leads, to which
I ascended, for a prospect of the surrounding country. There is little
architectural merit in any part of the structure, and the general
appearance of things, throughout, is below that of collegiate
institutions in England, or on the Continent. I was pleased, however,
with the rooms set apart for ecclesiastical visitors, so far as their
furniture was suitable to offices of private devotion, and not merely to
those of rest and recreation; and I was not sorry to see in the Library
a pretty large selection of standard English divines, though I am
painfully suspicious that they are not there to be freely used by all
who would read and study them. The chapel is gaudy, yet in true Mediæval
character, and somewhat impressive. The other rooms are
labelled—_pransorium_, _deversorium_, and the like, or surmounted with
the names of the divers arts, as _Rhetorica_, _Dialectica_, and so on.
In the common-room are showy portraits of the chiefs of the Romish
recusancy in England, some of whom look like saints, and some like
Satan. There was a portrait of Pugin, to which I directed the attention
of the official who served as guide. He sneered significantly, and said
Pugin was a queer fellow, which meant that they had found him not so
blind as they wished him to be, to his fatal mistake in joining them. He
studied Mediæval Anglicanism, with the illusion that it was all one with
modern Tridentinism, and had left his mother Church in the vain hope
that he should find a more congenial sphere for his antiquarian tastes,
among the English Papists. But he found the past even more absolutely
ignored at Oscott than at Oxford. Anglicans are glad to retain all that
may be safely retained of their own antiquity: but Romanists are Italian
throughout, and any thing that is national, is schismatical. They know
nothing of Augustine and little of Anselm; they date from Trent, and to
that all must conform. Old liturgies, old customs, old principles, as he
in vain tried to recommend them, they laughed at as utterly obsolete:
and he in turn scoffed at their Romanesque, and their Oratorianism, as
infinitely less Catholic than the Anglican Gothic, and the Anglican
Prayer-Book. Poor fellow! he has since died in a mad-house—a noble
genius, but the victim of theory, and of unreal conceptions as to the
diseases and the cure of the times.
If I was disappointed at Oscott, much more at St. Chad’s, their new
cathedral in Birmingham. So much was said about this attempt, that I had
supposed it a _chef d’œuvre_ of the architect, and a complete trap for
_dilettanti_ Anglicans. It is the reverse of all this, being so poor,
and even niggard in its entire conception and execution, that I am sure
it must be a spoiled Pugin, if his at all. It is of brick, and of small
dimensions, and not cleanly. Its crypts are instructive as to the way in
which the crypts of the old cathedrals were formerly used, being fitted
up for masses for the dead, but not much adorned. They are damp, dark,
and somewhat offensive, as they are used for burial.
Strolling out to Edgbaston, I saw the rising walls of Newman’s Oratory.
This, too, is strictly conformed to his new Italian idea of religion,
which scrupulously eschews the old English architecture, associated as
that is with Magna Charta and the Constitutions of Clarendon, and with
three hundred years of absolute independence. This is in strict
agreement with his _development_ theory. The Romanism of the _present_
is the rule, and that is Italian: the past was immature and undigested,
and hence savored, more or less, of nationality. How vastly more
severed, then, from the historical antecedents of his country is the
British papist, than the genuine Anglican!
While I was in Birmingham, Mr. Newman yet occupied his temporary
Oratory, in the neighborhood of Camp-Hill. It was an old distillery,
and, of course, was but an ill-looking place for worship. Wishing to see
him and his sect, I went one day to the spot, and pushing aside a heavy
veil at the door, such as is common in Italian churches, found myself in
a low and dirty-looking place of worship, in which the first object that
met my eye was an immense doll of almost ludicrous aspect, near the
door, representing the Virgin, with the crescent beneath her feet.
Bishop Ullathorne proves Mohammed to have been the first believer in the
Immaculate Conception, so that we cannot but admit the propriety of the
symbol. Before this image several youth, with broad tonsures, and in
long cassocks, were kneeling, in a manner truly histrionic. One of them
rose and asked if I would like to be shown the library, and so conducted
me up a dark and narrow stair-case into a large apartment, in which were
no books, but which appeared to be hung with baize, like the rooms of an
artist. He informed me that the books were _in petto_, and would, by and
by, be manifested; apologizing for the present deficiency.
