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| THE MAKING OF THE BODY. |
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[Illustration: PORTRAITS OF CANON AND MRS. S. A. BARNETT
Painted by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, R.A.; given to them by many
friends, and presented by the Right Honourable Herbert H. Asquith,
K.C., M.P., at Toynbee Hall, on November 20th, 1908.]
PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM
_NEW SERIES_
BY
CANON S. A. BARNETT (THE LATE)
AND
MRS. S. A. BARNETT
_WITH FRONTISPIECE_
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1915
INTRODUCTION.
The first edition of PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM was printed in 1888, the
second in 1894. Now, twenty-one years afterwards, a new series is
issued, but the most important of the two authors, alas! has left the
world, and it therefore falls to me to write the introduction alone.
In selecting the papers for this volume, out of a very great deal of
material, the principle followed has been to print those which deal with
reforms yet waiting to be fully accomplished. It would have been easier
and perhaps pleasanter to have taken the subjects dealt with in the
previous volumes, and by grouping subsequent papers together, have shown
how many of the reforms then indicated as desirable and “practicable,”
had now become accepted and practised. But so to do would not have been
in harmony with our feelings. My husband counted the sin of “numbering
the people” as due to a debased moral outlook, and the contemplation of
“results” as tending to hinder nobler efforts after that which is deeper
than can be calculated. Of him it is truthful to quote “His soul’s wings
never furled”.
The papers have been grouped in subject sections, and though the ideas
have for many years been set forth by him in various publications, in
most instances the writings here reproduced are under six years old. In
a few cases, however, I have used quite an old paper, thinking it gave,
with hopeful vision, thoughts which later lost their freshness as they
became accomplished facts.
The book begins with _The Religion of the People_ and _Cathedral
Reform_, for Canon Barnett held with unvarying certainty that--to quote
his own words--“there is no other end worth reaching than the knowledge
of God, which is eternal life,”--and that “organizations are only
machinery of which the driving power is human love, and of which the
object is the increase of the knowledge of God”. To this test our plans
and undertakings were constantly brought. “Does our work give ‘life’ by
bringing men nearer to God and nearer to one another.” “In the knowledge
of what ‘life’ is, let us put our work to the test.” “Do the Church
Services release divine hopes buried under the burden of daily cares?”
“Do the new buildings refine manners?” “Does higher teaching tend to
higher thoughts about duty?” “Does our relief system help to heal a
broken dignity as well as to comfort a sufferer?” “Do our entertainments
develop powers for enjoying the best in humanity past and present?”
That the Church should be reformed to make it the servant of all who
would lead the higher life, was the hope he cherished throughout many
years spent in strenuous efforts to obtain a social betterment. He
writes: “The great mass of the people, because they stand apart from all
religious communions, may have in them a religious sense, but their
thought of God is not worked through their emotions into their daily
lives. They do not know what they worship, and so do not say with the
psalmist, ‘My soul is athirst for the living god,’ or say with Joseph,
‘How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ The
spiritualization of life being necessary to human peace and happiness,
the problem which is haunting this generation is how to spiritualize the
forces which are shaping the future.”
My husband urged that the reform of the Church would tend to solve that
problem. “The Church by its history and organization has a power no
other agency can wield. If more freedom could be given to its system of
government and services, if it could be made directly expressive of the
highest aspirations of the people, it is difficult to exaggerate the
effect it might have. In every parish a force would be brought to bear
which might kindle thought, so that it would reach out to the highest
object; which might stir love, so that men would forget themselves in
devotion to the whole; and which might create a hope wherein all would
find rest. The first need of the age is an increase of Spirituality, and
the means of obtaining it is a Reformed Church.”
The papers under _Recreation_ might almost as well have been placed in
the Education Section, so strongly did my husband feel that recreation
should educate. Only a few months before his illness he wrote: “The
claim of education is now primarily to fit a child to earn a living, and
therefore he is taught to read and write and learn a trade. But if it
were seen that it is equally important to fit a child to use well his
leisure, many changes would be made.” And such changes he argued would
increase, not lessen, the joy of holidays, an opinion which my
experience as Chairwoman of the Country-side Committee of the Children’s
Country Holiday Fund abundantly supports.
In the Section for _Settlements_ and their work, only three papers will
be found, for so much has been written and spoken of Toynbee Hall and
kindred centres of usefulness, that it seems almost unnecessary to
reproduce the same thoughts. Yet in view of the fact that questions are
often asked as to the genesis of the idea, I have put in one of the
first papers (1884) that my husband wrote after we had had nine years’
experience of the work of University men among the poorest and saddest
people, in which he suggested the scheme of Toynbee Hall, and also a
paper of mine written nine years after its foundation, in which I chat
of the _Beginnings of Toynbee Hall_.
Between the first and the third paper there is a stretch of twenty-one
busy years, 1884-1905, and the article bears the marks of Canon
Barnett’s intense realization of the need of higher education, and his
almost passionate demand for it on behalf of the industrial classes.
“Social Reform,” he writes, “will soon be the all-absorbing interest as
the modern realization of the claims of human nature and the growing
power of the people will not tolerate many of the present conditions of
industrial life.... The well-being of the future depends on the methods
by which reform proceeds. Reforms in the past have often been
disappointing. They have been made in the rights of one class, and have
ended in the assertion of rights over another class. They have been made
by force, and produced reaction. They have been done for the people, not
by the people, and have never been assimilated. The method by which
knowledge and industry may co-operate has yet to be tried, and one way
in which to bring about such co-operation is the way of University
Settlements.”
So many are the changes which affect _Poverty and Labour_, so rapidly
have they come about, and so keen and living an interest did Canon
Barnett feel with every step that the great army of the disinherited
took towards social justice, that it has been difficult to select which
papers on which subject to reprint, but I have chosen the most
characteristic, and also those connected with the reforms which most
influenced character and life. In this Section also some of the many
papers which Canon Barnett wrote on Poor Law Reform have been admitted.
I know that the activities of the Fabian Society and the “Break up of
the Poor Law” organization have rendered some of the ideas familiar, but
many of the Reforms he advocated are not yet accomplished, and to those
who are conversant with the subject, his large, sane, unsensational
statement of the case, as it appeared to him, will be welcome,--all the
more so because for nearly thirty years he was a member of the
Whitechapel Board of Guardians, the Founder of the Poor Law Conferences,
and had both initiated and carried out large administrative reforms. He
also had a very deep and probing tenderness for the character of
individual paupers, and a sensitive shrinking from wounding their
self-respect or lowering the dignity of their humanity, an attitude of
mind which influenced his relation to schemes sometimes made by paper
legislators who considered the poor in “the lump” instead of “one by
one”.
Of the Social Service Section there is but little to say. _The Real
Social Reformer_ contains guiding principles, _The Mission of Music_ is
an interesting and curious output from a man with no ear for tune or
time or harmony, and _The Church on Town Planning_ is but an example of
how eagerly he desired that the Church should guide as well as minister
to the people. _Where Charity Fails_ is another plea that the kindly
intentioned should not injure the character of the recipient, and that
the crucial question, “Is our aim the self-extinction of our
organization,” should be borne in mind by the Governors and enthusiastic
supporters of even the best philanthropic agencies.
The _Educational_ Section might have been much larger, but the papers
selected bear on the three sides of the subject which my husband in
recent years thought to be the most important. _The Equipment of the
Teachers_ but carried on the ideals towards which he ever pressed, from
the days when as a Curate at St. Mary’s, Bryanston Square, he taught the
monitors of the Church Schools, through the days when the first London
Pupil Teachers’ Centre had its birthplace in Toynbee Hall, through the
days when he established the Scholarship Committee whose work was to
select suitable pupil teachers and support them through their University
careers in Oxford and Cambridge, through the days when he rejoiced at
the abandonment of the vast system of pupil teachers,--to the days when
he demanded that teachers for the poorest children should be called from
the cultivated classes, and take their calling as a mission, to be
recognized and remunerated, as an honoured profession undertaken by
those anxious to render Social Service.
The article _Justice to Young Workers_ deals with the vexed question of
Continuation Schools, attendance at which Canon Barnett thought should
be compulsory, since he believed that economic conditions would more
readily change to meet legally established educational demands than was
possible, when, in the interwoven complexity of business, one unwilling
or ten indifferent employers could throw any complicated voluntary
organization out of gear.
