and a distinguished university professor who by some accident was staying
with myself. The professor had expressed himself as much interested
in the conditions of rural life and was lamenting to me the dissidence
which he thought was growing up between the clergy and their flocks. I
told him about Mr. Woodward and took him to tea. The professor with a
courteous frankness attacked Mr. Woodward on the same point. He said
that he believed that the raising of theological and clerical standards
had had the effect of turning the clergy into a class, enthusiastic, no
doubt, but interested in a small circle of things to which they attached
extreme importance, though they were mostly traditional or antiquarian.
He said that they were losing their hold on English life, and inclined
not so much to uphold a scrupulous standard of conduct, as to enforce a
preoccupation in doctrinal and liturgical questions, interesting enough,
but of no practical importance. Mr. Woodward did not contradict him; the
professor, warming to his work, said that the ordinary village sermon
was of a futile kind, and possessed no shrewdness or definiteness as a
rule. Mr. Woodward asked him to expand the idea—what ought the clergy
to preach about? “Well,” said the professor, “they ought to touch on
politics—not party politics, of course, but social measures, historical
developments and so forth. I was present,” he went on, “some years ago
when, in a country town, the Bishop of the diocese preached a sermon at
the parish church, the week after the French had been defeated at Sedan,
and the Bishop made not the slightest allusion to the event, though
it was the dominant idea in the minds of the sensible members of the
congregation; the clergy ought not only to preach politics—they ought to
talk politics—they ought to show that they have the same interests as
their people.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Woodward, leaning forward, “I agree with much that
you say, Professor—very much; but you look at things in a different
perspective. We don’t think much about politics here in the country—home
politics a little, but foreign politics not at all. When we hear of
rumours of war we are not particularly troubled;” (with a smile) “and
when I have to try and encourage an old bedridden woman who is very much
bewildered with this world, and has no imagination left to deal with
the next—and who is sadly afraid of her long journey in the dark—when I
have to try and argue with a naughty boy who has got some poor girl into
trouble, and doesn’t feel in his heart that he has done a selfish or a
brutal thing, am I to talk to them about the battle of Sedan, or even
about the reform of the House of Lords?”
The professor smiled grimly, but perhaps a little foolishly, and did not
take up the challenge. But Mr. Woodward said to me a few days afterwards:
“I was very much interested in your friend the professor—a most amiable,
and, I should think, unselfish person. How good of him to interest
himself in the parish clergy! But you know, my dear boy, the intellectual
atmosphere is a difficult one to live in—a man needs some very human
trial of his own to keep him humble and sane. I expect the professor
wants a long illness!” (smiling) “No, I dare say he is very good in his
own place, and does good work for Christ, but he is a man clothed in soft
raiment in these wilds, and you and I must do all we can to prevent him
from rewriting the Lord’s Prayer. I am afraid he thinks there is a sad
absence of the intellectual element in it. It must be very distressing to
him to think how often it is used; and yet there is not an allusion to
politics in it—not even to comprehensive measures of social reform.”
[Sidenote: MR. WOODWARD’S SERMONS]
Mr. Woodward’s sermons were always a pleasure to me. He told me once that
he had a great dislike to using conventional religious language; and
thus, though he was in belief something of a High Churchman, he was so
careful to avoid catch-words or party formulas that few people suspected
how high the doctrine was. I took an elderly evangelical aunt to church
once, when Mr. Woodward preached a sermon on baptismal regeneration of
rather an advanced type. I shuddered to think of the denunciations which
I anticipated after church; indeed, I should not have been surprised if
my aunt had gathered up her books—she was a masculine personage—and swept
out of the building. Both on the contrary, she listened intently, rather
moist-eyed, I thought, to the discourse, and afterwards spoke to me with
extreme emphasis of it as a real _gospel_ sermon. Mr. Woodward wrote his
sermons, but often I think departed from the text. He discoursed with a
simple tranquillity of manner that made each hearer feel as if he was
alone with him. His allusions to local events were thrilling in their
directness and pathos; and in passing, I may say that he was the only
man I ever heard who made the giving out of notices, both in manner and
matter, into a fine art. On Christmas Day he used to speak about the
events of the year; one winter there was a bad epidemic of diphtheria in
the village, and several children died. The shepherd on one of the farms,
a somewhat gruff and unsociable character, lost two little children on
Christmas Eve. Mr. Woodward, unknown to me at the time, had spent the
evening with the unhappy man, who was almost beside himself with grief.