A person, in like costume with my conductor, and with a shaven crown
even more grotesque, was pacing to and fro in the room, apparently
devoting himself to a book which he held in hand. At a question of mine,
addressed to my guide, as to where Mr. Newman might be, this personage
turned sharply round and answered, “he has been all day in the
Confessional, where he would be glad to see _you_.” “Who is that
person?” I demanded, looking towards the strange apparition, as he
continued pacing up and down, and addressing my guide. “Father Ambrose,”
was the reply. “Yes, but what is his name beyond the walls of the
Oratory?” The young man, rather reluctantly, lisped out, “Mr. S——.”
“Mr. S——,” I rejoined, “late of —— College, Oxford! Can it be
possible?” I looked at him, utterly unable to conceal my surprise, and
pitied him in my heart. The youths whom I had seen were doubtless all,
like him, young men of promise and of parts only a few years since, in
Oxford; and now to see them thus ignobly captive, and performing such
unreal and corrupting dramatics, in an age of wants and works, and of
awful realities, like this! But where was the _ignis fatuus_ of the bog
into which they had fallen? Inquiring for their Master, I was informed
he was to preach in their chapel on a certain evening, and accordingly I
attended at the appointed time. It was during the Octave of Easter, and
on entering, I observed that the altar was a bank of flowers, looking
more like the shelves of a conservatory, than the table of the Lord.
Above this horticultural display towered a thing of wax and glass and
spangles, (or what seemed to be such,) as the apparent divinity of the
shrine. It was a shameful burlesque of the Virgin, and utterly
incompetent to excite one religious or reverent thought in any mind not
entirely childish, or depraved in taste. It was surrounded with tawdry
finery, and looked like the idol of a pagoda. The room was well lighted,
and filled with the sort of people usually frequenting Romish chapels in
this country. A few well-dressed persons seemed to be strangers, and
like myself were treated with great civility. The chancel was filled
with the youths I had seen before, wearing over their cassocks the short
jacket-like surplice, usual in Italy. These were offering some prayers
in English, but they could not be called English prayers; and then
followed a hymn, given out and sung very much in the style of the
Methodists. I could not distinguish what it was altogether, but the
hymn-book which they use was given me in Birmingham, and consists, in a
great degree, of such ditties as this, which they apparently address to
the image over the altar:—
“So age after age in the Church hath gone round,
And the Saints _new inventions_ of homage have found;
_Conceived without sin_, thy new title shall be
A new gem to thy shining, sweet Star of the Sea!”
Many hymns in the collection are not only lack-a-daisical in the
extreme, but highly erotic, and even nauseously carnal. I could scarcely
believe my eyesight, so senseless seemed the ceremony; and yet here were
educated men, Englishmen, sons of a pure and always majestic Church, and
familiar with the Holy Scriptures from their infancy! How shall we
account for such a phenomenon in the history of the human mind, and of
the human soul?
While the singing was going on, a lank and spectral figure appeared at
the door of the chancel—stalked in, and prostrated himself before the
altar. This was followed by a succession of elevations and prostrations,
awkward in the extreme, and both violent and excessive: but whether
required by the rubric, or dictated by personal fervor only, they added
nothing to the solemnity of the scene. Meanwhile the hymn was continued
by the disciples, as fanatically as the pantomime was performed by the
Master. But could this be the man? Could this be he who once stood in
the first pulpit of Christendom, and from his watch-tower in St. Mary’s,
told us what of the night? Was this the burning and shining light who
for a season allowed us to rejoice in his light? What an eclipse! I felt
a chill creep over me as he mounted his rostrum, and turned towards us
his almost maniacal visage. There could be no mistake. It was, indeed,
poor fallen Newman. He crossed himself, unfolded a bit of broad ribbon,
kissed it, put it over his shoulders, opened his little Bible, and gave
his text from the Vulgate—_Surrexit enim, sicut dixit_—“He is risen,
_as he said_.” The preaching was extemporaneous; the manner not fluent;
the matter not well arranged; gesticulations not violent nor immoderate;
the tone, affectedly earnest; and the whole thing, from first to last,
painfully suggestive of a sham; of something not heartily believed; of
something felt to be unreal by the speaker himself. And yet “the hand of
Joab was in it.” There was no denying the craft of no common artist. He
dwelt chiefly on _Sicut dixit_—to which he gave a very Newman-like
force, repeating the words over and over again. “_Sicut dixit_, my
friends, that is, _as he said_, but as you would not believe! This was a
reproach: as much as to say—_What did you expect? Were you not told as
much? Of course, he is risen, for he said so!_” In this way the preacher
