A tale is told of a fashionable lady residing at a fashionable
watering-place, at which a fashionable preacher preached. Of course the
fashionable chapel was filled. It was difficult to get a seat: few could
get more than standing-room. Our fashionable heroine, according to the
tale, thither wended her way one Sabbath morning; but, alas! the ground
was preoccupied. There was no room. Turning to her daughters with a
well-bred smile, she exclaimed: 'Well, my dears, at any rate we have done
the genteel thing!' and, self-satisfied, she departed home, her piety
being of that not uncommon order, that requires a comfortable
well-cushioned seat to itself. For some reason or other, it is now
considered the genteel thing to go to Dr. Cumming, and the consequence
is, that Crown Court Chapel overflows, and that pews are not to be had
there on any terms. I should have said that nowhere was there such a
crowd as that you see at Dr. Cumming's, if I did not recollect that I had
just suffered a similar squeeze over the way, when I went to see the
eminent tragedian, Mr. Brooke.
I believe the principle of there being such a crowd is the same in both
cases. The great mass of spectators see in Mr. Brooke a man of fine
physical endowments, and a very powerful voice. They are not judges of
good acting; they cannot see whether or not an actor understands his
part; they have no opinion on the subject at all: but Mr. Brooke has a
name, and they run to hear him. It is the same with Dr. Cumming. The
intrepid females, the genteel young men, who go to hear him, are no more
judges of learning and ability than any other miscellaneous London mob:
but Dr. Cumming has a name. Carriages with strawberry leaves deposit
high-born ladies at his chapel. Lord John Russell goes to hear him.
Actually, he has preached before the Queen. So the chapel is crammed, as
if there was something wonderful to see and hear.
I confess I am of a contrary opinion. I cannot--to quote the common
phrase of religious society--'sit under' Dr. Cumming. I weary of his Old
Testament and his high-dried Scotch theology, and his Romanist
antipathies, and his Millennial hopes. 'You tell me, Doctor,' I would
say to him, 'that I am a sinner--born in sin, and shapen in
iniquity--that I am utterly and completely bad. Why not, then, speak to
me so as to do me good? I care nothing for the Pope! Immured as I am in
the business of the world--with difficulty earning my daily bread--I have
little time to think of the Millennium, or to discuss whether the Jewish
believer, some two thousand years ago, saw in his system anything beyond
it and above it--anything brighter and better than itself. The student,
in his cell, may discuss such questions--as the schoolmen of the middle
ages sought to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a
needle--but I, and men like me, need to be ministered to in another way.
Men who preach to me must not wrestle with extinct devils, but with real
ones. What I want is light upon the living present, not upon the dead
and buried past. Around me are the glare and splendour of life--beauty's
smile--ambition's dream--the gorgeousness of wealth--the pride of power.
Are these things worth living for? Is there anything for man higher and
better? and, if so, how can I drown the clamour of their seductive
voices, and escape into a more serene and purer air?' And how am I to
know that these professing Christians, so well dressed, listening with
such complacency while Dr. Cumming demolishes Cardinal Wiseman--are
better than other men? As tradesmen, are they upright? As members of
the commonwealth, are they patriotic? As religious men, are their lives
pure and unspotted from the world? I want not theories of grace, but
what shall make men practically do what they theoretically believe. It
is a human world we live in. Every heart you meet is trembling with
passion, or bursting with desire. On every tongue there is some tale of
joy or woe. If, by mysterious ties, I am connected with the Infinite and
Divine, by more palpable ties I am connected with what is finite and
human: and I want the preacher to remember that fact. The Hebrew Christ
did it, and the result was that his enemies were constrained to confess
that 'never man spake like this man,' and that the 'common people heard
him gladly.'
Dr. Cumming preaches as if you had no father or mother, no sister or
brother, no wife or child, no human struggles and hopes--as if the great
object of preaching was to fill you with Biblical pedantry, and not to
make the man better, wiser, stronger than before: perhaps it may be
because this is the case that the church is so thronged. You need not
tremble lest your heart be touched, and your darling sin withered up by
the indignant oratory of the preacher. He is far away in Revelation or
in Exodus, telling us what the first man did, or the last man will do;
giving you, it may be, a creed that is scriptural and correct, but that
does not interest you--that has neither life, nor love, nor power--as
well adapted to empty space as to this gigantic Babel of competition, and
crime, and wrong, in which I live and move.
