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.
It is well known that women take an unfailing interest in dress. The
attention they give to it is close, constant, and systematic, like an
orderly man's attention to order. Women are easily affected by official
costumes, and they read what great people have worn at levees and
drawing-rooms. The clergy possess, in ecclesiastical vestments, a very
powerful help to their influence. That many of them are clearly aware of
this is proved by their boldness and perseverance in resuming ornamental
vestments; and (as might be expected) that Church which has the most
influence over women is at the same time the one whose vestments are most
gorgeous and most elaborate. Splendor, however, is not required to make a
costume impressive. It is enough that it be strikingly peculiar, even in
simplicity, like the white robe of the Dominican friars.
Costume naturally leads our minds to architecture. I am not the first to
remark that a house is only a cloak of a larger size. The gradation is
insensible from a coat to a cathedral: first, the soldier's heavy cloak
which enabled the Prussians to dispense with the little tent, then the
tent, hut, cottage, house, church, cathedral, heavier and larger as we
ascend the scale. "He has clothed himself with his church," says Michelet
of the priest; "he has wrapped himself in this glorious mantle, and in it
he stands in triumphant state. The crowd comes, sees, admires. Assuredly,
if we judge the man by his covering, he who clothes himself with a _Notre
Dame de Paris_, or with a Cologne Cathedral, is, to all appearance, the
giant of the spiritual world. What a dwelling such an edifice is, and how
vast the inhabitant must be! All proportions change; the eye is deceived
and deceives itself again. Sublime lights, powerful shadows, all help the
illusion. The man who in the street looked like a village schoolmaster is
a prophet in this place. He is transfigured by these magnificent
surroundings; his heaviness becomes power and majesty; his voice has
formidable echoes. Women and children are overawed."
To a mind that does not analyze but simply receives impressions,
magnificent architecture is a convincing proof that the words of the
preacher are true. It appears inconceivable that such substantial glories,
so many thousands of tons of masonry, such forests of timber, such acres
of lead and glass, all united in one harmonious work on which men lavished
wealth and toil for generations,--it appears inconceivable that such a
monument can perpetuate an error or a dream. The echoing vaults bear
witness. Responses come from storied window and multitudinous imagery.
When the old cosmogony is proclaimed to be true in York Minster, the
scientists sink into insignificance in their modern ordinary rooms; when
the acolyte rings his bell in Rouen Cathedral, and the Host is lifted up,
and the crowd kneels in silent adoration on the pavement, who is to deny
the Real Presence? Does not every massive pillar stand there to affirm
sturdily that it is true; and do not the towers outside announce it to
field and river, and to the very winds of heaven?
The musical culture of women finds its own special interest in the vocal
and instrumental parts of the church service. Women have a direct
influence on this part of the ritual, and sometimes take an active share
in it. Of all the arts music is the most closely connected with religion,
and it is the only one that the blessed are believed to practise in a
future state. A suggestion that angels might paint or carve is so
unaccustomed that it seems incongruous; yet the objection to these arts
cannot be that they employ matter, since both poets and painters give
musical instruments to the angels,--
"And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles."
Worship naturally becomes musical as it passes from the prayer that asks
for benefits to the expression of joyful praise; and though the austerity
of extreme Protestantism has excluded instruments and encouraged reading
instead of chanting, I am not aware that it has ever gone so far as to
forbid the singing of hymns.
I have not yet touched upon pulpit eloquence as one of the means by which
the clergy gain a great ascendency over women. The truth is that the
pulpit is quite the most advantageous of all places for any one who has
the gift of public speaking. He is placed there far more favorably than a
Member of Parliament in his place in the House, where he is subject to
constant and contemptuous interruptions from hearers lounging with their
hats on. The chief advantage is that no one present is allowed either to
interrupt or to reply; and this is one reason why some men will not go to
church, as they say, "We may hear our principles misrepresented and not be
permitted to defend them." A Bishop, in my hearing, touched upon this very
point. "People say," he remarked, "that a preacher is much at his ease
because no one is allowed to answer him; but I invite discussion. If any
one here present has doubts about the soundness of my reasoning, I invite
him to come to me at the Episcopal Palace, and we will argue the question
together in my study." This sounded unusually liberal, but how the
advantages were still on the side of the Bishop! His attack on heresy was
public. It was uttered with long-practised professional eloquence, it was
backed by a lofty social position, aided by a peculiar and dignified
costume, and mightily aided also by the architecture of a magnificent
cathedral. The doubter was invited to answer, but not on equal terms. The
attack was public, the answer was to be private, and the heretic was to
meet the Bishop in the Episcopal Palace, where, again, the power of rank
and surroundings would be all in the prelate's favor.
