IV

It is not to be supposed that Father Jinks achieved his heart's desire

without opposition, and he verified in his experience the fact that a

man's bitterest foes are those of his own household. He was opposed by

the people's churchwarden, who would not go elsewhere, declaring that

he had been in St Agatha's before Jinks was born--which was not the

case--and would be after Jinks had gone, which turned out sadly true. He

was harassed by “aggrieved parishioners,” who declared by petitions in

all quarters that they could no longer worship in St Agatha's, and that

what with daily services, fine music, and decorations, the place was

little better than a Papist chapel. His breakfast-table had daily one

or two anonymous letters reminding Jinks of his ordination vows, and

accusing him of perjury, insinuating charges against his moral character

and threatening exposure, quoting texts regarding the condition of the

unconverted and the doom of hypocrites. He was dragged before all kinds

of Courts, this one little man, and received every form of censure and

admonition; he was ordered to prison, and left the Vicarage one evening

in a cab, while the choir boys, led by Bags, wanted to fight the

officer. And when all these measures produced no effect, more

forcible measures were taken to express the mind of the people and to

re-establish the Reformation in the parish of St Agatha's. A leader

was raised up in a gentleman who had earned an uncertain living by

canvassing for the _Kings of England_ in forty-two parts, in selling a

new invention in gas-burners, in replying to infidels in Hyde Park, and

in describing the end of the world with the aid of a magic lantern. This

man of varied talents saw it to be his duty--and who can judge

another man's conscience?--to attend St Agatha's one Sunday forenoon,

accompanied by a number of fellow-Protestants, who, owing to the

restriction of the licensing laws, were out of employment at that hour,

and they expressed their theological views during service in a very

frank and animated fashion. Bigger men than Jinks might have been upset

by the turmoil and menaces; but it shows what a spirit may dwell in

small bulk, that this shy modest man did not stutter once that morning,

and seemed indeed unconscious of the “Modern Luther's” presence;

and after the floor of the church had been washed on Monday no trace

remained that a testimony had been lifted up against the disguised

Jesuit who was corrupting St Agatha's. Once only did Jinks publicly

reply to the hurricane of charges which beat upon him during his short,

hard service, and that was when he was accused of having introduced the

confessional, with results which it was alleged were already well known

in the district, and which would soon reduce its morality to the social

level of the south of Ireland. A week afterwards Jinks explained in

a sermon which he had rewritten three times: (1) That the practice of

confession was, in his poor judgment, most helpful to the spiritual life

by reminding us of the sins which do most easily beset us, and their

horrible guilt before God; (2) That it was really the intention of the

Church of England that her children should have this benefit; and (3)

That he, John James Jinks, a duly ordained priest of the same Church,

had power, under conditions, to hear confessions and declare the

forgiveness of sins to all true penitents. Thereafter, he went on

to state that he had not introduced confession as a practice in St

Agatha's, because he had never been trained in confessional theology,

because a confessor required authority from his bishop, and this the

bishop would not give; and, finally, it seemed to him that any confessor

must be a priest with a special knowledge of life, and of conspicuous

holiness; and, as they knew well, he was neither, but only an ignorant

and frail man, who was more conscious of his deficiencies every day,

and who earnestly besought the aid of their prayers. This sermon was

reported in the _Islington Mercury_, which circulated largely amongst

us, and called forth an ingenious reply from the “Modern Luther,” who

pointed out that if Mr. Jinks had not set up a confessional box in St

Agatha's Church, it was only because his (the “Modern Luther's”) eye

was upon him; that the confessional could likely be discovered in the

Vicarage; that in so far as Mr. Jinks was not telling the truth he would

receive absolution from the Jesuits, and that he very likely had already

received a licence to tell as many lies as he saw would help his cause.

Men, however, do count for something even in religious controversy,

and the very people who had no belief in Jinks' doctrine could see some

difference between his patient, charitable self-sacrificing life and the

career of a windbag like the “Modern Luther,” and no one in the last year

of his life accused Jinks of falsehood.