The service at Crown Court Chapel is very long; the Scotch measure the
goodness of their services by their length. You must be well drilled if
you are not weary before it is over. The chapel itself is a singular
place. You enter by an archway. The gallery steps are outside; the
shape is broad and short; a galley runs on three sides, and in one is
placed the pulpit, which boasts, what is now so rare, a sounding-board.
As no space is left unoccupied, the chapel must contain a large number of
persons. The singing is very beautiful--better, I think, than that of
any other place of worship in London. There is some sense in that, for
the Scottish version of the Psalms of King David is not one whit more
refined, or less bald and repulsive, than that of our own Sternhold and
Hopkins, or Tate. But, nevertheless, the singing is very beautiful. Dr.
Cumming himself looks not a large man, but a sturdy determined man, with
good intellectual power, and that power well cultivated, but all in the
dry Scotch way; though so little does the Doctor's speech betray him,
that you would scarcely notice that his pronunciation was that of a
native of the 'Land of Cakes.' He is young-looking, his hair is dark,
and his complexion is brown. As he wears spectacles, of course, I can
say nothing about his eyes; or, as he wears a gown and bands, as to the
robustness of his frame. He looks agile and well set; strong in the
faith, and master of texts innumerable wherewith to support that faith.
A polished, graceful, self-contained, and self-satisfied man. He may be
a man of large heart and sympathies; but he has not the appearance of
one. He rather seems a man great in small things, tediously proper and
scrupulously correct--a great gun, I imagine, at an Evangelical
tea-table--and, with his ultra Protestantism (he is a countryman of Miss
Cuninghame's, and every Scotchman hates Popery as a certain personage
does holy water), he is a tremendous favourite at Exeter Hall. Indeed, I
do not know that there is at this time a more popular performer on those
boards, and he is a favourite with people whose favour pecuniarily is
worth something--with people who can afford to buy his books. Hence,
also, he is one of the most copious religious writers of our day.
It is vain to attempt to give an account of the Doctor's works, when
'every month brings forth a new one:' their name is Legion. There is
only one man who can be compared with Dr. Cumming in this respect, and
that is that notoriously hardened sinner, Mr. G. P. R. James.
I read in one place of Dr. Cumming that 'he has everything in his favour;
his singularly handsome person, his brilliant flow of poetic thoughts,
his striking talents, and his burning Protestant zeal, combine to make
him one of the most interesting speakers of the day; and when we add to
all this, his modest simplicity and humility (qualities as becoming in
one of his years, as they are rare in one of his powers), we need not
wonder that he is generally admired and beloved.' Another admirer
writes: 'When hearing Dr. Cumming, one is reminded of the description of
"Silver-tongued Smith," one of the celebrated preachers of Elizabeth's
time. But though the subject of our sketch is truly silver-tongued, the
solemnity, at times, almost the severity, of his manner preserves him
from anything like tameness. Perhaps there is not a firmer or more
fearless preacher than the Doctor--a fact which has been proved over and
over again of late, as his Romish antagonists have found to their cost.
Dr. Cumming's manner in the pulpit is pleasing. He seldom uses any other
action than a gentle waving of the hand, or the turning from one part of
his congregation to the other. He is no cushion-thumper, and depends for
effect more upon what he says than on the graces of action. Not that he
is ungraceful at all--far from that: what we mean is, that he is in this
respect directly the opposite of those pulpit fops who flourish their
bordered pieces of inspiration-lawn in the pulpit, and throw themselves
into such attitudes as compels one to believe that the looking-glass is
almost as essential a preparation for the pulpit as the Bible itself.'
Dr. Cumming is a warm supporter of Establishments, a sworn foe of
liberalism, which he declares to have 'charity on its mantle, and hell in
its heart.' He is a good hater. These things may fit him to be the idol
of Crown Court, but do little more. The large vision which looks before
and after, which makes man a philosopher, which teaches him to see the
good in all human developments of thought and action, and calmly and
lovingly to abide their legitimate results, has been denied him. The
consequence is, he has sunk into the apostle of a coterie, and 'gives up
to party what was meant for mankind.'