The two articles on _Oxford and the Working People_ and _A Race between
Education and Ruin_ only inadequately represent the thought he gave to
the matter, or the deeply rooted, great branched hopes he had entwined
round the reform of the University,--but for many reasons he felt it
wiser to stand aside and watch younger men wield the sword of the pen.
So his writings on this subject are few, but that matters less than
otherwise it would have done, because the group of friends who have
decided to establish “Barnett House” in his memory are among those in
Oxford who shared his work, cared for his plans, and believed in his
visions, created as they were on knowledge of the industrial workers and
the crippling conditions of their lives. So as “Barnett House” is
established and grows strong, and in conjunction with the Toynbee Hall
Social Service Fellowship will bring the University and Industrial
Centres into closer and ever more sympathetic relationship, it is not
past the power of a faith, however puny and wingless, to imagine that
the reforms my husband saw “darkly” may be seen “face to face,” and in
realization show once more how “the Word can be made flesh”.
In some Sections I have included papers from my pen, not because I think
they add much to the value of the book, but because my husband insisted
on the previous volumes of PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM being composed of our
joint writings as well as illustrative of our joint work, or to use his
words in the 1888 volume: “Each Essay is signed by the writer, but in
either case they represent our common thought, as all that has been done
represents our common work”.
HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.
_17 July, 1915._
CONTENTS
PAGE
RELIGION.
1. Religion of the People _Canon Barnett_ 1
2. Cathedral Reform _Canon Barnett_ 17
3. Cathedrals and Modern Needs _Canon Barnett_ 32
RECREATION.
4. The Children’s Country Holiday Fun’ _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 41
5. Recreation of the People _Canon Barnett_ 53
6. Hopes of the Hosts _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 70
7. Easter Monday on Hampstead Heath _Canon Barnett_ 74
8. Holidays and Schooldays _Canon Barnett_ 77
The Failure of Holidays _Canon Barnett_ 83
9. Recreation in Town and Country _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 89
SETTLEMENTS.
10. Settlements of University Men in _Canon Barnett_ 96
Great Towns
11. The Beginnings of Toynbee Hall _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 107
12. Twenty-one Years of University _Canon Barnett_ 121
Settlements
POVERTY AND LABOUR.
13. The Ethics of the Poor Law _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 132
14. Poverty, Its Cause and Cure _Canon Barnett_ 143
15. Babies of the State _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 150
16. Poor Law Reform _Canon Barnett_ 167
17. The Unemployed _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 178
18. The Poor Law Report _Canon Barnett_ 184
19. Widows with Children under the Poor _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 203
Law
20. The Press and Charitable Funds _Canon Barnett_ 215
21. What is Possible in Poor Law Reform _Canon Barnett_ 222
22. Charity up to Date _Canon Barnett_ 230
23. What Labour Wants _Canon Barnett_ 241
24. Our Present Discontents _Canon Barnett_ 246
SOCIAL SERVICE.
25. Of Town Planning _Mrs. S. A. Barnett_ 261
26. The Mission of Music _Canon Barnett_ 276
27. The Real Social Reformer _Canon Barnett_ 288
28. Where Charity Fails _Canon Barnett_ 294
29. Landlordism up to Date _Canon Barnett_ 297
30. The Church and Town Planning _Canon Barnett_ 301
EDUCATION.
31. The Teachers’ Equipment _Canon Barnett_ 307
32. Oxford University and the Working _Canon Barnett_ 314
People
33. Justice to Young Workers _Canon Barnett_ 320
34. A Race between Education and Ruin _Canon Barnett_ 327
SECTION I.
RELIGION.
The Religion of the People--Cathedral Reform--Cathedrals and Modern
Needs.
THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
July, 1907.
[1] From the “Hibbert Journal”. By permission of the Editor.
The people are not to be found in places of worship; “the great masses,”
as Mr. Booth says, “remain apart from all forms of religious communion”.
This statement is admitted as true, but yet another statement is
continually made and also admitted, that “the people are at heart
religious”. What is meant by this latter statement? The people are
certainly not inclined to assert their irreligion. Mr. Henderson, who as
a labour leader speaks with authority, says, “I can find no evidence of
a general desire among the workers to repudiate the principles of
Christianity”. And from my own experience in East London I can testify
to the growth of greater tolerance and of greater respect for the
representatives of religion. Processions with banners and symbols are
now common, parsons are elected on public bodies, and religious
organizations are enlisted in the army of reform. But this feature of
modern conditions is no proof that men and women are at heart religious.
It may only imply a more respectful indifference, a growth in manners
rather than in spiritual life. Does the statement mean that the people
are kind, and moved by the public spirit? This again is true. There is
widely spread kindness: rough lads are generous--one I knew gave up his
place to make room for a mate whose need was greater; weak and weary
women watch all night by a neighbour’s sick-bed; a poor family heartily
welcomes an orphan child; workmen suffer and endure private loss for the
sake of fellow-workmen. The kindness is manifest; but kindness is no
evidence of the presence of religion. Kindness may, indeed, be a deposit
of religion, a habit inherited from forefathers who drew into themselves
love from the Source of love, or it may be something learnt in the
common endurance of hardships. Kindness, generosity, public spirit
cannot certainly be identified with the religion which has made human
beings feel joy in sacrifice and given them peace in the pains of death.
Before, however, we conclude that the non-church-going people are
religious or not religious, it may be well to be clear as to what is
meant by religion. I would suggest as a definition that religion is
thought about the Higher-than-self worked through the emotions into the
acts of daily life. This definition involves three constituents: (1)
There must be use of thought--the power of mental concentration--so
that the mind may break through the obvious and the conventional.
(2) There must be a sense of a not-self which is higher than
self--knowledge of a Most High whose presence convicts the self of
shortcoming and draws it upward. (3) There must be such a realization
of this not-self--such a form, be it image, doctrine, book, or life--as
will warm the emotions and so make the Higher-than-self tell on every
act and experience of daily life. These constituents are, I think, to
be found in all religions. The religious man is he who, knowing what
is higher than himself, so worships this Most High that he is stirred
to do His will in word and deed. The Mohammedan is he who, recognizing
the Highest to be power, worships the All-powerful of Mohammed, whom in
fear he obeys, and with the sword forces others to obey. The Christian
is he who, recognizing the Most High to be love, worships Christ,
and for love of Christ is loving to all mankind. Are these three
constituents of religion to be found among the people?
1. They are using their powers of thought. There is a distinct
disposition to think about unseen things. The Press which circulates
most widely has found copy in what it calls Mr. Campbell’s “New
Theology”. The “Clarion” newspaper has published week after week letters
and articles which deal with the meaning of God. There is increasing
unrest under conditions which crib and cabin the mind; men and women are
becoming conscious of more things in heaven and earth than they can see
and feel and eat. They have a sense that the modern world has become
really larger than the old world, and they resent the teaching which
commits them to one position or calling. They have, too, become
critical, so that, using their minds, they measure the professions of
church-goers. Mr. Haw has collected in his book, “Christianity and the
Working Classes,” many workmen’s opinions on this subject. Witness after
witness shows that he has been thinking, comparing things heard and
things professed with things done. It is not just indifference or
self-indulgence which alienates the people from church or chapel or
mission; it is the insincerity or inconsistency which they themselves
have learnt to detect. Huxley said long ago that the greatest gift of
science to the modern world was not to be found in the discoveries which
had increased its power and its comfort, so much as in the habit of more
scientific thinking which it had made common.
The people share this gift and have become critical. They criticize all
professions, theological or political. They criticize the Bible, and the
very children in the schools have become rationalists. They also
construct, and there are few more interesting facts of the time than the
strength of trades unions, co-operative and friendly societies, which
they have organized. Even unskilled labour, ever since the great Dock
strike, has shown its power to conceive methods of amelioration, and to
combine for their execution. The first constituent of religion, the
activity of thought, is thus present amid the non-church-going
population.
2. This thought is, I think, directed towards a Higher-than-self; it,
that is to say, goes towards goodness. I would suggest a few instances.
