“little go” at Cambridge. When Charles Osborne came to me, I had no
knowledge of exact theology at all, except what I had been able to
scrape together during one year at Salisbury Theological College,
where the Rev. E. B. Ottley was particularly kind and patient with
me. But Osborne devoted an hour a day all the time he was with me to
talking theology with me. There is no method of learning so easy as the
conversational method, especially such conversation as his, and when
the opportunity came to me to occupy London pulpits, he prepared the
notes of many of my sermons, and looked up the references; and ever
since he left me, though he now has work almost as time-exhausting as
my own, he has never failed to send me at Lent, and at other times when
I needed them, courses of sermons. I have often felt little better
than a humbug, delivering sermons which are the fruit of his brain.
And when I left Portsmouth, my then secretary followed me to London,
and has remained with me, so as to prevent the compositors who set up
this book committing suicide, or the world being scandalised with my
bad spelling. These are but two little instances of countless acts of
love and devotion which it has been our extraordinary privilege for
the last ten years to enjoy; and when you hear of trades’ unions of
curates and vicars, and of disloyalty on the one side, and humiliations
on the other, I should like you to realise that our work was successful
because, though I was the apparent doer of it, I merely represented
a community bound together by the tenderest ties of mutual service.
People take a very exaggerated view of mission work. It is not only
the pleasantest and most rewarding, but it is really the easiest
done. Preaching about a great deal, and giving retreats and missions,
enables one to judge, I think, pretty fairly of the difficulties of
other clergymen’s work, and I am quite sure that I am speaking only the
literal truth when I say that I have never been in any parish where
the work was as easy as in my own. Of course, we added to ourselves
many things that were not strictly parochial; and if these had not
been begun, and we had merely stuck to working amongst our own people,
this truth would have been even more apparent. Faith in humanity is
the foundation of all mission work, very easy to be attained in a
slum where, every single day, some soul reveals to you progress; very
difficult to attain in a parish where your church is well filled by
a respectable congregation. Then a greater elasticity of method is
allowed, and it was just the attempt to check this that never could
have occurred if Bishop Thorold had lived. And yet I think that if
reasonable people, unprejudiced and unbiassed, would consider the
Prayer Book, and the methods by which it has been interpreted for the
last fifty years, they would be less anxious to desire to curtail this
greater liberty of method.
At best surely the Prayer Book is a compromise, for which, indeed, we
may be most grateful to Almighty God, when we consider the character
of those who constructed it, and the Court pressure under which many
of them were continually coerced. But surely a compromise, fond as we
are of them in England, is never a lasting arrangement. Fifty years ago
people might conscientiously call our Liturgy incomparable, because,
as a witty Irishman said, they had no others to compare it with. But
now, when the inexhaustible treasures of both East and West have been
rediscovered by us, and when those Catholic doctrines, long hidden away
in the hearts of a few learned clerics, were, by the Oxford movement,
scattered broadcast over England, the method by which those doctrines
alone could be understanded of the people, was by interpreting the
Prayer Book according to Catholic ceremonial, and the progress which
has been made in this interpretation is a fact that we, who see its
effects, can hardly appreciate. Is it not true to say that fifty
years ago almost every single Bishop on the English bench would have
proclaimed the priest a traitor, and endeavoured to deprive him, for
doctrines that are taught, and for ceremonies which are performed,
in twenty-five per cent. of the churches in their dioceses to-day?
Remember, the things which have been condemned in S. Agatha’s are done
in a large number of churches in England. Earnest souls everywhere
are crying out for Masses to be said for their dear dead. There is no
service in the Prayer Book appointed for this purpose. But the Catholic
priest who understands and appreciates the piety of this desire, who
believes himself that he has this treasure committed to him by God,
will not surely be deemed disloyal to the Church of England if he
ventures to use either the service in the Prayer Book of Edward VI.,
which our own Prayer Book declares “doth not contain anything contrary
to the Word of God, or to sound doctrine,” or chooses from some ancient
source a like office. It seems to me that this is a far more honest
practice than to use in a forced sense the Commendatory Prayer from the
Visitation of the Sick, the first prayer in the Burial Service, or the
first Good Friday collect, the use which my successor has adopted in
deference, I suppose, to the Bishop’s wish. I know his great integrity
of purpose, and his utter honesty of mind, and, therefore, I am sure
that he considers his method a more honest one than mine. But the chief
thing which commended S. Agatha’s to Bishop Thorold, to my numerous
supporters, and to my poor people, was the plainness of speech and
calling things by their names, which oftentimes superficial gazers
may deem unwise, but which I have ever found to pay in the long run.