[Sidenote: THE CHRISTMAS SERMON]
In the sermon he began quite simply, describing the scene of the first
Christmas Eve in a few picturesque words. Then he quoted Christina
Rossetti’s Christmas Carol—
“In the bleak mid-winter
Wintry winds made moan,”
dwelling on the exquisite words in a way which brought the tears to my
eyes. When he came to the lines describing the gifts made to Christ—
“If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,”
he stopped dead for some seconds. I feel sure that he had not thought of
the application before. Then he looked down the church and said—
“I spent a long time yesterday in the house of one who follows the
calling of a shepherd among us.... He has given _two_ lambs to Christ.”
There was an uncontrollable throb of emotion in the large congregation,
and I confess that the tears filled my eyes. Mr. Woodward went on—
“Yes, it has pleased God to lead him through deep waters; but I do
not think that he will altogether withhold from him something of his
Christmas joy. He knows that they are safe with Christ—safe with Christ,
and waiting for him there—and that will be more and more of a joy, and
less and less of a sorrow as the years go on, till God restores him the
dear children He has taken from him now. We must not forget him in our
prayers.”
Then after a pause he resumed. There was no rhetoric or oratory about it;
but I have never in my life heard anything so absolutely affecting and
moving—any word which seemed to go so straight from heart to heart; it
was the genius of humanity.
A few months after this Mr. Woodward died, as he always wished to die,
quite suddenly, in his chair. He had often said to me that he did hope he
wouldn’t die in bed, with bed-clothes tucked under his chin, and medicine
bottles by him; he said he was sure he would not make an edifying end
under the circumstances. His heart had long been weak; and he was found
sitting with his head on his breast as though asleep, smiling to himself.
In one hand his pen was still clasped. I have never seen such heartfelt
grief as was shown at his funeral. His sister did not survive him a
month. The week after her death I walked up to the rectory, and found
the house being dismantled. Mr. Woodward’s books were being packed into
deal cases; the study was already a dusty, awkward room. It was strange
to think of the sudden break-up of that centre of beautiful life and
high example. All over and done! Yet not all; there are many grateful
hearts who do not forget Mr. Woodward; and what he would have thought
and what he would have said are still the natural guide for conduct in
a dozen simple households. If death must come, it was so that he would
have wished it; and Mr. Woodward could be called happy in life and death
perhaps more than any other man I have known.
20
[Sidenote: MR. CUTHBERT]
Who was to be Mr. Woodward’s successor? For some weeks we had lived
in a state of agitated expectancy. One morning, soon after breakfast,
a card was brought to me—The Rev. Cyril Cuthbert. I went down to the
drawing-room and found my mother talking to a young clergyman, who rose
at my entrance, and informed me that he had been offered the living, and
that he had ventured to call and consult me, adding that he had been
told I was all-powerful in the parish. I was distinctly prepossessed by
his appearance, and perhaps by his appreciation, however exaggerated,
of my influence; he was a small man with thin features, but bronzed
and active; his hair was parted in the middle and lay in wiry waves on
each side. He had small, almost feminine, hands and feet, and rather a
delicate walk. He was entirely self-possessed, very genial in talk, with
a pleasant laugh; at the same time he gave me an impression of strength.
He was dressed in very old and shabby clothes, of decidedly clerical
cut, but his hat and coat were almost green from exposure to weather.
Yet he was obviously a gentleman. I gathered that he was the son of a
country squire, that he had been at a public school and Oxford, and that
he had been for some years a curate in a large manufacturing town. As we
talked my impressions became more definite; the muscles of the jaw were
strongly developed, and I began to fancy that the genial manner concealed
a considerable amount of self-will. He had the eye which I have been
led to associate with the fanatic, of a certain cold blue, shallow and
impenetrable, which does not let you far into the soul, but meets you
with a bright and unshrinking gaze.