Universal homage is paid to the character of Christ. He, because of His
goodness, is exalted above all other reformers, and writers who are
bitter against Christianity reverence His truth and good-will. Popular
opinion respects a good man whatever be his creed or party; it may not
always be instructed as to the contents of goodness, but at elections
its votes incline to follow the lead of the one who seems good, and that
is sometimes the neighbouring publican whose kindness and courtesy are
experienced. In social and political thought the most significant and
strongest mark is the ethical tendency. Few proposals have now a chance
of a hearing if they do not appeal to a sense of justice. Right has won
at any rate a verbal victory over might. In late revivals there has been
much insistence on the need of better living, on temperance, on payment
of debts and fulfilment of duty, and the reprints which publishers find
it worth their while to publish are penny books of Seneca, Marcus
Aurelius, and other writers on morals.
People generally--unconsciously often--have a sense of goodness, or
righteousness, as something which is higher than themselves. They are in
a way dissatisfied with their own selfishness, and also with a state of
society founded on selfishness. There is a widely spread expectation of
a better time which will be swayed by dominant goodness. The people have
thus, in some degree, the second constituent of religion, in that they
have the thought that the High and Mighty which inhabits Eternity is
good.
3. When, however, we come to the third constituent, we have at once to
admit that the non-church-going population has no means of realizing the
Most High in a form which sustains and inspires its action. It has no
close or personal touch or communion with this goodness; no form which,
like a picture or like a common meal, by its associations of memory or
hope rouses its feelings; nothing which, holding the thought, stirs the
emotions and works the thought into daily life. The forms of religion,
the Churches, the doctrines, the ritual, the sacraments, which meant so
much to their fathers and to some of their neighbours, mean nothing to
them. They have lost touch with the forms of religious thought as they
have not lost touch with the forms of political thought.
Forms are the clothes of thought. Forms are lifeless, and thought is
living. Unless the forms are worn every day they cease to fit the
thought, as left-off clothes cease to fit the body. English citizens who
have gone on wearing the old forms of political thought can therefore go
on talking and acting as if the King ruled to-day as Queen Elizabeth
ruled 300 years ago, but these non-church-going folk, who for
generations have left off wearing the forms of religious thought, cannot
use the words about the Most High which the Churches and preachers use.
They have breathed an atmosphere charged by science--they are
rationalists, they have a vision of morality and goodness exceeding that
advocated by many of the Churches. They have themselves created great
societies, and their votes have made and unmade governments. When,
therefore, they regard the Churches, the doctrines of preachers, and all
the forms of religion, not as those to whom by use they are familiar or
by history illuminated, but as strangers, they see what seem to them
stiff services, irrational doctrine, disorganized and unbusinesslike
systems, and the self-assertion of priests and ministers. They, with
their yearnings to touch goodness, find nothing in these forms which
makes them say, “There, that is what I mean,” and go on stirred in their
hearts. They who have learnt to think turn away sadly or scornfully from
teaching such as that of the Salvation Army about blood and fire, where
emotion is without thought. Those who manage their own affairs resent
membership in religious organizations where all is managed for them.
They want a name for the Most High of whom they think as above and
around themselves, but somehow the doctrines about Christ, whom they
respect for His work 2000 years ago, do not stir them up as if He were a
present power. The working classes, says Dr. Fairbairn in his “Religion
in History and Modern Life,” are alienated because “the Church has lost
adaptation to the environment in which it lives”.
Perhaps, however, some one may say, “Forms are unimportant”. This may be
true so far as regards a few rarely constituted minds, but the mass of
men are seldom moved except through some human or humanized form. The
elector may have his principles, but it is the candidate he cheers, it
is his photograph he carries, it is his presence which rouses
enthusiasm, and it is politicians’ names by which parties are called.
The Russian peasant may say his prayers, but it is the ikon--the image
dear to his fathers--which rouses him to do or to die. The Jews had no
likeness of Jehovah, but the book of the law represented to them the
thought and memories of their heart, and they bound its words to their
foreheads, their poets were stirred to write psalms in its praise, and
by the emotions it raised its teaching was worked into their daily acts.
A non-religious writer in the “Clarion” bears witness to the same fact
when he says, “All effective movements must have creeds. It is
impossible to satisfy the needs of any human mind or heart without some
form of belief.” The Quaker who rejects so many forms has made a form of
no-form, and his simple manner of speech, his custom of dress or
worship, often moves him to his actions.
Mr. Gladstone bears testimony to the place of form in religion. “The
Church,” he says, “presented to me Christianity under an aspect in which
I had not yet known it, ... its ministry of symbols, its channels of
grace, its unending line of teachers forming from the Head a sublime
construction based throughout on historic fact, uplifting the idea of
the community in which we live, and of the access which it enjoys
through the living way to the presence of the Most High.”
Mr. Gladstone found in the Anglican Church a form of access to the Most
High, and through this Church the thoughts of the Most High were worked
into his daily life. Others through the Bible, the sacraments, humanity,
or through some doctrine of Christ have found like means of access.
Forms are essential to religion. Forms, indeed, have often become the
whole of religion, so that people who have honoured images or words or
names have forgotten goodness and justice--they wash the cup and platter
and forget mercy and judgment; they say “Lord, Lord,” and do not the
will of the Lord. Forms have often become idols, but the point I urge is
that for the majority of mankind forms are necessary to religion. “Tell
me thy name,” was the cry of Jacob, when all night he wrestled with an
unknown power which condemned his life of selfish duplicity; and every
crisis in Israelitish history is marked by the revelation of a new name
for the Most High. The Samaritans do not know what they worship; the
Jews know what they worship,--was the rebuke of Christ to a wayward and
ineffective nation. Even those Athenians to whom God was the Unknown God
had to erect an altar to that God.
The great mass of the people, because they have no form and stand apart
from all religious communions, may have in them a religious sense, but
their thought of God is not worked through their emotions into their
daily lives. They do not know what they worship, and so do not say with
the Psalmist, “My soul is athirst for the living God,” or say with
Joseph, “How can I do this wickedness, and sin against God?” They have
much sentiment about brotherhood, and they talk of the rights of all
men; but they are not driven as St. Paul was driven to the service of
their brothers, irrespective of class, or nation, or colour. They have
not the zeal which says, “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel”. They
endure suffering with patience and meet death with submission, but they
do not say, “I shall awake after His likeness and be satisfied”. The
majority of English citizens would in an earthquake behave as brave men,
but they have not the faith of the negroes who in the midst of such
havoc sang songs of praise.
The three constituents I included in the definition are all, I submit,
necessary. Thought without form does not rouse the emotions. Form
without thought is idolatry, and is fatal to growth. Emotion without
thought has no abiding or persistent force. Religion is the thought of a
Higher-than-self worked through the emotions into daily life.
With this definition in mind I now sum up my impressions. The religion
of the majority of the people is, I think, not such as enables them to
say, “Here I take my stand. This course of life I can and will follow.
This policy must overcome the world.” It is not such either as keeps
down pride and egotism, and leads them to say as Abram said to Lot, “If
you go to the right I will go to the left”. It does not make men and
women anxious to own themselves debtors and to give praise. It does not
drive them to greater and greater experiments in love; it does not give
them peace. It is not the spur to action or the solace in distress. It
has little recognition in daily talk or in the Press. One might, indeed,
live many years, meet many men, and read many newspapers and not come
into its contact or realize that England professes Christianity.
When I ask my friends, “How does religion show itself in the actions of
daily life?” I get no answer. There seems to be no acknowledged force
arising from the conception of the Most High which restrains, impels, or
rests men and women in their politics, their business, or their homes.
There are, I suggest, three infallible signs of the presence of
religion--calm courage, joyful humility, and a sense of life stronger
than death. These signs are not obvious among the people.
The condition is not satisfactory. It is not unlike that of Rome in the
first century. The Roman had then forsaken his old worship of the gods
in the temples, notwithstanding the official recognition of such worship
and the many earnest attempts made for its revival. There was then, as
now, something in the atmosphere of thought which was stronger than
State or Church. There was then, as now, an interest in teachers of
goodness who held up a course of conduct far above the conventional, and
the thoughts of men played amid the new mysteries rising in the East.
The Romans were restless, without anchorage or purpose. They were not
satisfied with their bread and games; they walked in a dense shadow, and
had no light from home. Into their midst came Christianity, giving a new
name to the Most High, and stirring men’s hearts to do as joyful service
what the Stoics had taught as dull duty.
