The Church, in her wisdom, fearing that the quaint conceits and
impossibilities which we have referred to, the--
"Jewels which adorn the spouse of the eternal glorious King,"
should not be sufficiently appreciated and admired by her children, if
presented to their adoration once only on every day, has appointed for
the use of the faithful an office of Evening Prayer, which, in its main
features, is identical with that which is to be "said or sung" each
morning. Sentences, address, confession, absolution, Lord's Prayer, and
versicles, are all exactly reproduced, and Psalms and Lessons follow
in due course, varying from day to day. To take the whole Psalter, and
analyse it, would be a task too-long for our own patience, or for that
of our readers, so we only pick out a few salient absurdities, and ask
why English men and women should be found singing sentences which have
no beauty to recommend them, and no meaning to dignify them. We will not
lay stress on the quaintness of a congregation standing up and gravely
singing: "Or ever your pots be made hot with thorns, so let indignation
vex him, even as a thing that is raw" (Ps. lviii.); we will not ask what
the clergyman means when he reads out to his congregation: "Though ye
have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove." (Ps.
lxviii.) These are isolated passages, which a pen might erase, retaining
the major part of the Psalter: we go further, and challenge it as a
whole, asserting that it is ludicrously inappropriate as a song-book for
sensible people, even although those people may be desirous of praying
to, or praising God. Our strictures are here levelled, not at prayer as
prayer, but simply at this particular form of prayer. In the first place
the Psalter is written only for a single nation; it is full of local
allusions, and of references of Israelitish history, which are only
reasonable in the mouth of a Jew. With what amount of sense can an
English congregation every 15th evening of the month sing such a Psalm
as the lxxviii., recounting all the marvels of the plagues and of the
exodus, or on the following day plead with God to help them, because
"the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they
defiled, and made Jerusalem an heap of stones?" (Ps. lxxix.) Is there
any respect to God in telling him that "we are become an open shame to
our enemies; a very scorn and derision unto them that are round about
us" (v. 4), when, as a matter of simple fact, the speakers are become
nothing of the kind? Can it be thought to be consistent with reverence
to God to make these extraordinary assertions in praying to Him, and
then to base upon them the most urgent pleas for His immediate aid? for
we find the congregation proceeding: "Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of Thy Name; O deliver us and be merciful unto our sins
for Thy Name's sake.... O let the vengeance of Thy servant's blood
which is shed be openly shewed upon the heathen in our sight. O let the
sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before Thee; according to the
greatness of Thy power, preserve Thou those that are appointed to die"
(w. 9, 10, 11). Now in all sober seriousness what does this mean? Is
this addressed to God, or is it not? If it be, is it right and fit to
address to him words that are absolutely untrue, and to cry urgently for
aid which is not required, and which He cannot possibly give? If it be
not, is it decent to solemnly sing or read phrases seemingly addressed
to God, but really not intended to be noticed by him, phrases which use
His name as though an appeal to Him were seriously made? It cannot be
healthy to juggle thus with words, and to make emotional prayers which
are utterly devoid of all meaning. Some devout persons talk very freely
about the wickedness of blasphemy, but is not that kind of game with
God, in wailings which are devoid of reality, appeals not intended to be
answered, a far more real blasphemy in the mouth of any one who believes
in Him as a hearer of prayer, than the so-called blasphemy of those who
distinctly assert that to them the popular and traditional "God" is
a phantom, and that they see no reason to believe in His existence?
Passing from this graver aspect of the use of the Psalter as a
congregational song-book, we notice how purely comic many of the psalms
would appear to us had not the habit-fashion of our lives accustomed us
to repeat them in a parrot-like manner, without attaching the smallest
meaning to the words so glibly recited. "Every night wash I my bed and
water my couch with my tears" (Ps. vi.), is sung innocently by laughing
maiden and merry youth, the bright current of whose life is undimmed by
the shadow of grief. "Bring unto the Lord, O ye mighty, bring young
rams unto the Lord" (Ps. xxix.), is solemnly read out by the country
clergyman, who would be beyond measure astonished if his direction were
complied with. Then we find the congregation making the certainly untrue
assertion: "Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe;
Philistia, be thou glad of me" (Ps. lx.). At another time they cry out,
"O, clap your hands together, all ye people" (Ps. xlvii.); they speak
of processions which have no existence, "The singers go before, the
minstrels follow after, in the midst are the damsels playing on the
timbrels" (Ps. lxviii.). Another phase of this Psalter, which is
offensive rather than comic, is the habit of swearing and cursing which
pervades it; we find Christians, who are bidden to love their enemies,
and to bless them that curse them, pouring out curses of the most
fearful character, and displaying the most reckless hatred: "The
righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his
footsteps in the blood of the ungodly" (Ps. lviii.). "Let them fall from
one wickedness into another, and not come into Thy righteousness" (Ps.
