Of all the services in the Prayer-Book this is, perhaps-, the most
striking relic of barbarism, the most completely at variance with sound
and reasonable thought. The clergyman entering into a house of sickness,
and as he enters the sick man's room and catches sight of him, kneeling
down and exclaiming, as though horror-stricken: "Remember not, Lord, our
iniquities, nor the iniquities of our forefathers; spare us, good Lord,
spare Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy most precious blood,
and be not angry with us for ever." This clergyman reminds one of
nothing so much as of one of Job's friends, who appear to have been an
even more painful infliction than Job's boils. The sickness, the patient
is told, "is God's visitation," and "for what cause soever this sickness
is sent unto you: whether it be to try your faith for the example of
others, . . . or else it be sent unto you to correct and amend in
you whatsoever doth offend the eyes of your heavenly Father; know you
certainly, that if you truly repent you of your sins, and bear your
sickness patiently, ... it shall turn to your profit, and help you
forward in the right way that leadeth unto everlasting life." One might
question the justice of Almighty God if the theory be correct that the
sickness may be sent "to try your patience for the example of others;"
why should one unfortunate victim be tormented simply that others
may have the advantage of seeing how well he bears it? If we are to
endeavour to conform ourselves to the image of God, then it would seem
that we should be doing right if we racked our neighbours occasionally
to "try their patience for the example of others." And is the idea
of God a reverent one? What should we think of an earthly father who
tortured one of his children in order to teach the others how to bear
pain? if we should condemn the earthly father as wickedly cruel, why
should the same action be righteous when done by the Father in heaven?
If we accept the second reason given for the sickness, it is difficult
to see the rationale of it. Why should illness of the body correct
illness of the mind; does pain cure fretfulness, or fever increase
truthfulness? Is not sickness likely rather to bring out and strengthen
mental faults than to weaken them? And how far is it true that sickness
is, in any sense, the visitation of God for moral delinquencies? Is
it not true, on the contrary, that a man may lie, rob, cheat, slander,
tyrannise, and yet, if he observe the laws of health, may remain in
robust vigour, while an upright, sincere, honest and truthful man,
disregarding those same laws, may be miserably feeble and suffer an
early death? Is it, or is it not, a fact, that in the Middle Ages, when
people prayed much and studied little, when the peasant went to the
shrine for a cure instead of to the doctor, when sanitary science was
unknown, and cleanliness was a virtue undreamed of,--is it, or is
it not, true, that pestilence and black death then swept off their
thousands, while these terrible scourges have been practically driven
away in modern times by proper attention to sanitary measures, by
improved drainage and greater cleanliness of living? How can that be a
visitation of God for moral transgressions, which can be prevented by
man if he attends to physical laws? Is man's power greater than God's,
and can he thus play with the thunderbolts of the divine displeasure?
The clergyman prays that "the sense of his weakness may add strength to
his faith;" what fine irony is here, as body and mind grow weak faith
grows strong; as a man is less able to think, he becomes more ready to
believe. It is impossible to pass, without a word of censure, over the
passage in the exhortation, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, which
says, "for they (fathers of our flesh) verily for a few days chastened
us after their own pleasure." Good earthly fathers do not chasten their
children for their own amusement, while God does it "for our profit;"
on the contrary, they do it for the improvement of their children,
while God alone, if there be a hell, tortures his children for his
own pleasure and for no gain to them. The succeeding portion of the
Exhortation, that, "our way to eternal joy is to suffer here with
Christ," is full of that sad asceticism which has done so much to darken
the world since the birth of Christ; men have been so engaged in looking
for the "eternal joy" that they have let pass unnoted the misery here;
they have been so busy planting flowers in heaven that they have let
weeds grow here; yes, and they have rejoiced in the misery and in
the weeds, because they were only strangers and pilgrims, and the
tribulation, which was but temporal, increased the weight of the glory
that was eternal. Thus has Christianity blighted the flowers of this
world, and entwined the brows of its followers with wreaths of thorns.
The concluding portion of the exhortation deals with the duty of
self-examination and self-accusation, that you may "not be accused and
condemned in that fearful judgment." Very wholesome teaching for a sick
man; sickness always makes a person morbid, and the Church steps in to
encourage the unwholesome feeling; sickness always makes a person
timid and unnerved, and the Church steps in to talk about a "fearful
judgment," and bewilders and stuns the confused brain by the terrible
pictures called up to the mind by the thought of the last day.
But worse follows; for after the sick person has said that he
steadfastly believes the creed, the clergyman is bidden by the rubric
to "examine whether he repent him truly of his sins, and be in
charity with all the world." Imagine a sick person being worried by an
examination of this kind, putting aside the gross impertinence of the
whole affair. Further, "the minister should not omit earnestly to move
such persons as are of ability to be liberal to the poor." When every
one remembers the terrible scandals of by-gone days, when priests drew
into the net of the Church the goods of the dying, using threat of hell
and promise of heaven to win that which should have been left for the
widow and the orphan, one marvels that such a rubric should be left
to recall the rapaciousness and the greed of the Church, and to invite
priests to grasp at the wealth slipping out of dying hands. And here the
sick person is to "be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if
he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter," and the priest
is bidden to absolve him, for Christ having "left power to his Church to
absolve by his authority committed to me," says the priest, "I absolve
thee." Confession, delegated authority, priestly absolution, such is the
doctrine of the Church of England: all the untold abominations of the
confessional are involved in this rubric and sentence; for if the man
can absolve a man at one time, he can do it at another. The precious
power should surely not be left unused and wasted; whenever sin presses,
behold the remedy, and thus we are launched and in full sail. But never
in England shall the confessional again flourish; never again shall
English women be corrupted by the foul questions of the priests; never
again shall Englishmen have their mental vigour and virility destroyed
by such degradation. Let the Church fall that countenances such an
accursed thing, and leave English purity and English courage to grow and
flourish unchecked.
The devil is in great force in this service, as is only right in a so
generally barbarous an office: "Let the enemy have no advantage of him;"
"defend him from the danger of the enemy;" "renew in him whatsoever
hath been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil;" "the wiles of
Satan;" "deliver him from fear of the enemy;" all this must convey to
the sick person a cheerful idea of the devil lingering about his bed,
and trying to get hold of him before it is too late to drag him down to
hell.
Is there any meaning at all in the expression, "the Almighty Lord....
to whom all things in heaven, in earth and _under the earth_ do bow and
obey." Where is "under the earth "? The sun is under some part of the
earth to some people at any given time; the stars are under, or above,
according to the point of view from which they are looked at. Of course,
the expression is only a survival from a time when the earth was flat
and the bottomless pit was under it, only it seems a Pity to continued
to use expressions which have all but lost their meaning and are now
thoroughly ridiculous. People seem to think that any old things are good
enough for God's service. The last two prayers are remarkable
chiefly for their melancholy and 'craven tone towards God: "we humbly
recomment," "most humbly beseeching thee." Surely God is not supposed
to be an Eastern despot, desiring this kind of cringing at his feet.
Yet the "Prayer for persons troubled in mind or in conscience" is one
pitiful wail, as though only by passionate entreaty could God be moved
to mercy, and he were longing to strike, and with difficulty withheld
from avenging himself. When will men learn to stand upright on their
feet, instead of thus crouching on their knees? When will they learn
to strive to live nobly, and then to fear no celestial anger, either in
life or in death?