In the midst of the English people of to-day there are Churches and
societies of numerous denominations. Their numbers are legion. In one
East-London district about a mile square there were, I think, at one
time over twenty different religious agencies. Their activity is
twofold. They work from without to within, or from within to
without--from the environment to the soul, or from the soul to the
environment.
1. The work from without to within, resolves itself into an endeavour to
draw the people to join some religious communion. The environment which
an organization provides counts for much, and influences therefrom
constantly pass into the inner life. Membership in a Church or
association with a mission often brings men and women into contact with
a minister who offers an example of a life devoted to others’ service.
It opens to them ways of doing good, of teaching the children, of
visiting the poor, and of joining in efforts for social reform. It
affords a constant support in a definite course of conduct, and makes a
regular call on the will to act up to the conventional standard, and it
brings to bear on everyday action an insistent social pressure which is
some safety against temptation. Sneers about the dishonesty of religious
professors are common, but, as a matter of fact, the most honest and
reputable members of the community are those connected with religious
bodies.
Those bodies have various characters, with various forms of doctrine and
of ritual. Human beings, if they are true to themselves, cannot all
adopt like forms; there are some men and women who find a language for
their souls in a ritual of colour and sound, there are others who can
worship only in silence; there are some who are moved by one form of
doctrine, and others who are moved by another form. Uniformity is
unnatural to man, and the Act of Religious Uniformity has proved to be
disastrous to growth of thought and goodwill. Progress through the ages
is marked by the gradual evolution of the individual, and the strongest
society is that where there are the most vigorous individualities. If
this be admitted, it must be admitted also that the growth of vigorous
denominations, and not uniformity, is also the mark of progress.
But, it may be said, denominations are the cause of half the quarrels
which divide society, and of half the wars which have decimated mankind.
This is true enough. The denominations are now hindering the way of
education, and it was as denominations that Catholics and Protestants
drowned Europe in thirty years of bloodshed. It is, however, equally
true to say that nationalities have been the cause of war, and that the
way of peace is hard, because French, Germans, and British are so
patriotically concerned for their own rights. Nationalities, however,
become strong during the period of struggle, and they develop
characteristics valuable for the whole human family; but the end to
which the world is moving is not a universal empire under the dominance
of the strongest, it is to a unity in which the strength of each
nationality will make possible the federation of the world. In the same
way denominations pass through a period of strife; they too develop
their characteristics; and the hope of religion is not in the dominance
of any one denomination, but in a unity to which each is necessary.
The world learnt slowly the lesson of toleration, and at last the strong
are feeling more bound to bear with those who differ from themselves.
There is, however, dawning on the horizon a greater lesson than that of
toleration of differences: it is that of respect for differences. As
that lesson prevails, each denomination will not cease to be keen for
its own belief; it will also be keen to pay honour to every honest
belief. The neighbourhood of another denomination will be as welcome as
the discovery of another star to the astronomer, or as the finding of a
new animal to the naturalist, or as is the presence of another strong
personality in a company of friends. The Church of the future cannot be
complete without many chapels. The flock of the Good Shepherd includes
many folds.
The energy of innumerable Churches and missions is daily strengthening
denominations, and they seem to me likely to stand out more and more
clearly in the community. One advantage I would emphasize. Each
denomination may offer an example of a society of men and women living
in reasonable accord with its own doctrine--not, I ask you to reflect,
just a community of fellow-worshippers, but, like the Quakers,
translating faith into matters of business and the home. Mediaeval
Christians sold all they had and lived as monks or nuns. Nineteenth
century Christians were kind to their poorer neighbours. Twentieth
century Christians might give an example of a society fitting a time
which has learnt the value of knowledge and beauty, and has seen that
justice to the poor is better than kindness. Every generation must have
its own form of Christianity.
The earnest endeavour of so many active men and women to increase the
strength of their own denomination has therefore much promise: provided
always, let me say, they do not win recruits by self-assertion, by
exaggeration, or by the subtle bribery of treats and blankets. Each
denomination honestly strengthened by additional members is the better
able to manifest some aspect of the Christian life, and, in response to
the call of that life, more inclined to reform the doctrines and methods
which tend to alienate a scientific and democratic generation.
Such denominations are, I submit, those most likely to reform
themselves, and as they come to offer various examples of a Christian
society, where wealth is without self-assertion, where poverty is
without shame, where unemployment and ignorance are prevented by just
views of human claims, and where joy is “in widest commonalty spread,”
all the members of the community will in such examples better find the
name of the Most High, and feel the power of religion. “If,” says Dr.
Fairbairn, “religion were truly interpreted in the lives of Christian
men, there is no fear as to its being believed.” “What is wanted is not
more Christians but better Christians.”
2. The activity of ministers and missionaries is, as I have said,
twofold. Besides working from without to within by building up
denominations, it also works from within to without by converting
individuals. Members of every Church or mission are, in ordinary phrase,
intent “to save souls”. Their work is not for praise, and is sacred from
any intrusion. Spirit wrestles with spirit, and power passes by unknown
ways. Souls are only kindled by souls. Conversion opens blind eyes to
see the Most High, but it is not in human power to direct the ways of
conversion. The spirit bloweth where it listeth. There are, however,
other means by which eyes may be opened at any rate to see, if only
dimly, and some of these means are under human control. Such a means is
that which is called higher education or university teaching, or the
knowledge of the humanities.
I would therefore conclude by calling notice to the much or the little
which is being done by this higher education. The people are to a large
extent blind because of the overwhelming glory of the present. They see
nothing beyond the marvellous revelations of science--its visions of
possessions and of power, and its triumphs over the forces of nature.
They are occupied in using the gigantic instruments which are placed at
the command of the weakest, and they are driven on by some relentless
pressure which allows no pause on the wayside of the road of life. They
see power everywhere--power in the aggressive personalities which heap
money in millions, power in the laboratory, power in the market-place,
power in the Government; but they do not see anything which satisfies
the human yearning for something higher and holier; they cannot see the
God whose truth they feel and whose call they hear. Many of them look to
the past and surround themselves with the forms of mediaeval days, and
some go to the country, where, in a land of tender shades and silences,
they try to commune with the Most High.
But yet the words of John the Baptist rise eternally true, when he said
to a people anxiously expectant, some with their eyes on the past, and
some with their eyes on the future, “There standeth one among you”. The
Most High, that is to say, is to be found, not in the past with its
mysteries, its philosophies, and its dignity of phrase or ritual, and
not in the future with its vague hopes of an earthly Paradise, but in
the present with its hard facts, its scientific methods, its strong
individualities, and the growing power of the State. The kingdom of
heaven is at hand; the Highest which every one seeks is in the present.
It is standing among us, and the one thing wanted is the eye to see.
Mr. Haldane, in the address to the students of Edinburgh University, has
described the character of the higher teaching as a gospel of the wide
outlook, as a means of giving a deeper sympathy and a keener insight, as
offering a vision of the eternal which is here and now showing its
students what is true in present realities, and inspiring them with a
loyalty to the truth as devoted as that of tribesmen to their chief.
This sort of teaching, he says, brings down from the present realities,
or from a Sinai ever accompanying mankind, “the Higher command,” with
its eternal offer of life and blessing--that is to say, it opens men’s
eyes to see in the present the form of the Most High. Higher education
is thus a part of religious activity.
I am glad to know that my conclusion is shared by Dr. Fairbairn, who,
speaking of the worker in our great cities, and of his alienation from
religion, says, “The first thing to be done is to enrich and ennoble his
soul, to beget in him purer tastes and evoke higher capacities”.
I will conclude by calling notice to the much or the little which is
being done to open the people’s eyes by means of higher education. I
fear it is “the little”. There are many classes and many teachers for
spreading skill, there are some which increase interest in nature; there
are few--very few--which bring students into touch with the great minds
and thoughts of all countries and all ages--very few, that is, classes
for the humanities. For want of this the souls of the people are poor,
and their capacities dwarfed; they cannot see that modern knowledge has
made the Bible a modern book, or how the bells of a new age have rung in
the “Christ that is to be”.
For thirty-four years my wife and I have been engaged in social
experiments. Many ways have been tried, and always the recognized object
has been the religion of the people--religion, that is, in the sense
which I have defined as that faith in the Highest which is the impulse
of human progress, man’s spur to loving action, man’s rest in the midst
of sorrow, man’s hope in death.