But if it might be said that putting in a new prayer is disloyal, no
one can say that leaving out a prayer, or disregarding a rubric is
disloyal. I do not suppose that there is any church in England where
every prayer is said, and every rubric obeyed; nay, the service would
be intolerable, impossible, if it were so. People have, however, a
convenient way of saying, “This rubric is obsolete; that prayer may
be lawfully left out, that exhortation never read.” Who is the best
judge of that? The parish priest who has laboured ten years amongst his
people, and knows every one of them, and the Bishop who has visited,
loved, and blessed that work for four years, or the Bishop who has
been in the diocese for three weeks? Two rubrics stand side by side
in the Book of Common Prayer. One of them as to having notice given
of Communion I obeyed, the other as to the number of communicants
I disobeyed. Ninety-nine clergy out of a hundred disobey the one I
obeyed, eighty obey the one that I disobeyed. Let me illustrate, by
my successor’s action, the enormous difficulty of obeying both. He
says, You must give notice if you are coming to the Holy Communion,
and he has told the people that, unless notice is given so that he may
know that there will be communicants, the Children’s Mass at 10, and
the High Mass at 11, must be given up. The notice is to be given in
on Saturday night. If two communicants give notice, or one, or none,
what would his action be? Would he wait till people came to church
and tell them that there would be a different kind of service, and
thus prevent many of his faithful from being present at a Celebration,
which many of them believe to be a Christian obligation, or would he
get certain people to promise, three for 10, and three for 11 each
Sunday?--a strain on their loyalty that I, whom they loved and knew,
would never have dared to demand, for the working woman with children
an utter impossibility, for the District Visitor from Southsea a walk
of a mile and a half there and back, entailing most likely an illness
and a breakdown, for the working man living with all his children round
him, breakfast a common meal shared by all on Sunday--I am not talking
of the irreligious man who eats his breakfast, and lies in bed till one
or two p.m.--the binding upon him of a burden, which we ourselves, who
are often forced to say late Masses, can hardly sustain. This line of
thought applies just as well to the daily Masses in a place in which it
was utterly impossible, with all my workers round me, to manufacture
six communicants every day.
I have ventured to go into this question again at length, because I
am anxious that the public should understand it. If the Bishops are
going to make an attack all round on beneficed as well as unbeneficed
clergy, on High, Low, and Broad equally, then I and my people would
have no right to complain. But I doubt very much whether the Church of
England could stand the strain of such an attack. If such an attack
is to be made it must be uniform, and not according to the individual
mind of the Bishop; Bishop Perowne might succeed Bishop King, Bishop
Ryle might succeed Bishop Temple. And surely this danger ought to be
realised before fresh power is put into the Bishops’ hands, such power
as is proposed in the recent Patronage Act, which would have meant
in my case that if I had been presented to a living, either in the
diocese of Durham or of Worcester, I should not only have been refused
by the Bishop, but--as I read the Act--my patron would have lost his
nomination, and the prelate would have appointed his own nominee. Far
more dangerous would it be, as a recent bill in Convocation proposed,
to allow the Bishop to be sole judge of what rubrics are obsolete, and
what must of necessity be observed.
We are told that these are days when every Church Society is being
starved, when the Bishops can neither get money nor men for their great
overgrown dioceses, and therefore that the masses are in a large extent
lost to the Church of England. Here is a place where over £50,000 has
been spent in ten years, only £760 of it coming from a Diocesan Fund.
Here is a place where three clergy, and many earnest laymen and women,
have been working at no cost to the official resources of the Church
at all. Here is a place where large numbers of the poorest and most
ignorant have been instructed in the saving truths of Holy Religion.
