words must be spoken. Of course, amongst the boys and men in a parish
like ours, it was the most needed of all church discipline, and it
was just the one upon which the most horrid and untruthful things
were being said. So I took heart of grace, and advertised throughout
the town that on Sunday afternoon I would preach on the subject of
Confession to men alone. I think I felt a little nervous, when I got
into church and found it crammed from end to end, men even standing
in the aisles, but I found that the vast majority, at any rate, were
prepared to give me fair play, and they soon silenced those who had
come merely to create a disturbance. I think what astonished them most
was to hear that Confessions were heard in public, and that anybody who
pleased could be in church at the time. I showed them exactly where
the priest sat and where the penitent knelt, and I remember quite
well saying, “If any of you, while coming from your work on Friday
afternoon, look in, you will very likely see me hear a Confession.”
Accepting my advice, on the next Friday many people looked in at
the door. I know that when they talked it all over in the Dockyard
afterwards the verdict was arrived at, that, even if I was mistaken, I
was straight and honest.
After a time, it was in 1887, we heard of a petition to the Bishop,
signed at a large meeting, at which a gentleman from London had made a
very violent attack on me, ending up with the magnificent peroration,
“If we had a clergyman like Mr. Dolling in our neighbourhood, we would
soon take him by the back of the neck, and kick him out of the parish.”
Before the meeting had time to applaud this most Christian sentiment,
some lad, who had got into the gallery, shouted out, “He weighs fifteen
stone, and you might find it difficult.” The meeting collapsed in roars
of laughter, but the petition was forwarded. I never thought for a
moment that any reasonable person would have taken any notice of such
proceedings, but, to my amazement, a few days afterwards I received
a letter from Bishop Harold Browne, in which, beginning--“No doubt
you are aware that there have been paragraphs and letters in various
newspapers about your proceedings at S. Agatha’s, and that there was
an indignation meeting at the ‘Protestant Hall,’ with resolutions,
etc., all of which have been sent to me with strong appeals. I do not
think the persons appealing to me have any _locus standi_”--he
desired that I would restrain my services to “the confessedly legal
ritual of the Church of England,” and also offered me the following
considerations:
i. I am told that your own people generally, though attached to
you, would prefer a less pronounced ritual.
ii. I believe with good reason that those clergy in Portsea who
are doing great work in formerly neglected regions, feel that
the scare produced by advanced ritual is seriously detrimental
to them.
I wrote back that, if he ordered me, I was perfectly willing to obey
the Prayer Book, and to have no other services, but that I felt my
duty to my people made it incumbent upon me to impress the fact upon
him that such change of services would mean a great diminution in
the congregations, especially on the week-days, when the services
complained of were used, and that I should like to know who had been
his informant, as regards the wishes of my parish, and the opinion
of my brethren in Portsmouth. His answer was, “I know that many of
the clergy, by whom I certainly do not mean Mr. Young or Mr. Aldwell,
regret your action, as calculated to throw suspicion upon all Church
work. I do not wish to define legal ritual, but to suggest that you
should be satisfied with what is purely Anglican, as sufficient for all
purposes of devotion, and not liable to create suspicion, or to stir up
strife. Stations of the cross, acolytes in crimson cassocks, incensing
the Magnificat, and the like, certainly excite bitter animosity in an
eminently Protestant town like Portsmouth. I have had no appeal from
your own immediate district.”
I know many people think that ritual rows have generally been the
result of a clergyman endeavouring to intrude his own methods upon an
unwilling congregation, but I give these extracts from the Bishop’s
letters to show that at S. Agatha’s that has never been the case. No
complaint has ever come from one singleparishioner. The complaints
that have come have been made either by ignorant Protestants, or by my
brethren the clergy.
However, at the end of 1889, the Bishop again wrote to us on the
subject of ritual, and the following letter from the Bishop of
Guildford, which, though it was marked “private,” he has kindly allowed
me to print, will show the five points to which the Bishop took
exception.
“THE CLOSE, WINCHESTER,
“_December 9, 1889_.