During all these troubled days he never lost his temper, or said bitter

things: he believed, as he once told me in all modesty, that if he

suffered it was for his sins, and that persecution was only a call to

harder labour; and it appeared afterwards that he had gone out of his

way to do a good turn to certain of his bitterest enemies. Indeed, I am

now certain that they did not injure him at all; but one is also quite

as certain that he was hindered and made ridiculous by certain of

his own supporters. Certain young women of uncertain age who had been

district visitors and carried tracts under the revered Canon, or had

been brought up in various forms of Dissent, responded with enthusiasm

to the Catholic Reformation. They wore large gold (or gilt) crosses, and

were careful to use heavily crossed prayer-books; they attended early

celebration, and were horrified at people taking the sacrament not

fasting; they not only did obeisance to the altar, where there was no

sacrament, and bowed at the name of Jesus, and crossed themselves in a

very diligent and comprehensive fashion, but invented forms of devotion

which even Jinks could not comprehend, and so scandalized the old clerk,

who stuck by St. Agatha's, that he asked them one day during service if

they were ill, and suggested that they should leave the church before

things came to the worst Personally, as a close observer of this drama,

I had no sympathy with the ill-natured suggestion that these devout

females were moved by the fact that the priest of St Agatha's was

unmarried, because no man was ever more careful in his intercourse with

the other sex than my friend, and because this kind of woman--till she

marries, and with modifications afterwards--has a mania for ritual and

priests. This band, who called themselves the Sisters of St Agatha, and

severely tried our unsentimental district, were a constant embarrassment

to Jinks. They made the entire attendance at the daily services; they

insisted on cleaning the chancel on their knees; they fluttered round

the confused little man in the street; they could hardly be kept out of

the Vicarage; they talked of nothing but saints' days and offices and

vestments, till Jinks, the simplest and honestest of men, was tempted,

for his sake and their own salvation, to entreat them to depart and

return whence they had come.

V

The strongest and most honourable opponent the Vicar had was my other

friend, Pastor Jump, who would not condescend to the methods or company

of the “Modern Luther,” but who was against both Jinks and Jinks' Church,

whether it was Low, High, Broad, or anything else, on grounds of reason

and conscience. He did not believe in creeds, whether they were made in

Rome or Geneva, and considered a Presbyter just a shade better than

a priest His one book of theology was the Bible, which he knew from

Genesis to Revelation in the English Version (he also knew far more

about the Hebrew and Greek than the Canon did), and he found his

ecclesiastical model in the Acts of the Apostles. It was indeed the

Pastor's firm conviction that the Christian Church had only had two

periods of purity in her history--one under the charge of the Apostle

Paul, and the other under the Puritans; and that if, during her whole

history, bishops and such-like people had been replaced by Puritan

ministers, it would have been much better for Christianity and for the

world. His idea of a Christian was a person who knew the day that he had

been converted, and who afterwards had been baptized; and of the Church,

that it was so many of these people with a pastor to teach them. He

detested Established Churches, priests, and liturgies, as well as the

House of Lords, capitalists, and all privileged persons. His radicalism

was however tempered by a profound belief in himself and his own

opinions. He was fond of insisting on the rights of the masses; but

when the working people wished to have the Park open on Sunday that they

might walk there with their children, the Pastor fought them tooth and

nail, and he regarded their desire to see pictures on Sunday as the

inspiration of Satan. No man was ever more eloquent upon the principles

of religious liberty, but he would have put an infidel into prison

without compunction and he drave forth a deacon from his own

congregation with contumely, who held unsound views on the Atonement The

tyranny of the Papacy was a favourite theme at Ebenezer, as well as the

insolence of priests; but every one knew that Pastor Jump as Pope was

infallible without the aid of any Council, and that his little finger

was heavier in personal rule than both Jinks' arms. When the Pastor,

who had the voice of a costermonger and the fist of a prize-fighter,

was carried away at a Liberation Society meeting by his own undoubted

eloquence, and described himself as a conscientious Dissenter, despised

by the proud priests of the Anglican Church, and next day one saw Jinks,

thinner than ever, hurrying along the street, and concealing beneath

his shabby cloak some dainty for a sick child, then one had a quite

convincing illustration of the power and utility of rhetoric.

Upon occasion the Pastor felt it his duty to depart from his usual

course of evangelical doctrine, and to enlighten his people on some

historical subject and the district was once shaken by a discourse on

Oliver Cromwell, whom he compared to Elijah, and whose hatred of the

Baal worship was held up for imitation in our own day. Jinks committed

the one big mistake of his ministry by replying with a sermon on St.

Charles the Blessed Martyr--I think he said St.--which was a very weak

performance, and left the laurels altogether with Ebenezer. It must

indeed be admitted that Jump exactly expressed the mind of an Englishman

of the lower middle class, who understands the Evangelical system and

no other, and likes extempore prayer, with its freedom, variety, warmth,

and surprises, who suspects priests of wishing to meddle with his family

affairs, and dislikes all official pretensions, although willing to be

absolutely ruled by a strong man's personality. Both were extreme

men, and both were needed to express the religious sense of an English

parish. Jump considered the Canon an indefensible humbug, neither one

thing nor another, and the Canon used to pass Jump on the street; but

the Sunday after Jinks' death the Pastor, who had a warm heart in his

big body, and testified of things he had seen, passed a eulogium on the

late Vicar of St Agatha's, so generous and affecting, that beside it

the peeping little sermon preached in St Agatha's by a “Father” of

the “Anglican Friars” was as water to wine. The Pastor declared that

although he did not agree with his doctrine, he knew no man who had

lived nearer his Lord, or had done more good works than the Vicar of St

Agatha's; and that if every priest had been like him, he would never say

a word against the class. The people heard his voice break as he spoke,

and two deacons wiped their eyes, and the angels set down the sermon in

that Book where the record of our controversies is blotted out by their

tears, and our deeds of charity are written in gold.

