ADVANCED RELIGIONISTS.
The Church of Progress.
At length, if I am to believe what I hear and see, the religious problem
of the age has been solved, and I am presented with a form of worship
which is in accordance with the discoveries of science and the dignity of
man. In St. George's Hall, Langham Place, this new association meets;
its president is Baxter Langley, Esq. It dispenses with prayer, and with
the reading of the Bible, but instead there is a performance of sacred
music by a choir of a hundred voices, with solos sung by professional
ladies and gentlemen specially engaged, and then the President himself,
smiling and buoyant as if it were an election meeting, as chairman,
performs many solos on his own account. In short, as a paper lying
before me says, "Everything will be done to make the service delightful,
whilst instruction will be secured by a popular lecture each evening from
some gentleman eminent in science, literature, or art."
It seems to be a speciality of this Church of Progress that it disappears
in summer altogether. It is only in the winter time that its doors are
thrown open--not at all to the poor and needy, but to those who can pay.
Is not this a little hard? Life is short, and the disciple of progress
may well mourn that for him half the year exists in vain. Then, again,
this Church of Progress, as much as the oldest and most-abused Churches
of Christendom, makes very rigorous requirements on the pocket. Sixpence
is the minimum paid. If you would hear comfortably you must pay a
shilling. If you would have a seat where you can see and hear still more
comfortably you must shell out half-a-crown. Now, if a man goes with his
wife and family, it is obvious that the sum he will have to pay will be,
if he have but a scanty income, no small consideration. It is true that
a reduction is made if you take tickets for the course, but what I find
fault with is that the casual poor have no chance of being benefited by
this new gospel--that it does not appeal to them--that it ignores them
altogether. I may hear the greatest of Dissenting preachers, I may sit
under deans and bishops--nay, I may listen to the finished accents of an
archbishop--without putting my hand in my pocket, but for the lecture at
St. George's Hall, and the sacred minstrelsy there, I must at the least
pay sixpence. The sum is a small one, but it has a tendency to narrow
the Church and to limit its influence--it must keep outside many who
otherwise would worship there. Why should the Church of Progress only
appeal to the man with sixpence in his pocket? Is it only the capitalist
whose soul is worth looking after? For common people will any old-wife's
fable do?
A more serious fault may be found with the Church of Progress. "We are
not animated by any spirit of antagonism," they say; "and as we propose
to occupy a new field of utility, we see no reason why our assemblies
should be regarded with hostility by other bodies." "Our religion is
positive and constructive, not negative and aggressive." "Our Church is
founded upon the recognition of the primary importance of human welfare;
and its purpose will be to develop the power of philanthropy by education
in the truths of science and philosophy, and by the elevating influence
of the highest and purest art." What Protestant Church cannot say the
same? As to art, whence does the Church of Progress get its music, which
perhaps is its chief attraction, but from the Churches which it tells us
are losing their hold upon the minds of the people? It rears
philanthropy: what was Peabody? It talks of philosophy: what were such
philosophers as Sir David Brewster or Professor Faraday? Equally
delusive is its denial of antagonism. It is founded for those "whose
religious ideas find no suitable exponent in any of the existing
Churches." The existing Churches more or less appeal to the Bible, and
to Christ as Master, and place before the mind as consolation, or
warning, or allurement, the splendours and the terrors of a world to
come. In the new Church all this is set on one side. Science, not
dogma, is to be the teacher, and they sing--
"Reason and love! thy kingdom come,
Oh, Church of endless ages rise!
Till fairer shines our mortal home
Than heavens we sought beyond the skies."
Is it true to say that between this new light and the old there is no
antagonism? Is it honest to say, as they do in the address already
referred to, "we ask no one to adopt or deny any of the creeds of the
Churches. We shall endeavour to promulgate truth, and truth is always
Divine"? Is it not clear that no one can join the Church of Progress
unless he has ceased to believe in the creeds of the Churches? that it is
impossible to believe in Christ and Baxter Langley as well? When Pilate
said unto the Jews, "Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas, or
Jesus which is called Christ?" none but an idiot would have said there
was no antagonism between the two. Again, it may be asked, by what right
do these "earnest, conscientious men and women" in Langham Place call
themselves a Church? Is it for the sake of deceiving the public? To
teach art, or science, or literature, is not religion. Why, then, define
as a Church people who meet on a Sunday to hear lectures on science,
literature, and art? Undoubtedly, people may do worse on a Sunday night,
but in listening to such lectures they have no right to say they are at
church.
