convert.”
This means, that wherever influence can be brought to bear on the
return of Roman Catholic members to the House, that influence will not
be lacking.
2. “The next Session of Parliament may settle for ever the
position of Christianity in this country.”
Not CHRISTIANITY, for that is above all “settling,”--save with its
Founder--but that the next or other Sessions may open the way to a more
complete Roman Catholic domination is what is here hoped for.
3. “The adoption of a _single clause_ or principle will have
far-reaching and most vital results.”
Precisely;--so far-reaching and vital that England must be on her guard
against even a “single clause or principle” which endangers the liberty
of the subject.
4. “Struggles will be inevitable until the Christian cause which
is becoming more and more openly the cause of the majority has
permanently triumphed.”
For Cardinal Vaughan there was only one “Christian” cause--viz., the
Roman Catholic, and he who runs may read the meaning of the above
phrase without much difficulty.
Concerning the King’s Declaration Oath, said the Cardinal:--
“It is not the King who is responsible for the drafting or the
retention of this detestable Declaration. It is the Ministry, the
Legislature, the Constitution that are responsible for its retention,
and for forcing its acceptance upon the Sovereign. The gravamen,
therefore, lies against the State, not against the person of the King.”
Quite true; and it is therefore against the State that the Vatican
powers must, and possibly may, in time, be directed.
“And,” went on the Cardinal, “do not devout clergymen swear every day
in good faith to teach the Thirty-nine Articles, and find every day
that conscience and good faith compel them to break their engagement by
submitting to the Catholic Church? When a man fully realizes that by a
promise or an oath he has pledged himself to something that is unjust,
immoral, untrue, the engagement ceases to bind.”
_Ergo_, the English Church, the particular “Faith” which our King
undertakes to DEFEND, is “unjust, immoral and untrue.”
And, “Could Englishmen see themselves as others see them, they would be
more chary than they are of provoking hatred by such wanton contempt
for the feelings of other nations.”
Well, Englishmen have every chance of seeing themselves as others see
them, when they have to chronicle a “Christian” Cardinal’s indictment
accusing them of “wanton contempt for the feelings of other nations.”
To whom do other nations turn in want or distress but England? From
whom do the famine and fever-stricken in all corners of the world
obtain relief? England! Where is there any Roman Catholic country that
has poured out such limitless charity and pity to all in sorrow as
England? And why should the “conversion of England” be so valuable to
the Roman Church? Merely because of England’s incalculable wealth and
power!
Again, concerning the Declaration Oath, the Cardinal continued:--“Now,
should it ever happen that the King became convinced, by God’s grace,
of the truth of the doctrines that he abjured, of what value would be
the Declaration? Absolutely none!”
Of course not!--he would simply cease to be King, and would enjoy the
complete liberty of the subject.
“By all means,” went on his Eminence, warming with his theme, “let the
majority, if it please, stand by the law, which exists apart from the
Declaration, declaring that to reign over England the Sovereign must be
a Protestant. Retain this law and enforce it; but respect our creed, at
least just so far as to ignore it, and to leave us alone. This, surely,
is not a heavy demand to make upon the spirit of modern toleration.”
Then why did not the Cardinal and all his followers “respect the
creed” established in this country,--the religion of the State,--“just
so far as to ignore it,” and to leave those who honour it “alone”?
“This, surely, is not a heavy demand to make upon the spirit of
modern toleration.” It was not the Church of England which started
any discussion on the Coronation Oath at the time of King Edward the
Seventh’s crowning,--the quarrel emanated entirely from the Roman
Catholic side. And the Cardinal’s speech was intended to be more
aggressive than pacifying.
“But if,” he continued, “after all, there must be a Declaration _as
a sop to certain fears and passions_, let there be one to the effect
that the King is a Protestant--and stop there. Should, however, a
denunciation of the Catholic religion be added to a profession of
Protestantism, the whole world will understand it; it will understand
it as a pitiable _confession of English fear and weakness_. And as to
ourselves; well, we shall take it as a complimentary acknowledgment
by our Protestant fellow-countrymen of the importance and power of
faith--that it can not only remove mountains, but is capable of _moving
even the fabric of the British Empire itself_. But I should like to
conclude in another strain, and add to these observations a resolution
to this effect:--
“That the Sovereign of this Empire ought to be raised high above the
strife of all political and religious controversies, the more easily to
draw to himself and to retain the unabated loyalty of all creeds and
races within his Empire.”