At his request I accompanied him to church and vicarage. At the latter,
he said to me frankly that he was a poor man, and that he would not be
able to keep it up in the same style—“Indeed,” he said with a smile, “I
don’t think it would be right to do so.” I said that I didn’t think it
very material, but that as a matter of fact I thought that the perfection
of Mr. Woodward’s arrangements had had a humanising influence in the
place. At the church he was pleased at the neatness and general air of
use that the building had; but he looked with disfavour at the simple
arrangements of the chancel. I noticed that he bowed and murmured a few
words of prayer when he entered the building. When we had examined the
church he said to me, “To speak frankly, Mr. ——,—I don’t know what your
views are,—but what is the church tone of this place like?” I said that
I hardly knew how to describe it—the church certainly played a large
part in the lives of the parishioners; but that I supposed that Mr.
Woodward would perhaps be called old-fashioned. “Yes, indeed,” sighed Mr.
Cuthbert, looking wearily round and shrugging his shoulders. “The altar
indeed is distinctly dishonouring to the Blessed Sacrament—no attempt at
Catholic practice or tradition. There is not, I see, even a second altar
in the church; but, please God, if He sends me here we will change all
that.”
Before we left the church he fell on his knees and prayed with absolute
self-absorption.
When we got outside he said to me: “May I tell you something? I have just
returned from a visit to a friend of mine, a priest at A——; he has got
everything—simply everything; he is a noble fellow—if I could but hope to
imitate him.”
A—— was, I knew, a great railway depôt, and thinking that Mr. Cuthbert
did not fully understand how very rural a parish we were, I said, “I am
afraid there is not very much scope here for great activity. We have a
reading-room and a club, but it has never been a great success—the people
won’t turn out in the evenings.”
“Reading-rooms and clubs,” said Mr. Cuthbert in high disdain; “I did not
mean that kind of thing at all—I was thinking of things much nearer the
heart of the people. Herries has incense and lights, the eucharistic
vestments, he reserves the sacrament—you may see a dozen people kneeling
before the tabernacle whenever you enter the church—he has often said to
me that he doesn’t know how he could keep hope alive in his heart in the
midst of such vice and sin, if it were not for the thought of the Blessed
Presence, in the midst of it, in the quiet church. He has a sisterhood in
his parish too under a very strict rule. They never leave the convent,
and spend whole days in intercession. The sacrament has been reserved
there for fifteen years. Then confession is urged plainly upon all, and
it is a sight to make one thrill with joy to see the great rough navvies
bending before Herries as he sits in his embroidered stole, they telling
him the secrets of their hearts, and he bringing them nearer to the joy
of their Lord. Some of the workmen in the parish are the most frequent
at confession. Oh! he is a noble fellow; he tells me he has no time for
visiting—positively no time at all. His whole day is spent in deepening
the devotional life—the hours are recited in the church—he gives up ten
hours every week to the direction of penitents, and he must spend, I
should say, two hours a day at his _priedieu_. He says he could not have
strength for his work if he did not. His sermons are beautiful; he speaks
from the heart without preparation. He says he has learnt to trust the
Spirit, and just says what is given him to say.
“Then he is devoted to his choristers, and they to him; it is a privilege
to see him surrounded by them in their little cassocks while he leads
them in a simple meditation. And he is a man of a deeply tender spirit—I
have seen him, dining with his curates, burst into tears at the mere
mention of the name of the dear Mother of Christ. I ought not to trouble
you with all this—I am too enthusiastic! But the sight of him has put
it into my heart more than anything else I have ever known to try and
build up a really Catholic centre, which might do something to leaven the
heavy Protestantism which is the curse of England. One more thing which
especially struck me; it moved me to tears to hear one of his great rough
fellows—a shunter, I believe, who is often overthrown by the demon of
strong drink—talk so simply and faithfully of the Holy Mass: what rich
associations that word has! Nothing but eternity will ever reveal the
terrible loss which the disuse of that splendid word has inflicted on our
unhappy England.”
I was too much bewildered by this statement to make any adequate reply,
but said to console him that I thought the parish was wonderfully
good, and prepared to look upon the clergyman as a friend. “Yes,” said
Mr. Cuthbert, “that is all very well for a beginning, but it must
be something more than that. They must revere him as steward of the
mysteries of God—they must be ready to open their inmost heart to him;
they must come to recognise that it is through him, as a consecrated
priest of Christ, that the highest spiritual blessings can reach them:
that he alone can confer upon them the absolution which can set them free
from the guilt of sin.”