reached the point of his discourse, which was, that “the original
disciples themselves, who thought they knew and loved Christ—nay, who
did love him, and came to embalm his body, after he was crucified—had
so little faith, as to deserve a rebuke, instead of a commendation. They
had to be harshly reminded of what Jesus had said to them with his own
mouth. Well, _just so in our day_, thousands who think they know and
love him, have yet no real faith; don’t believe, in short, what the
Church requires them to believe, and hence are strangers to the Catholic
faith.” Drawing illustrations from the days of Noe (so he called him)
and many Old Testament histories, he endeavored to show, in like manner,
that God had always required men to believe the very things they were
not willing to believe: and hence he drew his conclusion that the
slowness of men to believe all that Romanism prescribes, is mere want of
faith. It would have been quite to the point to have shown a _sicut
dixit_ in support of the matters which he endeavored to force upon us,
before he asked us to admit that denying the “Deification of Mary,” is
all the same thing as doubting the Resurrection of Christ from the dead;
but of course this joint was wanting. I was amused at the ingenuity, but
shocked at the juggle of such an argument, which was simply this—that
because it is sinful to doubt what Christ has said, therefore it is
equally sinful to doubt what _he never said_, and what is directly
contrary to many things which he did expressly say! The orator, in
delivering this apology for his new faith, by no means forgot a little
plea for himself personally, in which I saw evidence of his wounded
pride. He said, “Christ thus sent a rebuke to his disciples for not
believing what he said; and you know how hard it is, for even us, to
bear such unbelief in our friends. _We know we are sincere_; but they
say, for example, _he is artful, he don’t believe his own words, he
deceives_; or, if they don’t say that, then they say, _he is crazy, he
is beside himself, he has lost his wits_.” On this he enlarged with much
feeling, for he was pleading his own cause, and in fact he rambled on in
this direction till he had nearly forgotten his argument. But I was
amused at one instance of his forgetting himself in particular. In
referring to the hard names Christ himself had to bear, he had occasion
to quote St. Matthew xxvii., 63, where the Romish version reads, “Sir,
we have remembered that that seducer said, yet living, _etc._” But
before he knew it, he forgot that he was an actor, and unwittingly
quoted the smoother rendering of his good old English Bible, “Sir, we
remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive.” While dwelling
on the words _that deceiver_, he bethought himself that he was quoting
heresy, and hobbled as well as he could into some other equivalent, but
whether the very words of his new Bible or not, I cannot affirm. There
were other similar haltings of the tongue, which show that a man may
have a good will to say the Romish Shibboleth, and yet betray himself
occasionally, by “not framing to pronounce it right.” Newman certainly
forgot the talismanic aspirate on this occasion; he seemed to be
conscious of playing a part, and, altogether, when he had done, I left
the place, contented to have done with him. Alas! that gold can be thus
changed, and the fine gold become so dim!
I could not learn that he was doing much by all his efforts; in fact he
was said to be somewhat crest-fallen and irritable, about things in
Birmingham. His Oratorians were going about the streets in queer, and,
in fact, ridiculous garments, and attracting stares and jibes, and no
doubt they felt themselves martyrs; but there is, after all, much sturdy
common sense in John Bull’s hatred of the absurd, and few can think any
better of folly for wearing its cap in broad daylight. The results God
only can foresee; but a delusion so patent, one would think—if it must
have its day—must also find daylight enough in the very shortest day in
the year to kill it outright.
They showed me, at the Oratory, a wax cast of the face of St. Philip
Neri, and a very pleasant and benevolent one it was. He was an Italian
Wesley, and the Pope was his bitter adversary, in his life-time,
interdicting him, and refusing him the Sacraments, and almost
excommunicating him. But somehow or other when he was out of the way, it
became convenient to canonize him, as a sort of patron of enthusiasts of
a certain class, who find in his fraternity, a free scope for their
feelings and passions. Oratorianism is the Methodism of the Trent
religion, but has a virtual creed of its own, and is as really a sect as
Methodism was in the life-time of its founder. Hence it is odious to
many even of the new converts, and many old-fashioned Romanists abhor
it. I left the Oratory of Mr. Newman with a deep impression that he has
yet a remaining character to act, very different from that in which he
now appears, but in which it will be evident that he is far from
satisfied, at this time, with the direction which he has given to his
own movement, and with the grounds on which he has chosen to rest his
submission to the Pope.