There is now a special service used at the launching of her Imperial
Majesty's war-vessels which has not yet found its way into the
Prayer-Book; curious thoughts arise in the mind in contemplating that
fashion, conjoined to the office to be "used in her Majesty's navy every
day." How does God protect "the persons of us, thy servants, and the
fleet in which we serve?" Does prayer make bad ships more seaworthy, or
supply the place of stout iron and sound wood? If the ship is not safe
without prayer, will prayer make it so?
If not, what is the use of praying over it? Either the ship is seaworthy
or it is not; if it is, it will sail safely without prayer; if it is
not, will prayer carry the rotten ship through the storm? If prayer
be so efficacious, would it not be cheaper to use less wood and more
prayer? Bad materials roughly put together would serve, for a curate
would be cheaper than a shipwright, and much prayer would enable us to
dispense with much labour. In "storms at sea," a special prayer is to be
used; "O most powerful and glorious Lord God, at whose command the
winds blow, and lift up the waves of the sea, and who stillest the rage
thereof:" "O send thy word of command to rebuke the raging winds and the
roaring sea." Is not this the prayer of utter ignorance, the prayer of
an unscientific age? For what does the prayer imply? Only the modest
request that the state of the atmosphere round the whole globe may be
modified to suit the convenience of a small ship! And not only that, but
also that the whole course of weather may be changed during countless
yesterdays, the weather of to-day being only an effect caused by them.
Such prayers were offered up in former days by a people who knew nothing
of the inviolability of natural order, and who imagined that the weather
might be changed at their bidding as the clerk may push on the hands of
the church clock. The sailors are very frank in their confession: "When
we have been safe and seen all things quiet about us, we have forgot
thee, our God... But now we see how terrible thou art in all thy works
of wonder; the great God to be feared above all." At any rate they
cannot be accused of hypocrisy in their dealings with God! Nor is this
all. Short prayers are provided for those who have no time for the long
ones; and if the danger grows very pressing, everybody who can be spared
is to join in a special confession of sins, taken from the Communion
Office. It would surely be well to avoid a very pious crew, as they
might be wasting the time in prayer which might save the ship by work.
One serious thought presents itself for consideration in connection with
this supposed power of God to smooth the turbulent billows. Many ships
go down year after year; many thousands of lives sink in the pitiless
ocean; many a bitter wail goes up from drowning crews; how wickedly
cruel to have such power and to see the ship sink in the storm! how
icily stony to have such power and to watch unmoved the agony of the
perishing!
The prayers against the enemy are beautiful effusions; some of the
children praying the All-father to enable them to slay his other
children: "Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us." What
a curious request! Does the All-strong require to stir up his strength
before he can crush a few men? "Judge between us and our enemies." But
suppose the enemy is in the right, what then? Suppose English sailors
are on the wrong side, as in the dispute between George III. and the
American Colonies, such a prayer then becomes a prayer for defeat, not
an encouraging thought with which to go into battle. The prayers are
also offensive for their cowardice of tone: "Let not our sins now cry
against us for vengeance; but hear us thy poor servants begging mercy,
and imploring thy help." The praises after victory are as objectionable
as the prayers before: "The Lord hath covered our heads and made us
to stand in the day of battle." And what of the poor wounded, groaning
below in the cockpit, whose heads the Lord hath not covered? "The Lord
hath overthrown our enemies, and dashed in pieces those that rose up
against us." How thoroughly savage and bloodthirsty the thanksgiving! Is
God supposed to rejoice over the sufferings of the defeated? Is he to
be thanked for slaying his creatures? And then the victory is to be
improved to the "advancement of thy gospel;" the gospel of so-called
peace and goodwill is to be advanced by cannon-ball and torpedo, by
sabre and cutlass. Truly they must believe that Jesus came to send
a sword through the earth. And yet this is the true spirit of
Christianity; of the creed which has shed more human blood than any
other faith; of the creed which won its way through Europe with the
crucifix in one hand, and the battle-axe in the other; of the creed
that tortured innumerable victims on the rack, and which lit the
funeral pyres of the martyrs; of the creed whose cross has ever been
crimson-red, not with the blood of one who died to save humanity, but
with the blood of a humanity sacrificed to the glory of God.