Mr. George Jacob Holyoake is also one of their lecturers; and if he be
not antagonistic, what is he? Of all irrepressible men Mr. Holyoake is
undoubtedly the most so. You meet him everywhere. Not a social science
meeting, nor a political gathering, nor a philosophical discussion exists
within reach of London but he is present at it, to take part in its
discussions as the exponent of the views, and feelings, and desires of
the British working man. If London is demonstrative, as when a Garibaldi
appears upon the stage, foremost of those who meet to do him honour is
Mr. Holyoake. In the House of Commons he is similarly prominent. In the
Speaker's gallery or in the lobby you may see him all night long, here
speaking to a member, there listening to one as if the care of all the
country rested on his shoulders. I don't fancy Mr. Holyoake is the great
man he takes himself to be. I deny his right to be the exponent of the
class of whom he condescends to be the ornament and shield. I admit his
boundless activity, his wonderful talent for intrusion, the cleverness of
his talk. I admit, too, the energy with which in the course of a now
extended career he has travelled the land, with a view to convince his
fellow-men that there is no future, that he who says there is but repeats
the old worn-out fiction of the priests, and that it is for this world
rather than the next that we must labour and strive. Undoubtedly for Mr.
Holyoake some extenuation must be made. A man may well doubt the
Christianity which instead of removing his religious doubts throws him
into gaol for the crime of expressing them. Nevertheless, I may doubt,
if not the sincerity,--for about that there can be no question--at any
rate the truth and wisdom of his creed; and may, after all, prefer the
light of the Gospel to that which he asks me to admire. I may admit that
there have been quacks, and impostors, and charlatans in the religious
world--that the Church has fearfully failed in its mission--that, armed
with the sword of the State, it has been often a curse and a blight--but
it does not follow that the truth, of which the Church should be the
living organization, has no existence, that it has no mission in this
world, that the Bible is to be trampled under foot, that the Saviour is
to be abolished, and that for man, instead of the narrow path and the
heavenly crown, nothing is left but that he should eat, and drink, and
die. Such, however, I believe, is Mr. Holyoake's Gospel. As to his
utterances on Sunday when I heard him, they were of the poorest character
possible. The subject was the common people; and after describing three
or four classes of them, he finished with the inculcation of the by no
means original idea--that they were not so bad as they seem, that we had
to respect in them the humanity which, under favourable circumstances,
might be developed into something better. I never heard Mr. Holyoake
preach before, and I shall take care never to hear him again. As a
speaker, one of Mr. Spurgeon's rawest students would beat him hollow.
THE INDEPENDENT RELIGIOUS REFORMERS.
The Theists in London are, we are told, very numerous, and yet, till
about ten years since, no steps had been taken by them to provide public
buildings in which to assemble for instruction and conversation, and no
church had been opened in which they could invite their friends to hear
the principles of Theism explained and defended. In order to supply that
want, Dr. Perfitt, a layman, resolved upon renting South Place Chapel,
Finsbury Square, for the purpose of delivering lectures and discourses
upon various religious topics. In 1858 the Society of Independent
Religious Reformers was organized out of the hearers he had thus gathered
around him. A committee was elected, rules were passed, and the
following were declared to be the objects of the Society:--
1. To secure the association and co-operation of all persons who are
desirous of cultivating the religious sentiment in a manner essentially
free from the evil spirit of creed, from the intolerance of sectarianism,
and the leaven of priestcraft; of those persons who respect the authority
of reason, and reverentially accept the decrees of conscience.
2. To discover and methodize truths connected either with the laws of
nature, the progress of thought, or the lives of good men in all ages and
countries, so that they may be rendered of practical value as guides to a
healthy, moral, and manly life.