“MY DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“I am looking forward with much hopefulness to our interview
with the Bishop on Thursday next. I did not go into any
particulars in reply to your letter, in which you expressed your
readiness to obey the Bishop if you were told by him to obey
the P. Book, but that that would involve your reducing your
services to a most dreary type. I am sure that on reflection
you will have seen that the Bishop could never bring himself to
make any recommendation which would bring down your services to
such a low level as you suggest. But may there not be a _via
media_? My object in writing to you, however, now (without
the Bishop’s cognisance, and, therefore, without knowing whether
he would agree with me) is to ask you whether, at his request,
you would be willing to give up using
“i. Incense at Celebrations and at the Magnificat.
ii. Service of Compline, in which, as far as I can
gather, the choir practically absolve the priest.
iii. Extempore prayer.
iv. Vespers of the Blessed Sacrament in Cope.
v. Vespers for the Dead.
“If I could think that you would be ready to meet the Bishop
with these concessions, it seems to me that you would still
have your service with all its essential ritual and beauty, with
only certain excrescences, as it seems to me, lopped off; and I
am sure that you would find our Bishop most anxious to meet you
in any way he could, and only too glad to be able to show his
appreciation of your unwearied labours in our Master’s cause. It
seemed to me so sad that there should be any misunderstanding
keeping you apart from our Bishop, that I have ventured thus
to act as a sort of go-between, and earnestly to express my
hope--nay, my prayer--that God may bring good out of our meeting
on Thursday. I am sure you will be happier in your work, if even
some things have to be given up, if you gain, on the other hand,
your Bishop’s approval of your work.
“Always I am,
“Your very faithful friend,
“GEORGE HENRY GUILDFORD.
“REV. R. DOLLING.”
In a succeeding chapter you will read the reasons why I introduced
these services, and why I felt I could not possibly surrender them.
The objections to Compline and extempore prayer seemed to me most
extraordinary, but I am especially glad to insert the letter, because
it is a proof of the great kindness with which Bishop Harold Browne
and his Suffragan always treated us, and to show that even though we
differed, there was never anything but the most cordial good-will
between us.
I think I have said that I was in the habit of preaching to men alone
on Sunday afternoons. Osborne, my fellow-priest, and I thought that the
time had come now for striving to get the ear of at least some of the
thousands of Dockyard-men who passed our church on week-days, and so
we asked the Guild of S. Matthew to send us down a set of preachers
for the six Sundays in the Lent of 1890. Mr. Stewart Headlam was the
first of these preachers. Osborne and I listened to the sermon with
very great attention, and we did not discover in it anything different
from the lectures which he and I had been continually delivering in S.
Agatha’s. To our utter astonishment we received almost immediately the
letter from the Bishop which I print.
“FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY,
“_February 28, 1890_.
“MY DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“After what passed between us here some weeks ago, I was hardly
anticipating that I should have to remonstrate with you on a
farther and far more serious cause for difference between us.
“Without any intimation to me you invite a clergyman to teach
in your chapel, who has been inhibited by his own Bishop for
teaching on the very subject on which you advertise him as a
preacher. Anything more contrary to every law of the Church
Catholic or the Church of England it is difficult to imagine.
“If the report in the newspaper be correct, he, Mr. Stewart
Headlam, delivered a highly inflammatory political address,
calculated to set class against class, and drawing down from an
excited audience frequent expressions of applause, in a building
devoted to Christian worship and called by you S. Agatha’s
Church.
“The teaching, according to _The Evening News_, was of this
kind. Mr. Headlam represented our Lord’s mission, not as
intended to lead men to heaven, nor, apparently, to convert
them to greater holiness, nor to reveal to them great spiritual
truths, nor even to set up a great _spiritual_ kingdom upon
earth; but to establish a commonwealth in which there should be
social equality and community of wealth (or poverty), from the
good-will of all the members if possible, but, if not so, then
from compulsion exercised by the many on the few.