With the latter part of the Cardinal’s harangue every one of every
creed and class will agree, but “a pitiable confession of English fear
and weakness” is a phrase that should never have been uttered by an
Englishman, whether “broad” or narrow, cardinal or layman. “English
fear and weakness” has never yet been known in the world’s history.
And as for “moving the fabric of the British Empire,” that can only
be done through the possible incompetence or demoralization of its
own statesmen,--by shiftiness, treachery and corruption in State
affairs--and even at this utmost worst, though England might be bent,
she would never be broken.
All this, however, has nothing to do with the Christian faith as Christ
Himself expounded it in His own commands. Quarrels and dissensions are
as far from the teaching of the Divine Master as an earth’s dusthole
is from the centre of the sun. Differences of dogma are not approved
in His eyes. Whether candles shall, or shall not, be set on the altar,
whether incense shall, or shall not, be burnt, may be said to relegate
to the “cleansing of the outside of the cup and platter,” and are not
a vital part of His intention--for He has nothing but condemnation
for “forms” and “ceremonies.” There is something both strange and
unnatural in the provocative spirit which is at present being exercised
by professing rulers of the Church of England against one another;
and another matter too for deep regret is the attitude of favour
maintained by certain political ministers, towards the practice of an
almost theatrical display in the form of English Christian services.
The various appointments of High Churchmen to important bishoprics
shows the tendency towards extravagant ritualism; certainly the more
simple and unaffected men of pure taste and dignity in Church ritual
get little chance of encouragement; and that the path is being prepared
for a second Cromwell is only too evident. It is lamentable indeed that
any discussions should arise between the different sects as to “forms
and ceremonies,” and those who excite fanatical hatreds by their petty
quarrels over unimportant “shows” and observances, are criminally to
blame for any evils that are likely to ensue. What Christ commands is
“Love one another”;--what He desires is that all mankind should be
friends and brothers in His Name. And it is from this point of view
that I again ask the question of those who may have glanced through
this paper--DO YOU BELIEVE, OR DO YOU NOT BELIEVE? Are you a CHRISTIAN?
Or a SECTARIAN? The one is not the other.
For my own part I would desire to see all the Sects cease their long
quarrel,--all “dogmas” dropped--and all creeds amalgamated into one
great loving family under the name of Christ. I should like to see
an end to all bigotry, whether of Protestantism against Romanism, or
Romanism against Protestantism,--a conclusion to all differences--and
one Universal Church of simple Love and Thanksgiving, and obedience
to Christ’s own commands. “Temporal power” should be held as the poor
thing which it is, compared to Spiritual power,--for Spiritual power,
according to the Founder of the Christian Faith, is the transcendent
force of Love--love to God and love to man,--“that perfect love which
casteth out fear,” and which, being “born of God, cannot rest but in
God above all created things.”
Thus it follows--That if we hate or envy or slander any person, WE ARE
NOT CHRISTIANS.
If we prefer outward forms of religious ceremonial to the every-day
practice of a life lived as closely as possible in accordance with the
commands laid down for us in the Gospel, WE ARE NOT CHRISTIANS.
If we love ourselves more than our neighbours, WE ARE NOT CHRISTIANS.
If we care for money, position, and the ostentation attending these
things, more than truth, simplicity and plain dealing, WE ARE NOT
CHRISTIANS.