3. To assist, as in the performance of a religious duty, in the
regeneration of society by co-operating with every organized body whose
aim is to abolish superstition, ignorance, drunkenness, political
injustice, or any other of the numerous evils which now afflict the
community.
To carry out these ideas the noble painting gallery, built by the late
Sir Benjamin West, in Newman Street, Oxford Street, was procured and
fitted up. This large hall seats 1500 persons. A good organ was
erected, and schools and a library were talked of. At this place, on
Sunday mornings, the public are treated to what is called a free
religious service, based upon the great facts and principles of
intellectual Theism. In the evenings popular lectures are delivered
bearing upon science, history, or religious free thought. In both cases
Dr. Perfitt is the orator. On many occasions the Doctor has appeared in
public. Under not very pleasant circumstances--for he had little
support--he appealed to Finsbury, but in vain, to send him into
Parliament. It is clear, then, what of success the man has accomplished,
or of good the man has done, has been chiefly in connexion with the
Society of Independent Reformers. We were told in 1863 "the church in
Newman Street is but the forerunner of hundreds which will rest upon the
same foundation." Dr. Perfitt has been more than seven years in Newman
Street, and quite twenty at his work. A man can do a great deal in such
a space of time if he has a fluent tongue, as is abundantly illustrated,
not to go beyond our age, in the careers of Father Mathew, Father
Ignatius, John B. Gough, or Mr. Spurgeon. Irving did not last so long,
yet, metaphorically speaking, he managed to set the Thames on fire. It
is clear Dr. Perfitt has peculiarly advantageous conditions under which
to work. In the first place, as his aim is--
"To serve the truth where'er 'tis found,
On Christian or on heathen ground"--
he has a wide field over which his oratory may range. It cannot all be
barren from Dan to Beersheba. In the second place, according to the
Independent Religious Reformers, the great want of our times is such as
they are. "It is well known," they tell us, "that although the orthodox
religious establishments are earnestly supported, they cannot gain the
hearts of the people. The intelligence of England has outgrown the old
creeds and formulas. Theism is secretly approved by thousands." The
time, then, is ripe for such a mission as Dr. Perfitt proposes. The hour
has come, and he is the man. It is not in his negative and critical
aspect that he is to be judged. In the position in that respect he has
assumed there is no novelty. Unfortunately, the Church of England, like
all established churches, more or less lays itself open to the most
irreverent criticism. The new wine cannot be put in the old bottles. We
can quite agree with him that "the majority of the clergy have no just
conception of what, according to the nature of things, they are called
upon to do;" that St. Paul would find himself sadly out of place were he
called upon to preach to the congregation of a fashionable suburban
church; and that there would indeed be a flutter and commotion raised
were "the Archbishop of Canterbury, cutting himself adrift from the level
of Belgravia, to stand out before men denouncing woe upon the butterflies
of fashion and the Dundrearies of Parliament as Jesus denounced the
Scribes and Pharisees of old." But the saying these things does not
constitute a man the founder of a new and better sect. Mr. Froude tells
us "the clergyman of the nineteenth century subscribes the Thirty-nine
Articles with a smile as might have been worn by Samson when his
Philistine mistress bound his arms with the cords and withs." It is
scarcely possible to write a bitterer thing of the clergy, yet Mr. Froude
is not, so far as we are aware, an Independent Religious Reformer. Even
of the Church of which such hard things may be said, and justly said, we
may argue that its theory of the identity of Church and State is a noble
one, and that the dream of such men as "the judicious Hooker," of
Coleridge, of Dr. Arnold, is that of all who, in stately cathedral or
humble conventicle, pray Sunday after Sunday to the common Father, "Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done upon earth as it is in heaven." Man is a
religious animal; the heart is true to its old instincts. There is no
peace for his soul, no rest for the sole of the foot, no shelter for him
in the storm, no brightness in the cloud, no glory in the sun, no hope in
life, no life in death, unless he can believe, adore, and love. But we
have forgotten Dr. Perfitt. Well, we need be in no hurry. If you go to
Newman Street you will find very few people there by eleven. The
exclusively religious service, as one of the hearers informed us it was,
generally commences at a quarter past, where in the large hall about a
hundred may be collected together, the majority, of course, males,
chiefly of the lower section, I should imagine, of the middle class.