With the object of preparing the way to this religion, schools have
been improved, houses have been built and open spaces secured. Holidays
have been made more healthy, and the best in art has been made more
common. But, viewing all these efforts of many reformers, I am prepared
to say that the most pressing need is for higher education. Where such
education is to begin, what is the meaning of religious education in
elementary schools, and how it is to be extended, is part of another
subject. It is enough now if, having as my subject the religion of the
people, I state my opinion that there is no activity which more surely
advances religion than the teaching which gives insight, far sight,
and wide sight. The people, for want of religion, are unstable in
their policy, joyless in their amusements, and uninspired by any sure
and certain hope. They have not the sense of sin--in modern language,
none of that consciousness of unreached ideals which makes men humble
and earnest. They have not the grace of humility nor the force of a
faith stronger than death. It may seem a far cry from a teacher’s
class-room to the peace and power of a Psalmist or of a St. Paul; but,
as Archbishop Benson said, “Christ is a present Christ, and all of us
are His contemporaries”. And my own belief is that the eye opened by
higher education is on the way to find in the present the form of the
Christ who will satisfy the human longing for the Higher-than-self.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.
CATHEDRAL REFORM.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
December, 1898.
[1] From “The Nineteenth Century and After”. By permission of the
Editor.
Cathedrals have risen in popular estimation. They represent the past to
the small but slowly increasing number of people who now realize that
there is a past out of which the present has grown. They are recognized
as interesting historical monuments; their power is felt as an aid to
worship, and some worshippers who would think their honesty compromised
by their presence at a church or a chapel, say their prayers boldly in
the “national” cathedral. A trade-union delegate, who had been present
at the Congress, was surprised on the following Sunday afternoon to
recognize in St. Paul’s some of his fellow delegates. No reformer would
now dare to propose that cathedrals should be secularized.
But neither would any one who considers the power latent in cathedral
establishments for developing the spiritual side of human nature profess
himself satisfied. It is not enough that the buildings should be
restored, so that they may be to-day what they were 400 or 500 years
ago, nor is it enough that active deans should increase sermons and
services.
A cathedral has a unique position. It holds the imagination of the
people. Men who live in the prison of mean cares remember how as
children their thoughts wandered free amid the lights and shadows of
tombs, pillars, arches, and recesses. Worshippers face to face with real
sorrow, who turn aside from the trivialities of ritual, feel that there
is in the solemn grandeur a power to lift them above their cares.
A cathedral indeed attracts to itself that spiritual longing which,
perhaps, more than the longing for power or for liberty, is the sign of
the times. This longing, compared with rival longings, may be as small
as a mustard-seed, but everywhere men are becoming conscious that things
within their grasp are not the things they were made to reach. There is
a heaven for which they are fitted, and which is not far from any one of
them. They like to hear large words, and to move in large crowds. They
see that “dreaming” is valuable as well as “doing”. They feel that there
is a kinship between themselves and the hidden unknown greatness in
which they live. The ideal leader of the day is a mystic who can be
practical.
Men turning, therefore, from churches or chapels which are identified
with narrow views, and from a ritual which has occupied the more vacant
minds, are prepared to pay respect to the cathedral with its grand
associations.
And the cathedrals which thus attract to themselves modern hope, and
become almost the symbol of the day’s movement, are equipped to respond
to the demand. They have both men and money. They have men qualified to
serve, and a body of singers qualified to make common the best music,
and they have endowments varying from £4000 to £10,000 a year.
A cathedral is attractive by its grandeur and its beauty, but it ought
to be something more than an historic monument. Its staff is ample, and
is often active, but it ought to be something more than a parish church.
Its government, however, is so hampered that it can hardly be anything
else, and the energies of the chapter are spent in efforts to follow the
orders of restoring architects. The building is cleared of innovations
introduced by predecessors, who had in view use and not art. Its
deficiencies are supplied, the dreams and intentions of the early
builders are discovered, and at last a church is completed such as our
ancestors would have desired.
The self-devotion of deans or canons in producing this result provokes
admiration from those who in their hearts disapprove. Money is freely
given, and, what is often harder to do, donations are persistently
begged. The time and ability of men who have earned a reputation as
workers, thinkers, or teachers, are spent in completing a monument over
which antiquaries will quarrel and round which parties of visitors will
be taken at 6d. a head.
The building has little other use than as a parish church, and the
ideal, before a chapter, anxious to do its duty, is to have frequent
communions, services, and sermons, as in the best worked parishes. In
some cases there is a large response. The communicants are many, but,
being unknown to one another and to the clergy, they miss the strength
they might have derived by communicating with their neighbours in their
own churches. The sermons are sometimes listened to by crowded
congregations, but the people are often drawn from other places of
worship, and miss the teaching given by one to whom they are best known.
But in most cases the response is small. The daily services, supported
by a large and well-trained choir of men and boys, preceded by a
dignified procession of vergers and clergy, often help only two or three
worshippers. Many of the Holy Communions which are announced are not
celebrated for want of communicants, and the sermons are not always such
as are suitable for the people.
There are, indeed, special but rare occasions when the cathedral shows
its possibilities. It may be a choir festival, when 500 or 600 voices
find space within its walls to give a service for people interested in
the various parishes. It may be some civic or national function, when
the Corporation attends in state, or some meeting of an association or
friendly society, when the church is filled by people drawn from a wide
area. On all those occasions the fitness of the grand building and fine
music to meet the needs of the moment is recognized, and the citizens
are proud of their cathedral.
But generally they are not proud. They think--when they care enough to
think at all--that a building with such power over their imagination
ought to be more used, and that such well-paid officials ought to do
more work. “One canon,” a workman remarked, “ought to do all that is
done, and the money of the others could be divided among poor curates.”
The members of the chapter would probably agree as to the need of
reform. It is not their conservatism, it is the old statutes which stand
in the way.
These statutes differ in the various cathedrals, but all alike suffer
from the neglect of the living hand of the popular will which in civil
matters is always shaping old laws to present needs. Their object seems
to be not so much to secure energetic action as to prevent aggression.
Activity, and not indolence, was apparently the danger which threatened
the Church in those old days.
The Bishop, who is visitor and is called the head of the cathedral,
cannot officiate--as of right--in divine service; he is not entitled to
take part in the Holy Communion or to preach during ordinary service.
The Dean governs the church, and has altogether the regulation of the
services; but he can only preach at the ordinary services at three
festivals during the year.
The Canons, who preach every Sunday, have no power over the order or
method of the uses of the church.
The Precentor, who is authorized to select the music and is required to
take care that the choir be instructed and trained in their parts, must
not himself give instruction and training.
The Organist, who has to train and instruct the boys, has to do so in
hours fixed by the Precentor, and in music chosen by him.
An establishment so constituted cannot have the vigour or elasticity or
unity necessary to adapt cathedrals to modern needs. It affords, as
Trollope discovered, and as most citizens are aware, a field for the
play of all sorts of petty rivalries and jealousies. No official can
move without treading on the other’s rights. Bishops, Deans, and Canons
hide their feelings under excessive courtesies. Precentors and Organists
try to settle their rights in the law courts, and the trivialities of
the Cathedral Close have become proverbial.
The apparent uselessness of buildings so prominent, and of a staff so
costly, provokes violent criticism. Reformers become revolutionists as
the Dean, Chapter, and choir daily summon congregations which do not
appear, and the officials become slovenly and careless as they daily
perform their duties in an empty church. Sacraments may be offered in
vain as well as taken in vain, and institutions established for other
needs which go on, regardless of such needs, are self-condemned.
If the army or navy or any department of the civil service were so
constituted, the demand for reform would be insistent. “We will not
endure,” the public voice would proclaim, “that an instrument on whose
fitness we depend shall be so ineffective. It is not enough that the
members of the profession are prevented from injuring one another. Our
concern is not their feelings, but our protection.” It is characteristic
of the indifference to religious interests that an instrument, so costly
and so capable of use as a cathedral establishment, has been left to
rust through so many years, and that the troubles of a Chapter should be
matter for jokes and not for indignant anger.
A Royal Commission, indeed, was appointed in 1879. It was in the earlier
years presided over by Archbishop Tait, who showed, both by his constant
presence and by his lively interest, how deeply he had felt and how much
he had reflected on this subject. The Commissioners had 128 meetings,
and issued their final report in 1885; but notwithstanding the humble
and almost pathetic appeal that something should be “quickly done” to
remedy the abuses they had discovered, and forward the uses which they
saw possible, nothing whatever has been done. The position of the
Cathedrals still mocks the intelligence of the people they exist to
serve, and the hopes which the spread of education has developed.