These ordinary tests of our daily conduct are quite enough to enable
us to decide whether we are or are not of the faith. If we are _not_,
we should cease to “sham” that we _are_. It will be far better for
all those with whom we are brought in contact. For, thank God, there
exist thousands of very real “Christians”--(“by their fruits ye shall
know them”), doing unostentatious good everywhere, rescuing the lost,
aiding the poor, comforting the sick, and helping the world to grow
happier and better. They may be _called_ Jews, or Baptists, Papists,
or Buddhists,--but I hold them all as “Christians” if they perform
those good deeds and live those good lives which are acceptable to
Christ,--while many church-going hypocrites called “Christians” whose
social existence is a scandal, whose dissipations, gross immoralities
and pernicious example of living are open dangers to the whole
community, do not deserve even such a complimentary term as “pagan”
applied to them. For the pagans--aye, the earliest savages, believed
in Something higher than themselves,--but these sort of people believe
in nothing but the necessity of getting what they want at all costs,
and are mere human cancers of evil, breeding infection and pestilence.
And it is particularly incumbent on the clergy of all denominations
at the present juncture to sift Themselves as to their calling and
election while sifting others,--to ask Themselves whether they may
not be in a great measure to blame for much of the infamy which reeks
from our great cities--for much of the apathy and indifference to
that bitter poverty, that neglected suffering which often gives birth
to Anarchy,--for much of the open atheism which shames the upper
classes of society. Let them live such lives as may liberate them
from all fear or hesitation in speaking out boldly to the souls they
have in charge--let them “preach the Gospel” as they were commanded,
rather than expound human dogmas. Sympathy, tenderness, patience, love
for all living creatures, rejection of everything that is mean and
cruel, false and cowardly,--a broad mind, open to all the beautiful
and gracious influences of Nature--a spirit uplifted in thanksgiving
to the loving God of all worlds, who is brought close to us and made
the friend of man in the Divine Personality of Christ,--this surely
is CHRISTIANITY,--a Faith which leaves no corner anywhere for the
admission of hate, dissension or despair. Such is the Faith the Master
taught, saying:
[3]“I have not spoken of myself, but of the Father which sent me; He
gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak.
“And I know that His commandment is life everlasting--whatsoever I
speak, therefore, even as the Father taught me, so I speak.”
So He speaks--but do we listen? And if we listen,--and believe,--why do
we not obey?
FOOTNOTES:
[2] “Effects of the Factory System.”--Allen Clarke.
[3] John xii. 49.
UNCHRISTIAN CLERICS
It is generally supposed that an ordained minister of the Gospel is a
Christian. Whatever the faults, negligences and shortcomings of other
people in other conditions of life, it is tacitly expected that the
professing disciples of Christ, the priests, teachers and exponents of
holy and spiritual things, should be more or less holy and spiritual
in themselves. They are at any rate accredited with honest effort to
practise, as well as to preach, the divine ethics of their Divine
Master. Their position in the social community is one which, through
old-time tradition, historical sentiment, and inborn national piety, is
bound to command a certain respect from the laity. Any public disgrace
befalling a clergyman is always accompanied by a strong public sense of
shame, disappointment and regret. And when we meet (as most unhappily
we often do), with men in “holy orders” who,--instead of furnishing
the noble and pure examples of life and character which we have a
distinct right to look for in them,--degrade themselves and their high
profession by conduct unworthy of the lowest untutored barbarian, we
are moved by amazement as well as sorrow to think that such wolves in
sheep’s clothing should dare to masquerade as the sacredly ordained
helpers and instructors of the struggling human soul.
During the past few years there have been many examples of men
belonging to the hierarchy of the Church, who have wantonly and
knowingly outraged every canon of honour and virtue, and their sins
appear all the blacker because of the whiteness of the faith they
profess to serve. A criminal is twice a criminal when he adds hypocrisy
to his crime. The clergyman of a parish, who has all doors thrown open
to him,--who invites and receives the trust of his parishioners,--who
is set among them to guide, help and comfort them in the devious
and difficult ways of life, is a thousand times more to blame than
any other man in a less responsible position, when he knowingly and
deliberately consents to sin. Unless he is able to govern his own
passions, and eschew every base, mean and petty motive of action,
he is not fit to influence his fellow men, nor should he presume to
instruct them in matters which he makes it evident he does not himself
understand.