There is music; then the Doctor reads a chapter of the Bible, and takes
it to pieces; then there is more music; then a prayer, and a half-hour's
sermon, from a regular text, according to the fashion of the orthodox,
but generally coming to a very unorthodox conclusion. Indeed, the former
come off hardly at the Doctor's hands. He demolished them as easily as
if they were so many men of straw; President Edwards, Richard Baxter, Mr.
Spurgeon, the apostles, and their great Teacher, all look very small by
the side of the clear, logical, learned, fluent, sarcastic, infallible
Doctor, who is the heir of all the ages under the sun; who talks of
Zoroaster, and Vedas, and Shasters; who is as familiar with Brahma and
Buddha as if he had assisted at their birth, and who knows what's o'clock
in Sanscrit better than you or I, my good sir, in ordinary English.
After the sermon comes the collection, and the congregational
dinner-hour, for the sale of the beer for which, the neighbouring publics
open just as the Independent Religious Reformers, exhausted by the
Doctor's omniscience, require the refreshing fluid.
"Hae, sirs!" said an elderly female in a remote part of Scotland, as for
the first time she saw a black man; "hae, sirs, what canna be done for
the penny!" Assuredly some such feeling must be entertained by the
listener who for the first time hears Dr. Perfitt in his rostrum in
Cambridge Hall. For a pound a year you may have this pleasure every
Sunday, and become one of the Independent Reformers. What more can man
desire?
SOUTH PLACE, FINSBURY SQUARE.
The religion of humanity has been for a time dominant in South Place,
Finsbury Square. Its oldest and original teacher in connexion with the
place was the late W. Johnson Fox, M.P., a popular writer and eloquent
orator, who did much in his day and generation on behalf of freedom in
trade, in politics, and religion, and did it well. Nor did he labour in
vain as regards himself. Born in an humble position, he became a student
at Homerton College and an orthodox Dissenter. In a little while he
joined the Unitarians, and then left them for a freer and fuller
religious creed and form of worship. He had many friends. His letters,
signed "Publicola," in the _Weekly Dispatch_, were the delight of the
working classes; and his Anti-Corn-law orations charmed all, and there
were tens of thousands who had the privilege of listening to them. He
was returned to Parliament by the electors of Oldham, and a monument
erected to his memory there still perpetuates his name. He died at a
ripe old age, ever having preserved the character of an independent and
honourable man. As a religious teacher he was no extraordinary success.
It was rarely indeed that South Place was very full. Of course, the
hearers were the very _elite_ of the human race. Wherever you
go--especially among sects not particularly orthodox or popular--the men
and women with whom you come in contact are no ordinary men and women.
By a happy dispensation of Providence they fail to see themselves as
others see them, and are as firmly convinced of their own intellectual
superiority over a benighted British public as they are of the truth of
their principles and of their ultimate success.
"There is a religion of humanity," said Mr. Fox, "though not
enshrined in articles and creeds, though it is not to be read merely
in sacred books, and yet it may be read in all wherever they have
anything in them of truth and moral beauty,--a religion of humanity
which goes deeper than all because it belongs to the essentials of
our moral and intellectual constitution, and not to mere external
accidents, the proof of which is not in historical agreement or
metaphysical deduction, but in our own conscience and
consciousness,--a religion of humanity which unites and blends all
other religions, and makes one the men whose hearts are sincere, and
whose characters are true, and good, and harmonious, whatever may be
the deductions of their minds or their external profession,--a
religion of humanity which cannot perish in the overthrow of altars
or the fall of temples, which survives them all, and which, were
every derived form of religion obliterated from the face of the
earth, would recreate religion as the spring recreates the fruits and
flowers of the soul, bidding it bloom again in beauty, bear again its
rich fruits of utility, and fashion for itself such forms and modes
of expression as may best agree with the progressive condition of
mankind."
It was in accordance with these ideas that the Sunday morning services in
South Place were carried on.