The Commissioners recognized the change which had been going on in the
feeling with regard to the tie which binds together the cathedral and
the people, and their recommendations lead up, as they themselves
profess, to “the grand conception of the Bishop of a diocese working
from his cathedral as a spiritual centre, of the machinery there
supplied being intended to produce an influence far beyond the cathedral
precincts, of the capitular body being interested in the whole diocese,
and of the whole diocese having claims on the capitular body”.
This conception, apart from its technical phraseology, may be taken as
satisfactory. “A live Cathedral in a live Diocese” is, in the American
phrase, what all desire. It may be questioned, however, in the light of
thirteen years’ further experience of growing humanity, whether their
recommendations would bring the conception much nearer to realization.
Their recommendations are somewhat difficult to generalize. The
peculiarities and eccentricities in the constitution of each cathedral
are infinite. Some are on the old foundation, with their Deans,
Precentors, Chancellors, and Prebendaries. Some date from Henry VIII,
and have only a Dean and a small number of residentiary Canons. Some
possess statutes which are hopelessly obsolete, and one claims validity
for a new body of statutes adopted by itself. Some are under the control
of the chapter only, some have minor corporations. Some have striven to
act up to the letter of old orders, some have statutes which are of no
legal authority. But the difference of constitution of the several
cathedrals was by no means the only difficulty with which the
Commissioners had to contend.
There is the difference in their local circumstances. Some, as Bristol
and Norwich, are in the midst of large populations; some, as Ely and St.
David’s, are in small towns or amid village people. St. Paul’s, London,
stands in a position so peculiar that it does not admit of comparison
with any other cathedral in the kingdom.
There is, further, the difference in wealth and the provision of
residences for the capitular body; some are rich, and endowed with all
that is necessary for the performance of their duties; some are
comparatively poor.
The Commissioners have met these difficulties by considering each
cathedral separately, and by issuing on each a separate report with
separate recommendations. There is, however, a character and a principle
common to all their recommendations, by which a judgment may be formed
as to how far they would, if adopted, fit cathedrals to the needs of the
time.
I.--CENTRAL AUTHORITY.
The Commissioners were at the outset met by the fact that cathedral
bodies are stationary institutions in a growing society. They remain as
they had been formed in distant days: ships stranded high above the
water-line, in which the services went on as if the passengers and cargo
had not long found other means of transit. They felt that even if by the
gigantic effort involved in parliamentary action the cathedrals were
reformed in order to suit the changed society of the nineteenth century,
the reforms would not necessarily suit the twentieth century. They saw
that there must be a central authority always in touch with public
opinion, which would, year by year, or generation by generation, shape
uses to needs.
They at once therefore introduced the Cathedral Statutes Bill, by which
a Cathedral Committee of the Privy Council was to be appointed. The Bill
did not become law, but the provision was admirable. By this means, just
as the Committee of Council year by year now issues an Education Code,
by which changes suggested by experience or inquiry are introduced into
the educational system of the country, so this new Committee of Council
was, as occasion required, to issue new statutes to control or develop
the use of cathedrals.
A living rule was to take the place of the dead hand. Representative
men, and not the authority of an individual or of an old statute, were
henceforth to control this State provision for the religious interests
of the people, as a similar body, with manifest advantage, controls the
State provision for the secular interests. A Committee of the Privy
Council made up of the Ministers of the day, being professed Christians,
together with some experts, is probably the best central authority to be
devised.
But when the Commissioners further proposed that after the expiration of
their commission it should remain with Deans and Chapters to submit
proposals for reform in the use of their cathedrals, they at once
limited the utility of that central authority. Is it to be conceived
that Deans and Chapters will promote necessary reforms? Can they be said
to be in touch with the people? Will they, if they make wise and
far-reaching suggestions, be trusted as representatives?
The Commission aimed to create a living authority, and then proposed to
bind it hand and foot; it set up a body of representative men capable of
daring and of cautious action, and then limited the sphere of such
action by the decisions of Chapters sometimes concerned for inaction.
The obvious criticism is a testimony to the progress of the last few
years. Education and the extension of local government have made all
parties recognise that the voice of the people ought to be trusted, and
can be trusted. Checks and safeguards are no longer thought to be so
necessary. Interests once jealously preserved by the classes are now
known to be safe in the hands of the masses. The Crown, property, order,
are all safe grounded on the people’s will.
It seems therefore out of place, in the eyes of the present generation,
to safeguard every change in the use of the cathedral by trusting to
those proposed by Dean and Chapter. The basis of government must be
democratic. The people, and not any class, must have the chief voice in
their control. The County Councils, by means of a committee of professed
Christians, the Diocesan Council, or any body to which the people of the
neighbourhood have free access, should be that empowered to bring
suggestions before the central authority. In the Church of England, of
which every Englishman is a member, and whose Prayer Book is an Act of
Parliament, there is no new departure in making the County Councils the
originating bodies to suggest uses for the cathedral.
With the growing interest to which allusion has been made, it is not
hard to conceive that the call for suggestions would evoke deeper
thought and remind members of secular bodies that progress without
religion is very hollow. Parliament was never more dignified, or better
fitted for foreign or home policy, than when it held Church government
to be its most important function. County Councils, called on through
their committees to submit suggestions for the better use of the
cathedrals to the Committee of Privy Council, might be elevated by the
call, and at the same time offer advice valuable in itself, and approved
by the people as coming from their representatives.
The first essential cathedral reform is therefore a central authority as
recommended by the Commission, which, on the initiative of really
representative bodies, shall have power to make statutes and publish
rules of procedure in the several cathedrals.
II.--THE BISHOP AND HIS CATHEDRAL.
The Commissioners were evidently struck by the need of promoting
“earnest and harmonious co-operation between the Bishop of the Diocese
and the Cathedral Body”. They have endeavoured, as they reiterate, “to
define and establish the relation in which the Bishop stands to the
cathedral, and have made provision for assuring to him his legitimate
position and influence”. When, however, reference is made to the
statutes by which they carry out their intention, they seem very
inadequate: the Bishop, for instance, is to “have the highest place of
dignity whenever he is present”; “to preach whenever he may think fit”;
“to hold visitation and exercise any function of his episcopal office
whenever it may seem good”. He is also empowered to nominate a certain
number of preachers, and is constituted the authority to give leave of
absence to the Dean or Canons. The Dean, however, is left responsible
for the services, in control of the officials, and at liberty to develop
the use of the church.
It is difficult to see how, by such changes, the cathedral will become
the spiritual centre from which the Bishop will work his diocese, and
at the same time have harmonious relations with the Dean and Chapter.
If he uses his full powers: gathers week by week diocesan organizations
for worship, for encouragement, and for admonition; if he is often
present at the services, if he arranges classes for the clergy,
devotional meetings for church workers; if he institutes sermons and
lectures on history or on the signs of the times--what is there left
for the Dean and Canons to do? If he does not do such things, how can
he make the cathedral the centre of spiritual life?
The Commission was evidently hampered in its recommendation by the
presence of two dignitaries with somewhat conflicting duties. The simple
solution is to make the Bishop the Dean. He would then have, as by
right, all the powers it is proposed to confer upon him; he would
exercise them at all times, without fear of any collision, and he would
be in name and fact the sole authority in carrying out the statutes, and
in controlling all subordinate officials. He would then be able to make
the cathedral familiar to every soul in his diocese, associate its
building and services with every organization for the common
good--secular and religious--with choral societies, clubs, governing
bodies, friendly societies, missionary associations, and such like. He
would, in fact, make the cathedral the centre of spiritual life, and he
would for ever abolish the petty rivalries and jealousies which grow up
under divided control, and which bring such discredit on cathedral
management. He would be master, and it is for want of a master that each
official is now so disposed to magnify the petty privileges of his own
office. There must be some one who is really big, that others may feel
their proper place.
III.--THE CANONS AND THEIR UTILITY.
The Commission has little to suggest, save that they should be compelled
to reside for eight months of the year in the neighbourhood of the
cathedral, and during three months attend morning and evening service,
each one “habited in a surplice with a hood denoting his degree”. They
are also, if called on, “to give instruction in theological and
religious subjects, or discharge some missionary or other useful work”.