Quite recently a case was chronicled in the daily press of a clergyman
who went to visit a dying woman at her own request. She wished to make
a last confession to him, and so unburden her soul of its secret misery
before she passed away, trusting in God’s mercy for pardon and peace.
The clergyman went accordingly, and heard what she had to say. When the
unhappy creature was dead, however, he refused her poor body the sacred
rites of burial! Now it surely may be asked what authority had he or
any man calling himself a Christian minister to refuse the rites of
burial even to the worst of sinners? Whatever the woman’s faults might
have been, vengeance wreaked on a corpse is both futile and barbarous.
There is nothing in Christ’s pure and noble teaching that can endorse
so unholy a spirit of intolerance,--one too, which is calculated to
give the bitterest pain to the living friends and relations of the so
coarsely-insulted dead, and to breed in them a relentless hostility
to the Church and its representatives. For the poorest erring human
creature that ever turned over the pages of the New Testament, knows
that such conduct is not Christ-like, inasmuch as Christ had nothing
but the tenderest pity, pardon and peace for the worst sinner at the
last moment. When death steps in to close all accounts, it behoves man
to be more than merciful to his brother man. “For if ye forgive not men
their trespasses neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses.”
Still fresh in the minds of many must be the un-Christian conduct of
the late Cardinal Vaughan in denying the rites of Christian burial
to the venerable Dr. St. George Mivart. Dr. St. George Mivart was a
man of science whose theories did not agree with the tenets of the
Roman Catholic Church, and as he belonged ostensibly to that form of
faith, one may call him, if one so chooses, a bad Catholic. But when
it is remembered that within quite recent days, so-called “Christian”
priests in Servia have given their solemn benediction to the assassins
of the late King and Queen of that country, it is somewhat difficult
to understand or appreciate the kind of “religion” that blesses
murderers and regicides, yet refuses burial to a modern scientist who,
as far as his intellectual powers allowed him, was working for the
good and the wider instruction of the human race. At the time of the
“inhibition” and subsequent death of Dr. Mivart, I ventured to address
an “Open Letter” to Cardinal Vaughan on the subject. This Letter was
published in March 1900, and though no doubt the great “Prince of the
Church” never deigned to read it, a large majority of the public did,
and I have had much cause to rejoice that in the timorously silent
acquiescence of the Christian world in a deed which shames the very
name of Christ, I, at least, as one of the humblest among the followers
of the Christian faith, did have sufficient courage to speak out openly
against the wicked intolerance which made the Church itself seem mere
“sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal,” because lacking in that holy
charity “which suffereth long and is kind.” It was a barbarous act
to “inhibit” Dr. Mivart,--it was still more barbarous to refuse his
body the sacred burial-rites,--and though the great Cardinal has now
followed his victim to that world where all the secrets of the soul are
made manifest, his cruelty remains as a blot on his mortal career,--a
black smirch, ugly to look upon in the chronicle of his various virtues
and excellencies. No ordained minister of the Gospel has the right
to be intolerant. He has not the slightest excuse for arrogating to
himself any other code of ethics or conduct than that which is set out
plainly for him in the New Testament. Away from that he should not dare
to go, if he truly believes what he elects to preach,--and if he does
not believe, he should at once resign his office and not live on the
proceeds of what in his own private conscience he considers untrue.
Most of us have met with many a mean little curate,--many a sly,
spiteful, scandal-mongering hypocritical parson,--in the daily
round of our common lives and duties. Most of us know the “salad”
cleric,--the gentleman who is a doubtful compound of oil and vinegar,
with a good deal of tough green vegetable matter growing where
the brain should be,--coarse weed of bigotry, prejudice, and rank
obstinacy. None of us are entirely ignorant of the sedately amorous
parson who is either looking out for a wife on his own account, or
attempting a “Christianly” conversion of the wife of somebody else. In
country towns we can scarcely fail to have come across the domineering
vicar,--the small and petty tyrant, who whips the souls committed to
his charge with rods steeped in his own particular pickle of arrogance,
austerity and coercion, playing the part of a little despot over
terrorized Sunday-school children, and laying down the law for his
parishioners by way of a “new dispensation” wherein the Gospel has no
part. One such petty martinet, well known in a certain rural parish,
plays regular “ogre” to his choir boys. It is always a case of “Fee,
fi, fa, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a chorister,” with him. Should
one of these unfortunate minstrels chance to sneeze during service,
this vicar straightway imposes a penny fine (sometimes more) on the
unlucky little wretch for yielding to an irresistible nasal impulse!