After Mr. Fox came Mr. Ierson, and a nearer approximation to regular
Unitarianism. But the place did not prosper; there were far too many
empty benches. He was succeeded by a gentleman formerly a Baptist
minister, but who had outgrown his sect, and for a little while there was
harmony and progress. Again there was an interregnum. "Seekers are,"
said old Oliver Cromwell, "next best to finders." In London, especially
in these unsettled days of free inquiry, are many such, and to such the
pulpit of South Place was freely offered. I do not fancy as a rule
seekers are good preachers. To say anything effectually you must have
something to say. To make others weep you must weep yourself. With mere
negations you can never sway the minds or influence the lives of men. In
orthodox places of worship there is often much of dreariness. The
clergyman whose heart is not in his work is a miserable spectacle for
gods and men, but the dreariness of heterodoxy is infinitely greater; and
of all things under the sun the most miserable in the clerical way is the
sight of a would-be philosopher feebly diluting or expanding, as the case
may be, windy platitudes or transcendental moonshine. Under such an
infliction, as it may well be imagined, South Place did not flourish
greatly. At length, in due course, a man appeared to continue the work
which Mr. Fox had originated. His name is Mr. M. D. Conway. I believe
he is of American origin, and evidently under him the cause is in a
prosperous state. When I say prosperous, the term is not to be
understood as it would be in orthodox circles. The latter class of
religionists, when they say that a place is prosperous imply by the use
of such language that a place of worship is well filled; that men are
turned from sin to holiness, from serving the devil to serving God, that
the place is a centre of religious life and activity, and that all, young
and old, rich and poor, are to the best of their power and means
co-operating in Christian work. Prosperity in this sense cannot be
predicated of South Place. Its doors are only opened once a week. There
is no religious, or educational, or philanthropical agency connected with
the chapel; but there are more attendants than there were, and that
encourages Mr. Conway and his friends. Indeed, there is a talk amongst
them of establishing a Sunday-school. At the same time it seems to me
that the class of people who go to South Place are not socially or
intellectually what they were in Mr. Fox's time--when the Cortaulds would
come up all the way from Braintree to hear Mr. Fox, when City lawyers
like the late Mr. Ashurst, and City magnates like the late Mr. Dillon,
were amongst the audience; when on a Sunday morning might be seen there
such men as Sir J. Bowring, or Macready, or Charles Dickens, and others
equally well known to fame. They left when Mr. Fox left. I believe Mr.
P. Taylor, M.P., still keeps up a connexion, more or less fitful and
uncertain, with the place. Sir Sydney Waterlow also still retains a
couple of sittings, but he is rarely there. Nevertheless, the
congregation has greatly increased; the chapel is quite three parts full.
Still they use the little book of hymns and anthems selected by Mr. Fox;
and the musical part of the service, always a great matter at South
Place, is as well conducted and as attractive as ever.
Mr. Conway is a very advanced thinker. The character of his preaching
and praying is purely theistic. He wars with dogmas in every form. It
may be a wing to-day, a fetter to-morrow. For him there are no sacred
books, or rather he places them all on an equality. For his motto he
goes to India, and quotes the Brahma Somaj. In this respect he is a true
follower of the late Mr. Fox, whose fascinating oratory owed very little
of its charm to that which orthodox Unitarians or orthodox Christians
hold highest and holiest; whose aim was more to pull down than to build
up, and who had a greater faculty for the exposition of Christian
fallacies than for the enunciating of truths and principles needful to
humanity in its hour of temptation, distress, danger, or death. Few have
his exquisite humour, his power of sarcasm, his acquaintance with modern
literature, his copious command of polished language, his expressive yet
calm delivery, his gentleness almost as touching as that of woman; but
that which was lacking in him often made men his inferiors in intellect,
his superiors in the art of arousing the spiritually dead, or in giving
to the moral wastes in our midst the vigour, the beauty, the fertility of
life.
THE SECULARISTS.