Here is a place which the late Bishop of the diocese fostered with
truest tenderness and care. I do not venture to ask the question which
I was going to ask, but I leave it to the judgment of my readers to
answer the question themselves. I know that one answer is conceivable.
“No work, no labour, no success is any excuse, when disobedience to the
Prayer Book is practised alongside of it.” But does anyone pretend to
believe that this is the consistent method of the Church of England;
or, if it had been so for the last fifty years, would one spark of
life have been left in her?
If this little book has interested you at all, I would earnestly ask
you to help me to pay off my debt. During the last three months people
have been very generous to me, and I have paid off £800. This leaves me
still owing £2290. Many Winchester men are very anxious, I know, that
the Wykehamist Committee should become responsible for this debt, and
I shall be very grateful if they do, because that might enable me to
raise from the bank the money that I require to pay the builders. But
even if they make themselves responsible, I feel it to be my bounden
duty to do all I can to get this money together, for all the time that
they are collecting it, they will be able to give my successor very
little for his Mission work. I know that in many things he excels me,
but I know that I am a better beggar than he is. He will require every
penny that he can possibly scrape together, and so I am most anxious to
set all Wykehamical resources free, by paying off this sum as quickly
as possible.
Many people write and ask me, What are you going to do yourself? The
answer to that rests in other hands than mine. When this debt is paid,
if the Church of England offers me work, and I believe that it is God’s
intention that I should accept it, I will at once. In the meantime I
am trying to learn a little lesson that one of my dearest children, a
Jesuit priest, wrote down for me, “God allows you to build the fibre
of your brain, the blood of your heart, into a temple for His glory,
and then with one breath of His nostril o’erturns it, that He may see
whether you will bear this also.”
APPENDIX
“17, CLARENCE STREET, LANDPORT,
“_September 28th, 1895_.
“MY LORD BISHOP,
“We are taking possession of our new church on October 27th. It
practically is joined by the vestries to the old church, which
was licensed for celebrations by Bishop Harold Browne, and your
predecessor did not think it would require a new licence.
“As at present the district is not a legal Parish, the question
of consecration does not arise.
“I am, your lordship’s obedient servant,
“R. RADCLYFFE DOLLING.”
“DALMENY PARK, EDINBURGH,
“_4th October, 1895_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“Your letter of Sept. 28th has only now reached me in Scotland.
Everything has been upset somewhat during our removal from one
house to another.
“I am greatly interested to learn that you hope to enter so
soon upon the use of the new church. I shall be anxious, so
far as possible, to meet your wishes in every way with regard
to licence. If you were told by Bishop Thorold that no fresh
licence would be necessary, I have no doubt such is the case,
but I should, myself, have thought it would probably be better
that a new licence should be given for the new building. This,
however, we can talk over when we meet, and I trust the meeting
may take place ere long, as I am most anxious to see something
of your work, upon the spot. I have heard much of it, and I
pray God to grant you all guidance and blessing among the
difficulties by which you are surrounded.
“Bishop Thorold’s opinion that no fresh licence is required
will, at least, justify you in going forward now with all
your arrangements, and if it turns out hereafter that it is
desirable to issue a fresh licence, there will, I imagine, be no
difficulty in doing so. I hope to be at Farnham next week, and
to enter as speedily as possible upon diocesan work. I know I
may rely upon your giving me the help of your prayers.
“I am, yours very truly,
“RANDALL WINTON.”
“17, CLARENCE STREET, LANDPORT,
“_October 7th, 1895_.
“MY DEAR LORD BISHOP,
“I am most grateful for your kind letter. Bishop Thorold’s idea
was that until the church was consecrated (that would be as soon
as the parish was created), the old licence would suffice. But I
quite feel that your lordship’s wish is most reasonable, and as
soon as convenient to yourself the required formalities could be
performed.
“We have never ceased to pray for your lordship since your
election, and there are no priest or people more desirous to
welcome you.
“The Bishop of Southwell, or the Bishop of Reading, will be with
us at the opening, or during the octave. There is one of my
soldier children on furlough, who needs to be confirmed. Might
he have your permission to do it?