“I have tried hard to see if the words can mean anything but
this. I cannot possibly interpret them otherwise. The evil of
such teaching appears to me incalculable. It is the substituting
of a Political Christ for the loving Saviour of the world, a
carnal kingdom for the great spiritual kingdom of the Church,
earthly hopes and aspirations for divine and heavenly, and
instead of love of the brethren springing from love of their
Lord, a great probability, at least, of a system of plunder and
terrorising such as prevailed in the French Revolution, and
has been threatened of late by Nihilists and Communists. The
theory that our Blessed Lord was a Social Reformer with a tinge
of religious fanaticism is the favourite theory of political
unbelievers. I do not mean to charge Mr. Headlam with holding
this. But his teaching plays into the hands of such. I have
always thought it to be the only theory which unbelievers can
advance, with any appearance of plausibility, to account for
the teaching and the success of Christ. The danger, therefore,
of giving standing ground for such a theory is not easily
exaggerated.
“I am not indifferent to varieties of ritual and the like; but
tapers, and incense, and red-vested acolytes, nay! Romanism,
Methodism, and any other varieties of Christian worship may be
compatible with true faith in Christ and true love to Him and
His. This so-called Christian Socialism, as exhibited in the
report of Mr. Headlam’s address, in the writings of Count Leo
Tolstoi and others, appears to me to strike at the very root of
all Christianity. I have, as you know, declined to interfere
with your proceedings, lest I should mar your Mission work. If
you are to introduce teachers of such strange doctrines into
a church or chapel, which you hold by virtue of my license, I
must consider whether the good of our Mission is not more than
neutralised by the evil of those whom you associate with you;
and whether I can suffer it to go on under my authority. I am
very sorry to write so strongly, but I dare not be indifferent.
“I am, dear Mr. Dolling,
“Very truly yours,
“G. H. WINTON.”
In my answer I tried to point out to the Bishop, first, that Mr.
Headlam had never been inhibited, and, secondly, that while I would, in
deference to him, have the lectures delivered in the gymnasium instead
of in the church, I must protest against the way in which he had spoken
of the lecturers. Several other letters passed between us, but in the
meantime Canon Jacob had written to the Headmaster of Winchester (I
insert a letter he wrote to me), had withdrawn his subscription from
the Mission, and had written to the Bishop to say what he had done.
“PORTSEA VICARAGE,
“_March 3rd, 1890_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“I have read with much pain, in the _Hampshire Post_ and
the _Hants Telegraph_, the report of Mr. Stewart Headlam’s
sermon at S. Agatha’s. I sent a copy of the former paper on
Friday to Dr. Fearon, and told him my extreme pain at finding my
Old School Mission identified with such doctrines.
“I have gone on subscribing £1 1s. a year to your work through
the Old Wykehamist Mission, in spite of much that I could not
approve, but this has reached a limit which makes it necessary
for me to reconsider the whole position. I do not wish to take
any action inconsiderately, or without careful thought. It may
be that you have explanations to offer. But I think it right to
tell you at once that I am deeply pained to find how much you
have added to our already sad and unhappy divisions.
“I am, faithfully yours,
“EDGAR JACOB.”
I also received from the Warden of Winchester College letters of the
strongest condemnation, letters, the first of which is signed “Warden,”
in which he says Mr. Headlam is a Socialist in the bad sense of the
word; and of myself, that, with my ultra High Church proclivities
on the one hand, and Socialist teaching on the other, no sober and
loyal-minded citizens can be expected to support the Mission, and that
his connection with it must be severed, so long as I remained the head
of it.
I felt that Canon Jacob and the Warden must be taken in a large measure
to represent Wykehamical feeling, not, perhaps, just those few who
knew me and S. Agatha’s well, but that large number who supported the
Mission, and that, therefore, there was no alternative left me but to
resign. So on Sunday morning I preached a sermon defending the line I
had taken, and at the same time telling the people that I thought for
peace it was better for me to leave. Never can I forget the kindness
of Dr. Fearon, other Winchester masters, and old Wykehamists during
the next week. Letters from all kinds and sorts of people, whom we
had never heard of, came to us, hoping that we would not resign, and
presently I received a letter from the Warden, in which he told me
that he had only written in his private capacity, and that he did
not represent either the school or anybody else but himself. I felt
very strongly, too, not only the kindness of people outside, but the
devotion of our people at home; and it seemed to me a plain duty that,
if Winchester wished me to remain, I should do so. This duty was
rendered all the more imperative by the very great desire expressed by
the Bishop himself that I should remain.