It is a sign of the times when Infidelity visits the workshop or the
factory, and challenges the admiration of the men in fustian--the men
whose hard labours and horny hands have helped to make England what it
is, and who in an increasing ratio are making their influence felt on the
Exchange where capital seeks investment, in the ancient halls where the
teachers of the next generation are training, in the study of the
political philosopher, in Parliaments where practical people assemble to
legislate after their necessarily imperfect fashion for the general weal.
It is said of Sir Godfrey Kneller that he was deeply shocked at hearing a
common labourer invoking imprecations on his own head. Some such feeling
must be entertained by the old-fashioned, scholarly sceptics at all times
met with in highly intellectual communities. Religion was a good thing
for the poor; it taught them to know their place, to be humble,
industrious, and not to murmur when deprived by human agency of the
rights to which all are born, or when by the same agency they were made
to bear innumerable wrongs. For such religion was intended; and for such
considerations it was right and proper that it should be accepted by
society--sanctioned by the law--its ministers rewarded and salaried by
the State. It was under the influence of some such feeling that Napoleon
the Great is reported to have said, if there were no God, it would be
necessary to invent one; and in a proportionate manner do the
philosophers feel alarm and indignation when the working man, for whom
such trouble has been taken,--for whom religion has, as it were, been
discovered,--for whom an Establishment, the most richly endowed with this
world's goods in Christendom, rejoices to call itself the poor man's
Church,--turns round, and, in his coarse, rough way, says, "Ladies and
gentlemen, I am much obliged to you. I see your little game. Pray don't
take any trouble on my account. Please to leave me to go to the bad in
my own way. Give me the right to the free inquiry you claim for
yourselves, and don't quarrel with me on account of its results." Really
it seems to me the Secularist has the best of it. I may regret his
conclusions. I cannot blame his independent spirit.
Of the men who talk in this way it may be said, at any rate as regards
the metropolis, Robert Dale Owen was the teacher and apostle. Owen was
the first to proclaim to the masses that there was no such thing as moral
responsibility; that a man's character was formed for him partly by
nature at his birth, and partly by the external influences to which he
was exposed. As man, there was for him no choice of right or wrong. Any
religion, and emphatically that of Christ, which proceeds upon the
supposition that man can lay hold of eternal life, can accept the offer
of God's mercy, can believe and live, is false and to be rejected with
disdain. Owen was a man of blameless life--a man who made great
sacrifices of wealth, and time, and labour, on account of his ideas. As
his last apologist has well stated, "his condemnation of religion was not
the result of libertine excesses, nor of a philosophical conceit, but
followed honestly from the shallow theory he had adopted." Amongst the
poor, ignorant, superficial denizens of our crowded cities he was hailed
as the regenerator of manhood, and made many converts. Nor are they to
be blamed. Owen met with an attentive hearing from such as Brougham and
Bentham, Earls Liverpool and Aberdeen, Jefferson and Van Buren, the Duke
of Kent and the King of Prussia; actually, we believe, he was presented
at Court. It is true in his old age he became a believer in spirits,
after all, and was buried in the little churchyard of Newton,
Montgomeryshire, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection
to eternal life; but by that time the truth or falsehood he had
proclaimed had sunk into many minds, had been re-uttered by many tongues,
had been commended to the working classes by no less a master of language
and argument than George Jacob Holyoake. Certainly, in the hands of the
latter, Owenism, under its new name of Secularism, lost none of its
power. The master was apt to be egotistic--dogmatic--much given to
repetition--very diffuse. Mr. Holyoake's enemies cannot conscientiously
say he is that. His friends, many of them the cleverest of London men,
claim for him talents of no common order. A shop in Fleet Street was
opened--the _Reasoner_ was established--and Mr. Holyoake went all over
the land to emancipate the human mind, spell-bound by priestcraft, and to
roll back the double night of ages and of ignorance. In a little while
he retired from business, the shop in Fleet Street was shut up, the
_Reasoner_ reasoned no more--Mr. Holyoake ceased perambulating. Still we
have a genuine Apostolical succession: Mr. Bradlaugh takes up the
wondrous tale, and the _National Reformer_ records the triumphs of his
cause. According to him, all is prosperous. Hope paints a glorious
future--when man's
"Regenerate soul from crime
Shall yet be drawn,
And Reason on this mortal clime
Immortal dawn."