“Yours very obediently,
“R. R. DOLLING.”
“FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY,
“_10th October, 1895_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“I thank you for your letter. I will consider the question of
licence. In the meantime, do not let the postponement of a
decision on that point interfere in any way with your plans and
arrangements.
“With regard to the confirmation of the lad you refer to,
I should be quite willing that the Bishop of Southwell or
the Bishop of Reading should confirm him if you think this
desirable, and if such Bishop is willing, at your request, to do
it.
“I am, yours very truly,
“RANDALL WINTON.”
“FARNHAM,
“_17th October, 1895_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“I have considered the question of a licence for your new
church, or rather, for you to minister therein, and it seems
clear that such a licence ought to be issued. I have, therefore,
asked the Rural Dean, in ordinary course, to send me the usual
report that he has visited the building, and that all is in due
order.
“Of course, in strict accordance with rule, no service should
take place in the building till the proper licence (after the
Rural Dean’s letter) has been received by you.
“But as I know you have been making arrangements for your
opening services, and that it was owing to the change of Bishops
that you did not sooner apply to me, I am quite willing that
your arrangements should be proceeded with, and you will, of
course, understand that, in the very improbable event of any
question arising as to the building or its due ‘appointments,’ I
am not to be regarded as hereby prejudging such question.
“I am sure it will be your wish that all should be in due order,
and I pray that the blessing of God may rest in rich measure on
you and on your work.
“I am, yours very truly,
“RANDALL WINTON.”
“WINCHESTER COLLEGE MISSION, LANDPORT,
“_October 18th, 1895_.
“MY DEAR LORD BISHOP,
“I shall be very glad to see Canon Jacob. I am very distressed
to hear from ... that you are hurt at my action about the
Opening, and I venture to assure you that the arrangements that
I have made are those which I contemplated before there was
any vacancy in the See, arrangements which I had planned in
accordance with the action of the two late Bishops towards the
Mission.
“Bishop Harold Browne would never come here at all, or send
his Suffragan, but allowed me to choose a Bishop to confer
Confirmation.
“Bishop Thorold came himself, and sent his Suffragan, to
Confirm, but otherwise he never took part in any ceremony in the
church, and he personally often told me that he greatly disliked
the ritual. And even when he came to Confirm, as of course the
service was altogether his own and not ours, he did not allow
the acolytes to wear red cassocks, and when I pointed out that
the Crucifix was carried in front of the Procession, he ordered
it not to be used, though when I told him there was another on
the altar, and offered to take it down, he said, ‘No; I shall
not see that one.’ I should certainly never have asked him to
come to any other service at S. Agatha’s, as I am sure it would
have pained him very deeply, and my people here are so very
ignorant, that I could not have altered it, had he happened to
be present.
“I would not have you think from this, that I did not revere
and respect him, even perhaps love him, and we have oftentimes
been very near to each other in prayer. And, therefore, I had
determined not to ask him to take any part in the ceremonies
connected with the Opening of the church, until the time of the
Consecration should come, and for the same reason, of course, I
would not ask his Suffragan, though the Bishop of Southampton
is a Wykehamist, and I should much like to have had him here.
“I do not like to intrude upon your Lordship at such great
length, but I should not like your Lordship to think that I am
at all lacking in respect to your person or to your great office.
Yours very obediently,
“R. R. DOLLING.”
“FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY,
“_20th October, 1895_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“I thank you for your letter, but either you must, I think, have
misunderstood ... or he must have misunderstood me. Perhaps both.
“I perfectly understand the position as you now explain it,
namely, that you are simply following out arrangements which
were made in Bishop Thorold’s time, and which were such as you
thought he would desire.
“Nothing could be further from my mind than to be ‘hurt’ by
anything that has passed. I have too much respect for you and
for your work. I feel sure you have wished to do all that is
right, and (as I said in a former letter) I am anxious not to
disturb arrangements which were made before I was responsible.
“I hear to-day from the Rural Dean that he has arranged with you
to pay his visit next Wednesday, so perhaps after all the new
licence may reach you in time.
“I pray that the blessing and guidance of God may be given you
in your difficult task.