Perhaps, however, our poor priest suffered most in some ways at the

hands of a handful of Scots who had settled in the parish. They did not

oppose any of his proceedings, for they never condescended to cross the

door of St. Agatha's, and they accepted any extravagances of ritual as

things to be expected of an Episcopalian. Nor had they, like the Pastor,

a hereditary feud with the Anglican Church, for neither they nor their

fathers ever had anything to do with it They were indeed inclined to

believe that the Prayer-Book, where the officiating clergyman is called

a Minister and a Priest alternately, is admirably suited to the English

mind, to which the Almighty has been pleased to deny the gift of logic.

What touched, and (almost) nettled, the little Father was the tacit and

immovable superiority of the Scots, which made conversion impossible,

and even pastoral conversation difficult. It was Jinks' conscientious

conviction that he was responsible for the spiritual charge of all the

people in the parish, and so he visited laboriously among the Scots

schismatics, if haply he might bring them to the true faith, with

mortifying results. Old Andrew MacKittrick seemed to Jinks' innocent

mind a promising case, because Andrew had retired on a pension after

keeping the books of a drysalter's firm for forty years, and now had

nothing to do but argue. In fact, on the Vicar's first visit, the

bookkeeper fairly smacked his lips, seeing whole afternoons of

intellectual diversion before him; and Jinks, who was ever optimistic,

already imagined the responsible-looking figure of the Scot sustaining

a procession. It turned out a lamentable instance of cross-purposes, for

Jinks was burning to prove, with all tenderness, that the Kirk had no

Orders; while the idea that Dr. Chalmers was not a real minister and

Archbishop Sharpe was, seemed to Andrew unworthy of discussion by any

sane person; and Andrew, on his part, was simply longing for some one

to attack Jonathan Edward's _Freedom of the Will,_ while Jinks had never

heard of the book, and was quite blameless of philosophy. After two

conferences, Andrew was sadly convinced of their futility, and would not

waste time on a third.

“Jess wumman,” he said to his housekeeper, rolling himself hurriedly up

in a plaid and lying down on the sofa, “there's that curate body at the

door again; a've nae satisfaction arguin' wi' him, for he's no fit to

tak' up ony serious subject Just say that a'm no feelin' verra weel the

day, and, see here, slip ten shillings into his hand to gie awa', for

he's a fine bit craturie amang the poor, but he's no head for argument.”

With Mrs. Gillespie, who kept lodgings, and was as a mother to two Scots

bank clerks pushing their way up to be managers, Father Jinks was not

more successful, but his discomfiture was of another kind.

“Come in, come in; it's an awfu' day to be oot, an' ye dinna look

strong; na, na, a dinna gang to Saint Agatha's, for ye ken we've a Kirk

o' oor ain, an' a properly ordained minister, but a'm gled to see ye;

a'm thankfu' for my ain preevileges, but a'm no bigoted.

“Sit doon there by the fire an' dry yersel; a cudna manage wi' a

prayer-book masel, but we've had mony advantages in Scotland, and it

suits the English fouk. A hed a cousin' at married an Episcopalian,

and she gied wi' him as long as he lived, though of course it was a

deprivation.

“'A schismatic?'--a've heard the word: they used to misca' the English

bishops that way in the North--an' ye called to warn me. Noo that was

kind, and, of coorse, ye did na know that a sit under Mr. McCaw; but

Losh keep us! ye're juist dreeping; a'll get ye a pair o' the lad's

slippers an' mak ye a warm cup o' tea.

“A hed a laddie juist your age, an' ma heart warms to young men that

are na verra strong. Say awa'; a'll hear ye though a'm in the next room.

There noo, drink up your tea, an' that's short-bread frae Edinburgh,

Let's hear noo aboot yer Kirk; somebody was sayin' that ye carried

on the same antics as the Papists; but a'm no believin' that. Are ye

feelin' warmer noo, ma puir wee mannie?” and the good woman encompassed

Jinks with motherly attentions, but refused to take seriously his

efforts to convert her from the Kirk to the Church. Nor did he think it

an encouraging sign that Mrs. Gillespie pressed him to give her “a

cry” every time he was in the street, and sent him three pots of black

currant jam for his chest The most disappointing encounter was with our

Scots doctor, who had looked into St Agatha's one evening in passing and

found Jinks warning Dissenters of all kinds, among whom the Doctor found

to his amusement that he was included of their doom if they died in

schism. The Doctor's delight reached its height when Jinks, standing

at his full height of five feet four, and looking more than ever like a

dear little boy, opened his arms and invited every wandering prodigal to

return to the bosom of Mother Church.

“Jinksy”--and the Doctor laid hold of the Father next day on the

street--“what sort of nonsense was yon ye were talking in your kirk last

night?

“Hurt my feelings”--as Jinks was explaining that he had only been

declaring the truth, and that he did not wish to offend any one--“it

would take three men of your size to offend me. But I say, Jinksy, do

you ever take a holiday in Scotland? You hope to do some day. Then I'll

give ye a bit of advice: if you ever feel a turr-murring in your inside,

take the first train for Carlisle. Why? Because if you die in Scotland,

you'll die a Dissenter; and then, my little man, you know where you'll

go to”; for the Doctor's hand in humour was heavy, and his style was

that of an elephant crashing through a wood.