Not only are clergymen privileged speakers, in being as secure from
present contradiction as a sovereign on the throne, but they have the
grandest of all imaginable subjects. In a word, they have the subject of
Dante,--they speak to us _del Inferno_, _del Purgatorio_, _del Paradiso_.
If they have any gift of genius, any power of imagination, such a subject
becomes a tremendous engine in their hands. Imagine the difference between
a preacher solemnly warning his hearers that the consequences of
inattention may be everlasting torment, and a politician warning the
Government that inattention may lead to a deficit! The truth is, that
however terrible may be the earthly consequences of imprudence and of sin,
they sink into complete insignificance before the menaces of the Church;
nor is there, on the other hand, any worldly success that can be proposed
as a motive comparable to the permanent happiness of Paradise. The good
and the bad things of this world have alike the fatal defect, as subjects
for eloquence, that they equally end in death; and as death is near to all
of us, we see the end to both. The secular preacher is like a man who
predicts a more or less comfortable journey, which comes to the same end
in any case. A philosophic hearer is not very greatly elated by the
promise of comforts so soon to be taken away, nor is he overwhelmed by the
threat of evils that can but be temporary. Hence, in all matters belonging
to this world only, the tone of quiet advice is the reasonable and
appropriate tone, and it is that of the doctor and lawyer; but in matters
of such tremendous import as eternal happiness and misery the utmost
energy of eloquence can never be too great for the occasion; so that if a
preacher can threaten like peals of thunder, and appal like flashes of
lightning, he may use such terrible gifts without any disproportionate
excess. On the other hand, if he has any charm of language, any brilliancy
of imagination, there is nothing to prevent him from alluring his hearers
to the paths of virtue by the most lavish and seductive promises. In
short, his opportunities in both directions are of such a nature that
exaggeration is impossible; and all his power, all his charm, are as free
to do their utmost as an ocean wave in a tempest or the nightingale in the
summer woods.
I cannot quit the subject of clerical oratory without noticing one of its
marked characteristics. The priest is not in a position of disinterested
impartiality, like a man of science, who is ready to renounce any doctrine
when he finds evidence against it. The priest is an advocate whose
life-long pleading must be in favor of the Church as he finds her, and in
opposition to her adversaries. To attack adversaries is therefore one of
the recognized duties of his profession; and if he is not a man of
uncommon fairness, if he has not an inborn love of justice which is rare
in human nature, he will not only attack his adversaries but misrepresent
them. There is even a worse danger than simple misrepresentation. A priest
may possibly be a man of a coarse temper, and if he is so he will employ
the weapons of outrage and vituperation, knowing that he can do so with
impunity. One would imagine that these methods must inevitably repel and
displease women, but there is a very peculiar reason why they seldom have
this effect. A highly principled woman is usually so extremely eager to be
on the side of what is right that suspension of judgment is most difficult
for her. Any condemnation uttered by a person she is accustomed to trust
has her approval on the instant. She cannot endure to wait until the crime
is proved, but her feelings of indignation are at once aroused against the
supposed criminal on the ground that there must be clear distinctions
between right and wrong. The priest, for her, is the good man,--the man on
the side of God and virtue; and those whom he condemns are the bad
men,--the men on the side of the Devil and vice. This being so, he may
deal with such men as roughly as he pleases. Nor have these men the
faintest chance of setting themselves right in her opinion. She quietly
closes the avenues of her mind against them; she declines to read their
books; she will not listen to their arguments. Even if one of them is a
near relation whose opinions inflict upon her what she calls "the deepest
distress of mind," she will positively prefer to go on suffering such
distress until she dies, rather than allow him to remove it by a candid
exposition of his views. She prefers the hostile misrepresentation that
makes her miserable, to an authentic account of the matter that would
relieve her anguish.