“I am, yours very truly,
“RANDALL WINTON.”
“FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY,
“_24th October, 1895_.
“DEAR MR. DOLLING,
“I have this morning received the Rural Dean’s report of his
visit yesterday to your new church. While expressing his
admiration of the building, he tells me the fittings are not yet
_in situ_, though they will for the most part be ready by
Saturday next. He cannot therefore report upon them in detail.
But speaking generally, it is clear that the arrangements are
in so forward a condition that, if no question of difficulty
arose, a licence might be sent to you forthwith, authorising
you in the usual form to minister the offices of the Church
therein. Of course, if it were a question of now consecrating
the church, and thereby giving legal authority to what stands
therein, I should require, as always, a more detailed report
when everything is _in situ_. But as you do not ask for
Consecration at present, legal questions in the technical sense
do not arise in quite the same manner.
“There is, however, one important matter mentioned by the Rural
Dean which I must at once bring before you. Canon Jacob says:
‘It is proposed to place a third altar in the middle of the
South Aisle ... and the altar is avowedly to be used for Masses
for the Dead. Mr. Dolling said that Bishop Thorold saw this in
the temporary church (there it was simply the second altar,
corresponding to that in the east end of the south aisle of
the new church), and intensely disliked it. Here, however, it
assumes a far greater prominence, for it is not the altar for
ordinary daily use, as in the temporary church, but simply to
be used for Masses for the Dead. Mr. Dolling lays the greatest
stress on this.’
“Now here is a matter of supreme importance. I have no wish
to prejudge any legal question which may arise, and I am not
aware whether any authoritative decision has been given in the
Church Courts respecting the legality of a third altar in such a
position in such a church.
“But I should obviously be treating you unfairly, were I now to
send you a licence virtually sanctioning such an arrangement as
this, and then, hereafter, when the time comes for consecrating
the church, and when your people have grown used to the
arrangement, to direct the removal of so prominent a feature on
the ground that when duly submitted for the consideration of the
Diocesan Court, it is found to be illegal. My belief is that,
if the circumstances are such as Canon Jacob has described,
it would be so declared, though in this I may, of course, be
mistaken.
“I do not know what sanction was originally obtained for the
plans of your church. If plans distinctly exhibiting this
feature received Bishop Thorold’s signature and sanction, I
would ask you to tell me so at once. In lack, however, of such
information, I must ask that the church be not publicly opened
for Divine Service until a question so important as this has
been submitted to the proper authorities for decision, or until
the altar in question has been removed from the building.
I think you must see that this is no matter of subordinate
detail. Were it such, I should not wish, in the very peculiar
circumstances of this case, to be over-particular at this
moment. But large principles are involved, and it would
therefore be quite wrong to prejudge what may be the ultimate
decision on so important a matter, by formally licensing you to
minister in a building containing thus prominently a feature
upon which, if the Rural Dean correctly reports, you lay the
greatest stress.
“I am exceedingly sorry to seem thus to interfere at the last
moment with the arrangements you have made; but you are aware
that this is not my fault, and I think I am only treating you
with such fairness and openness as I should wish myself to meet
with in like circumstances. Let me recall to you briefly what
has passed.
“On October 2nd I received from you a letter telling me, for
the first time, that you proposed taking possession of the new
church on October 27th, and adding that Bishop Thorold did
not think it would require a new licence. In my reply, while
I sanctioned your going forward with the arrangements which
had been already made for the opening services, I said that I
should myself have thought it would probably be better that a
new licence should be given for the new building. To this you
quite assented, and I accordingly directed the Rural Dean to pay
the usual preliminary visit. The first intimation I received
from you that any difficult question would be likely to arise
was in your letter of October 18th, in which you said: ‘I should
certainly never have asked Bishop Thorold to come to any other
service at St. Agatha’s (_i.e._, other than Confirmation),
as I am sure it would have pained him very deeply.’ I merely
recall these facts in order to remind you that I could not have
written sooner on this subject. Had I had reason to suppose
at an earlier date that there were likely to be difficulties
of this kind, I should have asked you to postpone the opening
services until the question of licence had been further
considered.