As we have no legal status, the Mission not being a parish, a change of
Bishops is a matter of great importance, and I looked forward with some
anxiety to Bishop Thorold’s coming. So it was with much thanksgiving
that I received this answer from him, soon after his appointment, to a
letter of mine about confirmation.
“BUTE HOUSE, CAMPDEN HILL, W.,
“_16th January, 1891_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“I am glad to hear from you, for I have heard much of you and
your duty.
“Soon I hope to ask you here to dine and sleep, that we may
have some talk about your difficult work, which has a charm and
interest for me. We have eight such missions in South London,
and I have fostered them as with a father’s love.
“We will see about the Confirmation, but I prefer to do my work
myself, if in my power.
“When you write again, perhaps you will be able to write all
your letter yourself, ‘a lot of time’ for preparation is
scarcely classical.
“May the blessing of the Holy Spirit rest upon you, and the
sheep in the wilderness.
“Ever truly yours,
“A. W. ROFFEN.”
Dr. Harold Browne had always refused to come to S. Agatha’s, but he had
allowed us to choose the Bishop who, from year to year, confirmed our
people. But here was a Bishop who was not only coming himself, but who
evidently was going to throw himself, heart and soul, into our work,
and with the sufficient humour which just enables a man to slide over
the difficulties of life. This goodness towards us, and endeavour to
help us, never once ceased during the four years in which he ruled our
diocese. My heart is often sorry for hard words I may have said about
him.
In a week or two he asked me to stay with him in London, and we talked
for many hours. He drew out from me every detail of our work, approving
or disapproving, but ever ready to hear reasons, telling me quite
plainly that there was much he liked, much he disliked. Especially
was he interested in our schools--he thought we had been very brave
in gaining them--in our house, in which he hoped soon to stay; and,
above all, in our temporary church, and the manner of our memorials,
the lists of soldiers, sailors, emigrants, the confirmed, and the
blessed dead; and this led to explaining to him how we used the Holy
Communion as our best and most prevailing intercession. He had been
delighted when I told him that at our prayer meetings these names
were read out, but I am quite sure that at first, at any rate, he was
shocked at people coming to the celebrations for intercession and not
for communion. I explained to him how impossible it was for our people
to communicate frequently, the stress of their business and their
ignorance making preparation very difficult; and, I think, from words
he let fall, that he considered we were in some sense lowering the
dignity of the Blessed Sacrament by permitting it to be used for any
other purpose but communion, though he told me himself how often his
best intercessions were made when he was receiving communion. This did
not apply to intercessions for the dead. He evidently disbelieved in
any such being beneficial to them, or helpful to the persons making
them; but we prayed long in his study, after family prayers were over,
and I felt that I had gained one who, whatever our differences were,
would act towards me as a real father. The next morning, walking round
and round his beautiful garden--a wonderful oasis in the overcrowded
desert of Kensington, alas! now pulled down and turned into flats;
I could almost cry as I look at it, when I pass Campden Hill each
Sunday morning this Lent--he talked over the matter again and again,
specially desirous that I should discontinue the Mass for the Dead,
and that I should never have a celebration without communicants. I
told him--I hope with all dutifulness--that these two requests were
impossible; the first because I considered I was exercising one of the
greatest privileges of my priesthood, and because this special office
for the dead had been a wonderful help to many of our poor people--an
act of real reparation for stumbling-blocks they had put in the way
of companions now beyond their reach by any other method, and also
because the remembrance of the dead kindles and draws out, even in the
most brutish, an understanding of the supernatural, which becomes a
realisation of hope otherwise impossible; the second because it would
be impossible for the clergy and workers to bear the burden of toil and
responsibility that rested upon us every hour of the day, if it were
not for the help of those daily morning celebrations, and that the only
method by which that rubric as to communicants could be obeyed, would
be by compelling my workers to take turns--three on Monday, three on
Tuesday, &c.--however much indisposed they might feel at the moment
to make their communions. He said at once that this would be a most
hateful method, and I left him knowing that we were going to continue
these two things of which he disapproved; but he did not forbid them,
and his last words showed me that he was fully prepared to trust us. I
think what pleased him most was what he called our straightforwardness
and honesty; and I thank God that neither then nor since have I ever
hid anything from him.