THE FORM AND MANNER OF MAKING, ORDAINING, AND CONSECRATING OF BISHOPS,
PRIESTS, AND DEACONS, ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF
ENGLAND AND IRELAND.
If the Church of England confined herself in her ministrations to
offices which had some demonstrable effect, her occupation would be
gone. These Ordination offices stand on a par with that of Confirmation.
In both, the Holy Ghost is given by imposition of episcopal hands;
in both, no appreciable results follow the gift. The preface to these
offices says: "It is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy
Scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have
been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church: Bishops, Priests,
and Deacons." The "evidence" of this appears doubtful, seeing that all
Presbyterians acknowledge no such triple order, and regard bishops as
an invention of the devil, and "the pride of prelacy" as "a rag of
the scarlet" lady. The three offices before us may, to all intents and
purposes, be treated as one, for they are the progressive steps of the
ladder which reaches-from earth to heaven, from the poor deacon-curate
on 70_l_. a year at the bottom, to the archbishop luxuriating on
15,000_l_. a year at the top. There is much of solemn farce in the
opening: the archdeacon presents the candidates for ordination to the
bishop, and the reverend father in God, who has had them examined, who
knows all about them, and has-probably dined with them the night before,
gravely responds, "Take heed that the persons whom ye present unto us
be-apt and meet, for their learning and godly conversation, to exercise
their ministry duly, to the honour of God and the edifying of his
Church." For the learning of some young clergymen, the less said about
it the better, but those presented have at least scraped through the
bishop's examination, and will not now be turned back. The question
is simply a sham, and both candidates and bishop would be thoroughly
astonished if the archdeacon replied that any one of them was deficient.
The Litany follows after this, and then the Communion Office, with
special Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. After the Oath of Supremacy, the
bishop examines the candidates for the diaconate: "Do you trust that you
are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office?" is
asked of each, and each answers: "I trust so." This ought to be a solemn
question: to be inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost is surely an important
thing; and when one remembers how very little many of these young men,
fresh from college, seem to think of the matter, and how one chooses the
Church because it is "gentlemanly," and another because there is a fat
living in the family, and another because he is too stupid for any other
profession, we can scarcely help wondering at the workings of the Holy
Spirit in the heart of man. They are also asked if they "unfeignedly
believe all the Canonical Scriptures." If they really do believe them at
their ordination much change must take place in after life, judging by
the amount of scepticism among the clergy. Much of the fault lies in
pledging young men of three-and-twenty to absolute belief in what they
have probably studied but little; at college all their instruction is in
Christian _Evidences_, not in attacks on Christianity; they really know
but little of the anti-Christian arguments, and therefore are naturally
shaken when they learn them further on. Then the deacon is to read
Homilies in Church, and promises to do so, although he never fulfils the
promise, and he vows to obey his "Ordinary and other chief ministers
of the Church... following with a glad mind and will their godly
admonitions." How well the deacons and priests keep this pledge may be
seen in the daily struggles between them and their bishops, and in the
necessity of passing a Public Worship Regulation Act for the easier
suppression of rebellious priests. A year must intervene between the
diaconate and the priesthood, and when this year has run, the youthful
aspirant to the power of the keys presents himself once more before the
Father in God, and the same farce of question and answer is repeated.
The service runs as in that for deacons, save the special Epistle
and Gospel, until after the Oath of Supremacy; and then comes a long
exhortation, wherein what strikes us most is the complete contrast
between the priest in theory and the priest in practice: "If it shall
happen the same Church, or any member thereof, to take any hurt or
hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the
fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue see that you
never cease your labour, your care and diligence, until you have done
all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty, to bring all such
as are or shall be committed to your charge, unto that agreement in the
faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age
in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in
religion, or for viciousness in life." Now change the scene to six weeks
later, and our young priest is playing croquet and flirting meekly with
his rector's daughters, oblivious of the "horrible punishment" he
is incurring from Hodge at the public-house getting drunk unrebuked.