I felt that I ought not to let Mr. Cuthbert think that I was altogether
of the same mind with him in these matters and so I said: “Well, you must
remember that all this is unfamiliar here; Mr. Woodward did not approve
of confession—he held that habitual confession was weakening to the moral
nature, and encouraged the most hysterical kind of egotism—though no
one was more ready to listen to any one’s troubles and to give the most
loving advice in real difficulties. But as to the point about absolution,
I think he felt, and I should agree with him, that God only can forgive
sin, and that the clergy are merely the human interpreters of that
forgiveness; it is so much more easy to apprehend a great moral principle
like the forgiveness of sin from another human being than to arrive at it
in the silence of one’s own troubled heart.”
Mr. Cuthbert smiled, not very pleasantly, and said, “I had hoped you
would have shared my views more warmly—it is a disappointment! seriously,
the power to bind and loose conferred on the Apostles by Christ
Himself—does that mean nothing?”
“Yes, indeed,” I said, “the clergy are the accredited ministers in the
matter, of course, and they have a sacred charge, but as to powers
conferred upon the Apostles, it seems that other powers were conferred on
His followers which they no longer possess—they were to drink poison with
impunity, handle venomous snakes, and even to heal the sick.”
“Purely local and temporary provisions,” said Mr. Cuthbert, “which we
have no doubt forfeited—if indeed we have forfeited them—by want of
faith. The other was a gift for time and eternity.”
“I don’t remember,” I said, “that any such distinction was laid down in
the Gospel—but in any case you would not maintain, would you, that they
possessed the power _proprio motu_? To push it to extremes, that if a man
was absolved by a priest, God’s forgiveness was bound to follow, even if
the priest were deceived as to the reality of the penitence which claimed
forgiveness.”
Mr. Cuthbert frowned and said, “To me it is not a question of theorising.
It is a purely practical matter. I look upon it in this way—if a man is
absolved by a priest, he is sure he is forgiven; if he is not, he cannot
be sure of forgiveness.”
“I should hold,” I said, “that it was purely a matter of inner penitence.
But I did not mean to entangle you in a theological argument—and I hope
we are at one on essential matters.”
As we walked back I pointed out to him some of my favourite views—the
long back of the distant downs; the dark forest tract that closed the
northern horizon—but he looked with courteous indifference: his heart was
full of Catholic tradition.
We heard a few days after that he had accepted the living, and we asked
him to come and stay with us while he was getting into the vicarage,
which he was furnishing with austere severity. Mr. Woodward’s pleasant
dark study became a somewhat grim library, with books in deal shelves,
carpeted with matting and with a large deal table to work at. Mr.
Cuthbert dwelt much on the thought of sitting there in a cassock with a
tippet, but I do not think he had any of the instincts of a student—it
was rather the _mise-en-scène_ that pleased him. A bedroom became an
oratory, with a large ivory crucifix. The dining-room he called his
refectory, and he had a scheme at one time of having two young men to do
the housework and cooking, which fortunately fell through, though they
were to have had cassocks with cord-girdles, and to have been called
lay brothers. On the other hand he was a very pleasant visitor, as long
as theological discussions were avoided. He was bright, gay, outwardly
sympathetic, full of a certain kind of humour, and with all the ways of
a fine gentleman. The more I disagreed with him the more I liked him
personally.
One evening after dinner, as we sat smoking—he was a great smoker—we had
a rather serious discussion. I said to him that I really should like to
understand what his theory of church work was.
[Sidenote: CATHOLIC TRADITION]
“It is all summed up in two phrases,” said Mr. Cuthbert. “Catholic
practice—Catholic tradition. I hold that the Reformation inflicted
a grievous blow upon this country. To break with Rome was almost
inevitable, I admit, because of the corruption of doctrine that was
beginning; but we need not have thrown over all manner of high and holy
ways and traditions, solemn accessories of worship, tender assistances
to devotion, any more than the Puritans were bound to break statues and
damage stained glass windows.”
“Quite so,” I said; “but where does this Catholic tradition come from?”
“From the Primitive Church,” said Mr. Cuthbert. “As far back as we can
trace the history of church practice we find these, or many of these,
exquisite ceremonies, which I for one think it a solemn duty to try and
restore.”