His stay with us, when he came to confirm, very considerably deepened
our mutual affection. The confirmation was to be at eight p.m. The
people began to come into church at seven, according to their custom.
I always delighted in this hour before the confirmation as giving an
opportunity by extempore prayers, by heads for intercession, and by
singing hymns, of getting the friends of the candidates into a proper
frame of mind. The candidates knew exactly their places, for they had
sat in them at the three previous Sunday nights’ Mission services. They
knew exactly, too, in what order they were to go up to the Bishop.
Many a confirmation--indeed, many a first communion too--has lost
all its grace from want of preparation, not of the heart, but of the
mode of reception. The Bishop had been quite hurt when he found that
only a curate had been sent to meet him; but I think when he opened
the west door of S. Agatha’s, and saw the church quite full, people in
the aisles as well as in the seats, kneeling in humble prayer between
each verse of “When I survey the wondrous cross,” he forgave me for
not meeting him. In the vestry I said to him, “The service, of course,
is yours. You will make whatever arrangement you like about acolytes,
&c.” He asked those in red cassocks to take them off, and when I told
him that a crucifix was always carried in the procession, he asked that
it might be put away; but when I told him that there was one on the
high altar, he said, “Oh, I shall not see that one!” No words of mine
can fittingly express his tenderness towards those he confirmed. More
than half of them were grown men and women, many of them, whose former
lives could hardly be told about, drawn from the lowest slums by the
attractive power of the Cross, with a real and true belief in the grace
which they were about to receive at his hands, with a humility and yet
perfect trust which the soul, conscious of its own weakness and of
Christ’s power to save, alone experiences.
Meanwhile in our own house small difficulties had arisen. The Bishop,
whose digestion even at that time was greatly impaired, had kindly
sent us on a little sheet of paper his _menu_, headed, “What I
desire to eat,” a morsel of fish, a mutton chop, a rice pudding. But
he had not told us that he was going to bring a servant, and would
use some particular kind of sheets. When I got in I heard that Mary
was disturbed, and the disturbance of Mary was no small matter in our
household, because, finding the servant putting on these sheets, her
honour was grievously wounded, she deeming the Bishop thought that the
beds in our house were dirty. However, things righted themselves. Our
rule of common food had to be broken through, as the servant objected
to meal with the Bishop, and fed somewhere by himself. One could see
how utterly overtired Bishop Thorold was, but he put that altogether on
one side, and evinced the kindest interest in all our inmates, until at
last, when he could speak not another word, he went off to bed; and yet
I never shall forget how fatigue was conquered in the long, earnest,
loving intercession he offered to Almighty God for me and mine.
The next morning he examined the old church very attentively, remarked
upon what he considered the ugliness of our little altar, on which
there were painted in panels a priest in black vestments saying Mass
for the Dead; and a soul being carried by angels into paradise; again
told us he disapproved altogether of prayers for the dead, and yet more
of Masses, but never said one word to forbid them, and then drove off
to the garrison church, where he was going to confirm. I had looked
forward with considerable dread to his coming. I knew he wanted to like
us, but I was terribly afraid of the ordeal. But after the visit I
believed that through his episcopate there would be nothing but peace
between us. However, the enemy was not going to give us peace, and
in November, 1892, we noticed a gentleman attending the children’s
Mass armed with a pair of opera-glasses. I urged him to go into the
front pew, where he would not have to use them, thereby disturbing
the congregation. Very shortly afterwards I received from the Bishop
a long document sent to him by the Protestant Alliance, and asking me
particulars about the service, and to send him the children’s Mass
book. On December 16th I received the following letter from him.
“FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY,
“_December 16, 1892_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“With respect to the Sunday School Book now in use at S.
Agatha’s Mission Chapel, I do not feel that this is a moment
when I can equitably press upon you to withdraw it from use.