"Consider how studious ye ought to be in reading and learning the
Scriptures... and for this self-same cause how ye ought to forsake and
set aside (as much as you may) all worldly cares and studies." Alas for
the special vanities of country clergymen; this one botanizes, and that
one zoologizes, and another one geologizes, and a fourth is devoted to
his garden, and a fifth to his poultry, and a sixth to his farming,
not to speak of those who adorn the bench of magistrates and sternly
sentence wicked poachers, and sinful old women who pick up sticks, and
children who steal flowers. It may be urged that no set of men could
possibly live the life sketched in this exhortation: granted; but,
then, why pretend that they are bound to live it, and threaten horrible
punishments if they do not perform the impossible? Besides, the bishop
expresses his hope that they have well considered the whole matter,
and have "clearly determined, by God's grace... you will apply yourself
wholly to this one thing, and draw all your cares and studies this way."
When the time comes to put the questions to the candidates, this very
point forms one of them: "Will you be diligent in prayers, and in
reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as help to the
knowledge of the same, laying aside the study of the world and the
flesh?" And the candidates solemnly promise to do that which they must
know they have no intention of doing. One might further urge, that the
perpetual meddlesomeness enjoined in this Office on the priest would
make that individual a perfect nuisance to his parishioners if he tried
to carry it into practice, and that he would probably very often find
his ministrations cut short with unpleasant emphasis. The consecration
follows in due course: "Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and work
of a priest in the Church of God... Whose sins thou dost forgive they
are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained." And
yet some people pretend that the Church of England does not sanction an
absolving priesthood! If these words have any meaning, they mean that
the young men now ordained have the most awful power given into their
hands, that they can, in very truth, lock and unlock heaven, for by
their absolution the forgiven sinner may enter, while through their
retainment of his sins he may be shut out. How tremendous then is the
authority thus given into hands so young and so untried! And surely such
power is not to be wasted? Surely it is the duty of these priests to
be continually urging people to seek, and continually to be giving,
absolution. Why should one sinner die unshriven, when such death may be
prevented by the diligence of the priest? Life would be impossible were
all this really believed; what priest could live in reasonable comfort
if this were true and were realised? All earthly things would sink into
insignificance, and life would become a desperate struggle to save
and absolve the perishing; real belief would end its days in a lunatic
asylum.
The Consecration of Archbishop or Bishop is somewhat more ceremonious,
but is one in character with the preceding offices. The promise to
banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to
God's word is one the fulfilment of which brings unfortunate bishops
nowadays into much trouble in the flesh. For when a Colenso "comes down
like a wolf on the fold," and a faithful Bishop of Oxford forbids him
to tear the lambs of his flock, immediately people mutter "bigoted,"
"narrow-minded," "tyranny," with sundry other unpleasant adjectives and
nouns. Yet can there be no doubt that he of Oxon was only obeying his
ordination vow. In truth the present spirit of liberty is thoroughly
at issue with the spirit of these offices, and the only effect of
maintaining them is to create hypocrites and vow breakers. Nor is it
fair to-judge too harshly those who break these foolish vows, for a man
may honestly think that he can best serve his generation as clergyman,
and may have a general belief in Christianity, and he may then argue
that he cannot permit himself to be kept out of a wide sphere of
usefulness by a few obsolete vows. The pity is that men, whose common
sense is too strong to be bound by foolish promises taken in ignorance
in their youth, do not join earnestly together to remove this
stumbling-block from before the feet of the next generation, so that, if
they deem their church valuable, they may preserve her by adapting her
to the realities of the nineteenth instead of the sixteenth century,
and may make her services something more than a farce, her ceremonies
something better than a show.