Yet what is the fact? The _National Reformer_ costs 10_l._ a week, and
it does not pay. Its readers tell us their name is legion; yet it does
not pay. At any rate, it is constantly appealing to its public for
support. In every workshop or factory, in all our great hives of
intelligence and life, the Secularists boast their thousands. All the
intelligent operative manhood of England is, according to their own
account, theirs; yet their organ--the child of a giant--is very weak on
its legs, and very short of wind.
The headquarters of the Secularists is Cleveland Street, a street lying
in that mass of pauperism at the rear of Tottenham Court Road Chapel. In
that street there is a hall, originally erected, I believe, by Owen
himself. At any rate, it is the resort of the illuminated to whom his
philosophy has opened up a new moral world,--which, as regards
appearances, is little better than the benighted Egypt out of which they
have departed. Here you will find no free Gospel. The Secularists are
determined to make the best of this world. If you wish to enter, you
must pay; if you wish to show your gentility and sit near the lecturer,
you must pay twopence more. Previous to the lecturer commencing, a boy
goes up and down the room selling copies of the _National Reformer_, and
a table at one end is devoted to the sale of publications of a similar
character.
Cleveland Hall, every Sunday evening, then, is devoted to what are called
Popular Free-thought Lectures. The doors open at seven, the lectures
commence at half-past. The programme for the month of August, which I
have now before me, will give the reader an idea of what is meant by free
thought:--
"On Sunday evening, August 2, Mr. Charles Watts--An Impartial
Estimate of the Life and Teachings of the Founder of Christianity; on
Sunday evening, August 9, Iconoclast (Mr. Bradlaugh)--Capital and
Labour, and Trades' Unions; on Sunday evening, August 16, Mrs.
Harriet Law--The Teachings and Philosophy of J. S. Mill, Esq.; on
Sunday evening, August 23, Mrs. Harriet Law--The Late Robert Owen: a
Tribute to His Memory, Drawn from a Comparison of Present
Institutions and their Effects, with those Advocated by that Eminent
Philanthropist; on Sunday evening, August 30, Mrs. Harriet Law, an
Appeal to Women to Consider their Interests in Connexion with the
Social, Political, and Theological Aspects of the Times."
Let me add, discussions are invited at the close of each lecture, and
that, as may be anticipated, after a discussion the combatants remain of
the same opinion. Nevertheless, the Secularists enjoy these discussions
immensely--and no wonder, as on all such occasions they form not a
majority merely, but almost the entire assembly. It is not often they
find their match. Men who can meet them on a common platform are rare.
A sincere Christian is shocked and pained, and loses his temper. Every
cock can crow on his own dunghill; and at Cleveland Hall the Secularists
have it all their own way, and are merry at the expense of their
opponents. Nor is this all; they often indulge in a style of abuse which
sounds even to tolerant ears uncommonly like blasphemy. In fact, they
are often needlessly antagonistic, and vulgar, and coarse.
I have said Cleveland Hall is the headquarters of the society, for there
is a society of which Mr. Charles Watts is secretary. There is another
hall in the City Road; lectures are also, I believe, delivered elsewhere
in London on a Sunday evening, and there are at least four or five
secular societies. In the summer time they have open-air lectures on a
Sunday morning in different parts of London. When the writer has been at
Cleveland Hall, the room has generally been half full of respectable and
sharp working men, all very positive and enthusiastic. There are not
many women present, but, of course, there is the irrepressible baby. The
lecturers are generally the persons whose names I have already given, who
occasionally vary the scene of their labours by provincial engagements.
Their work, whatever it may be, has now been going on for some years.
This argues, on their part, some special fitness, and an adaptation of
what they say and think to the class to whom they appeal. In this
respect they set many of the clergy a good example. The people at
Cleveland Hall do not call out for quarter of an hour lectures. Nor do
they require anything in the way of music, or choral performances, or
floral decorations, or altar lights, to make the service interesting.
For children, whether they go to church or chapel, you must provide
shows. For men nothing more is needed than logic and the human voice.