These functions seem hardly sufficient for men who are to receive £800 a
year, and it is difficult to see what virtue there is in mere technical
residence, or how daily attendance at service is compatible with the
performance of regular duties as citizens or teachers.
The Canons would better help in making the cathedral the centre of
spiritual life if they were the Suffragan Bishops of the diocese. They
would in this case have to receive appointment by the Bishop, and take
duties assigned by him. One might be responsible for the order of the
services, for the care of the property of the cathedral, and for the
proper control of the officials. He might, indeed, be called the Dean.
Another might be a lecturer or teacher for the instruction of the
clergy, and the others might assist the Bishop in those functions which
now so largely intrude on his time.
The Bishop of the twentieth century looms large in the distance. He has
a place not given to any of his predecessors, as a democratic age has
greater need of leaders. He is called to new duties and new functions,
and the danger is that he who might be lifting his clergy on to a higher
plane, meeting them soul to soul, and comforting them by his contagious
piety, will be absorbed in organizing, in business, or in the
performance of functions. Suffragan Bishops attached to the cathedral
would relieve him from “such serving tables,” and leave him more free to
be a father in God to the clergy.
IV.--THE FABRIC AND FINANCE.
The care of the fabrics is more and more recognized as a national
concern. Not long ago there was a proposal put forward by non-Christians
for their preservation out of local or national resources. The
Commissioners’ suggestion that a report on their condition should be
published at frequent intervals shows trust in the readiness of a
voluntary response, but it is hardly a businesslike recommendation.
The suggestion, already made in this paper, that some local
representative body, such as the County Council, should be the body
authorized to initiate reforms in the use of the building, would
naturally lead to the same body becoming responsible for its proper
care. It is not hard to conceive of such a growing interest as would
lead to a ready expenditure under the direction of the best advisers.
The mass of the people are now shut out from contribution; their pence
are not valued, and even if their gift “be half their living,” it opens
to them no place on the restoration committee.
If the cathedral is to be the people’s church, its support must rest on
the people, and this is only possible by means of the local bodies which
they control.
Finance, as might be expected in a commercial country, takes up a large
portion of the report. Failure is again and again attributed to poverty,
and a schedule shows what is wanting in each cathedral for the proper
payment of officials. The total per annum is an increase of £10,876. The
Commissioners’ happy thought was, “Why not get this amount from the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who have profited largely from cathedral
property?” They forthwith made application and were duly snubbed.
But the suggestion already made in this paper, for the more harmonious
management of cathedrals by the absorption of the Dean’s functions in
that of the Bishop, at once solves the financial difficulty. The
salaries now given to the Deans--probably on an average at least £1000 a
year--would then be ready for redistribution, and might follow the lines
suggested by the Commissioners, and would supply other gaps due to the
depreciation of agricultural values.
CONCLUSION.
The Commissioners take into view many details connected with the other
officials, with the rivalry of Precentor and Organist, with the meeting
of the greater chapter, and with the abolition of the minor corporations
existing in some cathedrals alongside of the chapter corporation, which
are in their way important, but which would all fall into place under a
large scheme of reform.
The essentials of such a scheme are, it is submitted, (1) control by a
distinguished body, like that of the Committee of the Privy Council,
which takes its initiative from a representative body like that of the
County Council; (2) the reinstatement of the Bishop as the chief officer
of the cathedral, with the Canons as his suffragans.
The cathedrals seem to be waiting to be used by the new spiritual force
which, amid the wreck of so much that is old, is surely appearing. There
is a widespread consciousness of their value--an unexpressed instinct of
respect which is not satisfied by the disquisitions of antiquarians or
the praises of artists. Common people as well as Royal Commissioners
feel that cathedrals have a part to play in the coming time. What that
part is none can foretell, but all agree that the cathedrals must be
preserved and beautified, that the teaching and the music they offer
must be of the best, offered at frequent and suitable times, and that
they must be used for the service of the great secular and religious
corporations of the diocese.
Under the scheme here proposed this would be possible. The Bishop, as
head of the cathedral, would direct the order of the daily worship and
teaching, arrange for the giving of great musical works, and invite on
special occasions any active organization. He would have as coadjutors
able men chosen by himself, who, by lectures, meetings, and conferences,
would make the building alive with use. He would have behind him the
committee of the County Councils or other local authority, empowered to
suggest changes in the statutes as new times brought new needs, and
ready with money as their interest was developed. The scheme, at any
rate, has the merit of utilizing two growing forces--that of the Bishop,
and that of local government. No scheme can secure that these forces
will work to the best ends. That, as everything else, must depend on the
extent to which the growing forces are inspired by the spirit of Christ.
A cathedral used as a Bishop would use it would receive a new
consecration by the manifold uses. Just as the silence of a crowd which
might speak is more impressive than the silence of the dumb, so is the
quiet of a building which is much used more solemn than the quiet of a
building kept swept and clean for show. Our cathedrals, being centres of
activity, would more and more impress those who, themselves anxious and
careful about many things, feel the impulse of the spiritual force of
the time. Workmen and business-men would come to possess their souls in
quiet meditation, or to join unnoticed in services of worship which
express aspirations often too full for words.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.
THE CATHEDRALS AND MODERN NEEDS.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
1912.
[1] From “The Contemporary Review”. By permission of the Editor.
This generation is face to face with many and hard problems. Perhaps the
hardest and the one which underlies all the others is that which
concerns the spiritualizing of life. Discoveries and inventions have
largely increased the attractions of the things which can be seen and
heard, touched, and tasted. Rich and poor have alike found that the
world is full of so many things that they ought to be all as happy as
kings, and the one ideal which seems to command any enthusiasm is a
Socialistic State, where material things will be more equally divided
among all classes.
But even so, there is an underlying consciousness that possessions do
not satisfy human nature. Millionaires are seen to miss happiness, and
something else than armaments are wanted to make the strength of a
nation. There is thus a widely-spread disposition to take more account
of spiritual forces, and people who have not themselves the courage to
forsake all for the sake of an idea speak with sympathy of religion and
patronize the Salvation Army. There is much talk of “rival ideals
dominating action,” and the prevalent unrest seems to come from a
demand, not so much for more money as for more respect, more recognition
of equality, more room for the exercise of admiration, hope, and love.
Modern unrest is, in fact, a cry for light.
The problem which is haunting this generation is how to spiritualize the
forces which are shaping the future; how to inspire labour and capital
with thoughts which will both elevate and control their actions; how to
enable rich and poor to move in a larger world, seeing things which eyes
cannot see; how to open channels between eternal sources and every day’s
need; how to give to all the sense of partnership in a progress which is
fitting the earth for man’s enjoyment and men for one another’s comfort.
The spiritualization of life being necessary to human peace and
happiness; its accomplishment is the goal of all reformers, and every
reform may in fact be measured by its power to advance or hinder
progress to that goal.
I would suggest that the cathedrals are especially designed to help in
the solution of the problem. Their attractiveness is a striking fact,
and people who are too busy to read or to pray seem to find time to
visit buildings where they will gain no advantage for their trade or
profession, not even fresh air for their bodies. They are recognized as
civic or national possessions, and working people who stand aloof from
places of worship, or patronize meeting-houses, are distinctly
interested in their care and preservation. They have an unfailing hold
on the popular imagination, so that it is always easy to gather a
congregation to take part in a service, or to listen to a lecture.
“It was not so much what the lecturer said,” was the reflection of Mr.
Crooks after a lecture in Westminster Abbey on English History, “as the
place in which it was given.”
The cathedrals have thus a peculiar position in the modern world, and if
it be asked to what the position is due I am inclined to answer: to
their unostentatious grandeur and to their testimony to the past. They
are high and mighty, they lift their heads to heaven, and they open
their doors to the humblest. They give the best away, and ask for
nothing, neither praise nor notice. They are buildings through which the
stream of ages has flowed, familiar to the people of old time as of the
present, bearing traces of Norman strength and English aspirations, of
the enthusiasm of Catholics and Puritans, of the hopes of the makers of
the nation. The cathedrals are thus in touch with the spiritual sides of
life, and make their appeal to the same powers which desire before all
things to see the fair beauty of the Lord, and to commune with man’s
eternal mind.