lxix.). A nice prayer, truly, for one man to pray for his brother man,
to a holy God who is supposed to desire righteousness in man. Then there
is that fearful imprecation in Psalm cix., too long to quote, where the
vindictive and cruel anger not only curses the offender himself, but
passes on to his children: "Let there be no man to pity him, nor to
have compassion upon his fatherless children." Of course, people do not
really mean any of these terrible things which they repeat day after
day; humanity is too noble to wish to draw down such curses from heaven;
the people have outgrown the bad spirit of that cruel age when the
Psalter was written, and their hearts have grown more loving; but surely
it is not well that men and women should stand on a lower level in their
prayers than in their lives; surely the moments, which ought to be the
noblest, should not be passed in using language which the speakers would
be ashamed of in their daily lives; surely the worship of the Ideal
should not be degraded below the practice of the Real, or the notion
of God be less lofty than the life of man. By making their worship an
unreality, by being less than true in their religious feelings, by
using words they do not mean, and by pretending emotions they do not
experience, people become trained into insincerity, and lose that rare
and beautiful virtue of instinctive and thorough honesty. When the
prayer does not echo the yearning of the heart, then the habit grows
of not making the word really the representative of the thought, of not
making the feeling the measure of the expression. Much of the cant
of the day, much of the social insincerity, much of the prevalent
unreality, may be laid at the door of this crime of the Churches, of
making men speak words which are meaningless to the speaker, and of
teaching them to be untrue in the moments which should be the truest
and the purest. At another time, we might impeach prayer as a whole; we
might argue against it, either as opposed to the unchangeableness and
the wisdom of God, if a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God be
believed in, or as utterly futile, and proved worthless by experience.
But here we only plead for sincerity in prayer, wherever prayer is
practised; we only urge that at least the prayer shall be sincere, and
that the lips shall obey the heart.
Exactly the same objection applies to the "Canticles," which, in modern
lips, are absolutely devoid of sense. What meaning has the "song of the
blessed Virgin Mary" from an ordinary English congregation; why should
English people talk about God promising His mercy "to our forefathers,
Abraham, and his seed for ever," when Abraham is not their forefather
at all? Why should they ask God to let them "depart in peace," when
they have not the smallest desire to depart at all, and why should they
assert to Him that they "have seen Thy salvation," when they have seen
nothing of the kind? For the perpetually recurring _Gloria_, one cannot
help wondering what it means; when was "the beginning," and is the "it"
which was at that period, the "glory" which is wished to the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost; further, what is the good of wishing glory to
Him--or to Them--if He--or They--have always had, and always will
have it? When we have heard a congregation reciting the Creed, we have
sometimes wondered what meaning they attached to it. "The maker of
heaven and earth." Do people ever try to carry the mind back to the time
before this "making," and realise the period when nothing existed? Is it
possible to imagine things coming into existence, "something" emerging
from where before "nothing" was? And then Jesus, the only Son, conceived
by the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from Himself, and son, therefore, not of
"the Father," but of that spirit which only exists in and through "the
Father and the Son." Again, how can a "spirit" conceive a material body?
If the whole affair be miraculous, why try to compromise matters with
nature, by making this kind of pseudo-father? Surely it would be simpler
to leave it a complete miracle, and let the Virgin remain the solitary
parent. Except for making the story match better with the elder Greek
mythology, there is no need to introduce a godparent in the affair; a
child without a father is no more remarkable than a mother who remains
a virgin. This attempt at reasonableness only makes the whole more
outrageously unnatural, and provokes criticism which would be better
avoided. A God, who suffered, was crucified, dead, buried, who rose and
ascended, is a complete enigma to us. Could He, the impassive, suffer?
could He, the intangible, be crucified? could He, the immortal, die?
could He, the omnipresent, be buried in one spot of earth, rise from it,
and ascend to some place where he was not the moment before? What kind
of God is this who is to "come again" to a place where He is not now?
If the answer be, that all this refers to the manhood of Jesus, then we
inquire, "Is Christ divided?" if He be one God with the Father, then all
He did was done by the Father as much as by Himself; if He did it only
as man, then God did not come from heaven to save men; then this is
not a divine sacrifice at all; then, a simple man cannot have made an
atonement for the sin of the world. And where is "the right hand" of
Almighty God? Is Jesus sitting at the right hand of a pure spirit, who
has neither body nor parts? and, since He is one with God, is He sitting
at his own right hand? Such questions as these are called blasphemous;
but we fling back the charge of blasphemy on those who try to compel us
to recite a creed so absurd. We decline to repeat words which convey to
us no meaning, and not ours the fault, if any inquiry into the meaning
produce dilemmas so inconvenient to the orthodox. We are also required
to believe in "the" Holy Catholic Church, but we know of no such body.
Catholic means universal, and there is no universal Church: to believe
in that which does not exist would, indeed, be faith without sight.
There is the Orthodox Church, but that is anathematised by the Roman;
there is the Roman Church, but that is the "scarlet whore of Babylon" in
the eyes of the Protestant; there are the Protestant sects, but they
are many and not one, a multiformity in disunity. We are asked to
acknowledge a "Communion of Saints," and we see those who severally call
themselves saints excommunicating each the other; in a "forgiveness of
sins," but Nature tells us of no forgiveness, and we find suffering
invariably following on the disregard of law; in a "resurrection of the
body," but we know that the body decays, that its gases and its juices
are transmuted in the alembic of Nature into new modes of existence;
in a "life everlasting," when the dark veil of ignorance envelopes the
"Beyond the tomb." Only the thoughtless can repeat the creed; only the
ignorant cannot see the impossibilities it professes to believe.
The two Collects, which are different in the evening prayer to those
used in the morning office, call for no special remark, save that
they--in common with all prayers--make no practical difference in human
life. The devout Christian is no more defended from "all perils and
dangers of this night," than is the most careless atheist; wisely, also,
does the Christian, having prayed his prayer, walk carefully round his
house, and examine the bolts and bars, mindful that these commonplace
defences are more likely to be efficacious against burglars than the
protecting arm of the Most High.
The remainder of the service is the same as that used in the morning,
so calls for no further remark. If only people would take the trouble
of _thinking_ about their religion; if only they could be led, or even
provoked, into trying to realise that which they say they believe, then
the foundations of the popular religion would rapidly be undermined, and
the banner of Freethought would soon float proudly over the crumbling
ruins of that which was once a Church.