This kind of thing is, of course, ridiculous, and would merit nothing
but laughter, were it not for the dislike, distrust and contempt
engendered in the minds of the boys by the display of such a peevish
spirit of trumpery oppression on the part of a man who is placed in
the position he holds to be an example of kindness, good temper,
cheerfulness and amiability to all. True, the vicar in question is
what may be called “liverish,” and a small boy’s sneeze may seem, to
a mind perverted by bilious bodily secretions, like the collapse of a
universe. But there are various ways of conquering even one’s physical
ills,--at least to the extent of sparing poor children the infliction
of fines because they have noses which occasionally give them trouble.
The begging cleric is of all sacerdotal figures the one most familiar
to the general community. One can seldom attend a church without
hearing the mendicant’s plea. If the collection taken were indeed for
the poor, and one felt that it was really and truly going to help
feed the starving and nourish the sick, how gladly most of us would
contribute, to the very best of our ability! But sad experience teaches
us that this is not so. There are “Funds” of other mettle than for
the sick and poor,--“restoration” funds especially. For many years a
famous church was in debt owing to “restorations,” and Sunday after
Sunday the vicar implored his congregation to lift “the burden” off its
time-honoured walls--in vain! At last one parishioner paid the amount
required in full. The vicar acknowledged the cheque,--put a recording
line in the “Parish Magazine,”--wrote a formal letter of thanks
regretting that the donor did not “show a good example by attending
public worship on Sundays,”--after which, _for more than a year he did
not speak to that parishioner again_! This is a fact. Neither he nor
his wife during that time ever showed the slightest common civility
to the one individual who, out of all the parish, had “lifted the
burden,” concerning which so many pious exordiums had been preached.
_Till_ the debt was paid, the vicar showed every friendliness to the
person in question--but afterwards--well!--one can only suppose it
was a case of “Othello’s occupation gone!” He could beg no more,--not
for that particular object. But I understand he has started fresh
“restorations” lately, so till he finds another trusting sheep in the
way of a too sympathetic parishioner, he will be quite happy.
There are some clerics who, to their sacred duties add “a little
literary work.” They are not literary men,--indeed very frequently
they have no idea whatever of literature--they are what may be called
“literary jobbers.” Many clergymen have been, and are still, greatly
distinguished in the literary calling--but I am not alluding to
past or future Kingsleys. The men I mean are those who “do a bit of
writing”--and help in compiling books of reference to which few ever
refer. They are apt to be the most pertinacious beggars of their
class,--beggars, not for others’ needs, but for their own. They want
introductions to “useful” people--people of “influence”--and they ask
for letters to publishers, which they sometimes get. The publishers
are not grateful. They are over-run, they say, with clergymen who want
to write guide-books, books of travel, books of reference, books of
reminiscence. One of these “reverend” individuals, pleading stress of
poverty, was employed by a lady to do some copying work, for which,
in a well-meant wish to satisfy the immediate needs of his wife and
children, she paid him in advance the sum of Fifty Pounds. He sent her
a signed receipt for the money with the following gushing epistle:
“DEAR ----,
Could I write as you do, I might find words to express in part
some of my feelings of gratitude to you for all your kindness.
My little daughter owes to you untold happiness, and I believe
the goodness you ever show her will brighten her whole future
life. My dear wife you help to bear her many burdens of health
and loneliness as no other has ever attempted to do; and my
very mediocre self owes to you, a recognition, after many long
struggles, I will not say of merit, for no one knows better than
myself, my own shortcomings, but of ‘effort.’ In fact, you come to
us as Amenhotep sung of the sun:--