“But after all,” I said, “they are of human origin, are they not? You
would not say that they have a divine sanction?”
“Well,” said Mr. Cuthbert, “their sanction is practically divine. We read
that in the last days spent by our Lord in His glorified nature on the
earth, He ‘spake to them of the things concerning the Kingdom of God.’
I myself think it is only reasonable to suppose that He was laying down
the precise ceremonial that He wished should attend the worship of His
Kingdom. I do not think that extravagant.”
“But,” I said, “was not the whole tenor of His teaching against such
ceremonial precision? Did He not for His Sacraments choose the simplest
and humblest actions of daily life—eating and drinking? Was He not always
finding fault with the Pharisees for forgetting spiritual truth in their
zeal for tradition and practice?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Cuthbert, “for _forgetting_ the weightier matters of the
law; but He approved of their ceremonial. He said: ‘These ought ye to
have done, and not to have left the other undone.’”
“I believe myself,” I said, “that He felt they should have obeyed their
conscience in the matter; but surely the whole of the teaching of the
Gospel is to loose human beings from tyranny of detail, and to teach them
to live a simple life on great principles?”
“I cannot agree,” said Mr. Cuthbert. “The instinct for reverence, for the
reverent and seemly expression of spiritual feeling, for the symbolic
representation of spiritual feeling, for the symbolic representation of
divine truths is a depreciated one, but a true one; and this instinct He
graciously defined, fortified, and consecrated; and I believe that the
Church was following the true guidance of the Spirit in the matter, when
it slowly built up the grand and massive fabric of Catholic practice and
tradition.”
“But,” I said, “who are the Church? There are a great many people who
feel the exact opposite of what you maintain—and true Christians too.”
“They are grievously mistaken,” said Mr. Cuthbert, “and suffer an
irreparable loss.”
“But who is to decide?” I said, a little nettled.
“A General Œcumenical Council would be competent to do so,” said Mr.
Cuthbert.
“Do you mean of the Anglican Communion?” I said.
“Oh dear, no,” said Mr. Cuthbert. “The Anglican Communion indeed! No;
such a Council must have representatives of all Churches who have
received and maintain the Divine succession.”
“But,” said I, “you must know that the thing is impossible. Who could
summon such a Council, and who would attend it?”
“That is not my business,” said Mr. Cuthbert; “I do not want any such
Council. I am sure of my position; it is only you and others who wish
to sacrifice the most exquisite part of Christian life who need such a
solution. I am content with what I know; and humbly and faithfully I
shall attempt as far as I can to follow the dictates of my conscience in
the matter to endeavor to bring it home to the consciences of my flock.”
I felt I could not carry the argument further without loss of temper; but
it was surprising to me how I continued to like, and even to respect, the
man.
He has not, it must be confessed, obtained any great hold on the parish.
Mr. Woodward’s quiet, delicate, fatherly work has gone; but Mr. Cuthbert
has a few women who attend confession, and he is content. He has adorned
the church according to his views, and the congregation think it rather
pretty. They do not dislike his sermons, though they do not understand
them; and as for his vestments, they regard them with a mild and somewhat
bewildered interest. They like to see Mr. Cuthbert, he is so pleasant
and good-humoured. He is assiduous in his visiting, and very assiduous
in holding daily services, which are entirely unattended. He has no
priestly influence; and I fear it would pain him deeply if he knew that
his social influence is considerable. Personally, I find him a pleasant
neighbour and highly congenial companion. We have many agreeable talks;
and when I am in that irritable tense mood which is apt to develop in
solitude, and which can only be cleared by an ebullition of spleen,
I walk up to the vicarage and have a theological argument. It does
neither myself nor Mr. Cuthbert any harm, and we are better friends than
ever—indeed, he calls me quite the most agreeable Erastian he knows.
21
[Sidenote: THE RECLUSE]
Let me try to sketch the most Arcadian scholar I have ever seen or
dreamed of; they are common enough in books; the gentleman of high
family, with lustrous eyes and thin veined hands, who sits among musty
folios—Heaven knows what he is supposed to be studying, or why they need
be musty—who is in some very nebulous way believed to watch the movements
of the heavens, who takes no notice of his prattling golden-haired
daughter, except to print an absent kiss upon her brow—if there are such
persons they are hard to encounter.