But the cathedrals which make this appeal can hardly be said to be well
used. There are the somewhat perfunctory services morning and afternoon,
often suspended or degraded during holiday months when visitors are most
numerous; there are sermons rarely to be distinguished from those heard
in a thousand parish churches; there is a staff of eight or ten clergy
who may be busy at good works, but certainly do not make their cathedral
position their platform; and there are guides who for a small fee will
conduct parties round the church. Among these guides are indeed to be
found men who have made a study of the building, and are able to talk of
it as lovers, but the guides for the most part give no other information
than lists of names and dates, sometimes relieved by a common-place
anecdote. The cathedrals are treated as museums, and not so well as the
Forum of Rome. The question is: Can they be made of greater use in
spiritualizing life? I would offer some suggestions:--
1. Cathedrals might, I think, be more generally used for civic, county
and national functions, for intercession at times of crisis, and for
services in connexion with meetings of conferences and congresses. The
services might be especially adapted by music and by speech to deepen
the effect of the building with its grandeur and memories. The use in
this direction has increased of late years, and even when the service
seems to be little more than a church parade, those present are often
helped by the reminder that their immediate concern has a place in a
greater whole. But the use might be largely extended, so that every
example of corporate life might be set in the framework which would
give it dignity. Elections to civic councils might be better understood
if the newly-elected bodies gathered in the grand central building
where vulgar divisions would be hushed in the greatness, and the
ambitions of parties lifted up into an atmosphere in which the rivals
of past days are recognized in their common service to the State.
The meetings of congresses and conferences--of scientific and trade
societies--of leagues and unions for social reform would be helped by
beginning their deliberations in a place which would both humble and
widen the thoughts of the members.
Intercessional services, when guided by a few directing words, at which
men and women would gather to fix their minds on great ideals--on
peace--on sympathy with the oppressed--on the needs of children and
prisoners, would gain force from the association of a building where
generations have prayed and hoped and suffered. And if, as well as being
more frequent, such use were more carefully considered the effect would
be much deeper. It is not enough, for instance, that the service should
always follow the old form, and the music be elaborate and the sermon
orthodox. Consideration might be given so that prayers, and music, and
speech might all be made to work together with the influences of the
building to touch the spiritual side of the object interesting to the
congregation. The soul of the least important member of a civic council
or a society is larger than its programme. The cathedral service might
be, by much consideration, designed to help such souls to realize
something of the vast horizons in which they move--something of the
infinite issues attached to their resolutions and votes, something of
the company filling the past and the future of which they are members.
The cathedrals, by such frequent and well-considered uses, might do much
to spiritualize life.
2. There are, as I have said, usually eight or ten clergy who form the
cathedral staff. Many of them are chosen for their distinction in some
form of spiritual service, and all have devoted themselves to that
service. They may be in other ways delivering themselves of their
duties, but they as spiritual teachers cannot as a rule be said to
identify themselves with the cathedral. They do not use all their powers
to make the building a centre of spiritual life.
I would suggest, therefore, that these clergy attached to the cathedral
should have classes or lectures on theological, social, and historic
subjects. They should give their teaching freely in one of the chapels
of the cathedral, and the teaching should be so thorough as to command
the attention of the neighbouring clergy and other thoughtful people.
They would also, on occasions, give lectures in the nave designed to
guide popular thought to the better understanding of the live questions
of the day, or of the past.
And inasmuch as many of the clergy have been chosen for their skill in
music, which often at great cost holds a high place in cathedral
worship, I would suggest that regular teaching be given in the relation
of music to worship. Words, we are often told, do not make music sacred,
and religion has probably suffered degradation from the attachment of
high words to low music. There is certainly no doubt that the music in
many churches is both bad in character and pretentious. If teaching were
freely given by qualified teachers in the cathedrals, if examples of the
best were freely offered, and if the place of music in worship were
clearly shown, then music might become a valuable agent in
spiritualizing life.
Perhaps, however, the clergy might urge that they could not by such
teaching deliver themselves of their obligation to do spiritual work.
They would rather wrestle with souls and unite in prayer. But surely
if their teaching has for its aim the opening of men’s minds to know
the truth--the enlistment of men’s hearts in others’ service and the
bringing of the understanding into worship, then their teaching will
end in the knowledge of others’ souls and in acts of common devotion.
The cathedral staff might, through the cathedral and the position it
holds in a city, do much to spiritualize life.
3. The great spiritual asset of the cathedral is, however, its
association with the past, and its living witness that the present is
the child of the past. This may be called a spiritual asset, because it
is this conception of the past which, as is evident among the Jews and
Japanese, is able to inspire and control action. The people who see as
in a vision their country boldly standing and suffering for some great
principles and hear the voices of the great dead calling them
“children,” have power and peace within their reach.
It is, as I have said, because of some dim consciousness of this truth
that crowds of visitors flock into the buildings and spend a rare
holiday in hanging upon the dry words of the guides. It is easy to
imagine how their readily-offered interest might be seized, how guides
with fresh knowledge and trained sympathy might make the building tell
and illustrate the tale of the nation’s growth, how the different styles
of architecture might be made to express different stages of thought,
how the whole structure might be shown to be a shell and rind covering
living principles, how every one might be lifted up and humbled as the
building told him of England’s search for justice, freedom, and truth.
It is easy to imagine how such a living interpretation might be given to
the message of the building, but much work would first be necessary.
The cathedral staff would have to be constant learners, and take up
different sides of interest. They would themselves frequently accompany
parties and individuals, so that in intimate talk they would learn the
mind of the people, and they would be continually instructing the
regular guides. Their special duty would be to give at certain times
short talks on the history, the architecture, and the art, so that
visitors might be sure that at these times they would learn what light
new knowledge was throwing on the familiar surroundings.
The power of the past is dormant, it is buried beneath the insistent
present, but it is not dead, and it is conceivable that thoughtful and
devoted effort might rouse it to speak through the buildings which have
witnessed the highest aspirations of successive ages. If such effort
succeeded, and if the people of to-day could be helped to know and feel
the England of old days, they would be conscious of a spiritual force
bearing them on to great deeds. They would begin to understand how
things which are not seen are stronger than things which are seen. The
cathedrals have in themselves a message which would help to spiritualize
life, but without interpreters the message can hardly be heard.
4. I would add one other suggestion arising from the monuments which in
every cathedral attract so much notice. They are the memorials of men
and women notable in national or local history who belonged to various
parties and classes, to different forms of faith and different
professions representing divers qualities and diverse forms of service.
It would not be difficult for each cathedral to make a calendar of
worthies. A lecture every month on one such worthy would give an
opportunity for taking the minds of modern men into the surroundings of
the past, where they would see clearly the value of character.
Familiarity with the lives of Saints has been doubtless a great help to
many lonely and anxious souls, but this hardly applies to those who hear
sermons on St. Jude, and St. Bartholomew, and other Saints of whom
little can be known. If, however, from its great men and women each
cathedral selected twelve, for one of whom a day should be set apart
each month, the people in the locality would gradually become familiar
with their characters and gain by communion with them.
Thoughts are best revealed through lives, and the attraction of
personality was never more marked than at the present day. Through the
lives of the great dead, and through the persons of those who walked or
worshipped within familiar walls, it would be possible to make people
understand great principles, and gradually become conscious of the
Common Source from which flows “every good and perfect gift”. The dead
speak from the walls of the cathedral, but they have no interpreter, and
the mass of the people who are waiting for their message go away
unsatisfied. A power which would help to spiritualize life is unused.
But perhaps it may be urged that if all were done which has been
suggested, if the minds of visitors were kindled to admiration, if the
past were made to live and the dead to speak, much more would be
necessary to spiritualize life. Certainly the “spirit bloweth where it
listeth,” and only they who feel its breath are born again and enter a
world of power, of peace, and of love.
But it may be claimed that some attitudes are better than others in
which to feel this breath, and that people whose pride has been brought
low by the beauty of a great building, or whose ears have been opened to
the voices of the past, will be more likely to bow before the Holy
Spirit than those who have no thought beyond what they can see, hear, or
touch.
The age, we sometimes say, is waiting for a great leader--a prophet who
will make dead bones to live. It is well to remember that for all
redeemers the way has to be prepared, and the coming spiritual leader
will be helped if through our cathedrals people have developed powers of
communion with the Unseen.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.