WAR
'Good heavens!' exclaimed the archdeacon, as he placed his foot on
the gravel walk of the close, and raising his hat with one hand,
passed the other somewhat violently over his now grizzled locks;
smoke issued from the uplifted beaver as it were a cloud of wrath,
and the safety-valve of his anger opened, and emitted a visible
steam, preventing positive explosion and probably apoplexy. 'Good
heavens!'--and the archdeacon looked up to the gray pinnacles of
the cathedral tower, making a mute appeal to that still living
witness which had looked down on the doings of so many bishops of
Barchester.
'I don't think I shall ever like that Mr Slope,' said Mr Harding.
'Like him!' roared the archdeacon, standing still for a moment to
give more force to his voice; 'like him!' All the ravens of the
close cawed their assent. The old bells of the tower, in chiming
the hour, echoed the words; and the swallows flying out from their
nests mutely expressed a similar opinion. Like Mr Slope! Why no, it
was not very probable that any Barchester-bred living thing should
like Mr Slope!
'Nor Mrs Proudie either,' said Mr Harding.
The archdeacon thereupon forgot himself. I will not follow his
example, nor shock my readers by transcribing the term in which he
expressed his feelings as to the lady who had been named. The
ravens and the last lingering notes of the clock bells were less
scrupulous, and repeated in corresponding echoes the very improper
exclamation. The archdeacon again raised his hat; and another
salutary escape of steam was effected.
There was a pause, during which the precentor tried to realise the
fact that the wife of the bishop of Barchester had been thus
designated, in the close of the cathedral, by the lips of its own
archdeacon: but he could not do it.
'The bishop seems a quiet man enough,' suggested Mr Harding, having
acknowledged to himself his own failure.
'Idiot!' exclaimed the doctor, who for the nonce was not capable of
more than spasmodic attempts at utterance.
'Well, he did not seem very bright,' said Mr Harding, 'and yet he
has always had the reputation of a clever man. I suppose he's
cautious and not inclined to express himself very freely.'
The new bishop of Barchester was already so contemptible a creature
in Dr Grantly's eyes, that he could not condescend to discuss his
character. He was a puppet to be played by others; a mere wax doll,
done up in an apron and a shovel hat, to be stuck on a throne or
elsewhere and pulled about by wires as others chose. Dr Grantly did
not choose to let himself down low enough to talk about Dr Proudie;
but he saw that he would have to talk about the other members of
his household, the coadjutor bishops, who had brought his lordship
down, as it were, in a box, and were about to handle the wires as
they willed. This in itself was a terrible vexation to the
archdeacon. Could he have ignored the chaplain, and have fought the
bishop, there would have been, at any rate, nothing degrading in
such a contest. Let the Queen make whom she would bishop of
Barchester; a man, or even an ape, when once a bishop, would be a
respectable adversary, if he would but fight, himself. But what was
such a person as Dr Grantly to do, when such another person as Mr
Slope was put forward as his antagonist?
If he, our archdeacon, refused to combat, Mr Slope would walk
triumphant over the field, and have the diocese of Barchester under
his heel.
If, on the other hand, the archdeacon accepted as his enemy the man
whom the new puppet bishop put before him as such, he would have to
talk about Mr Slope, and write about Mr Slope, and in all matters
treat with Mr Slope, as a being standing, in some degree, on ground
similar to his own. He would have to meet Mr Slope; to--Bah! The
idea was sickening. He could not bring himself to have to do with
Mr Slope.
'He is the most thoroughly bestial creature that ever I set my eyes
upon,' said the archdeacon.
'Who--the bishop?'
'Bishop! No--I'm not talking about the bishop. How on earth such a
creature got ordained!--they'll ordain anybody now, I know; but
he's been in the church these ten years; and they used to be a
little careful ten years ago.'
'Oh! You mean Mr Slope.'
'Did you ever see any animal less like a gentleman?'
'I can't say I felt myself much disposed to like him.'
'Like him!' again shouted the doctor, and the assenting ravens
again cawed an echo; 'of course you don't like him; it's not a
question of liking. But what are we to do with him?'
'Do with him?' asked Mr Harding.
'Yes--what are we to do with him? How are we to treat him? There he
is, and there he'll stay. He has put his foot in that palace, and
he will never take it out again till he's driven. How are we to get
rid of him?'
'I don't suppose he can do us much harm.'
'Not do harm!--Well I think you'll find yourself of a different
opinion before a month is gone. What would you say now, if he got
himself put into the hospital? Would that be harm?'
Mr Harding mused awhile, and then said he didn't think the new
bishop would put Mr Slope into the hospital.
'If he doesn't put him there, he'll put him somewhere else where
he'll be as bad. I tell you that that man, to all intents and
purposes, will be Bishop of Barchester;' and again, Dr Grantly
raised his hat, and rubbed his hand thoughtfully and sadly over his
head.
'Impudent scoundrel!' he exclaimed after a while. 'To dare to
cross-examine me about Sunday schools in the diocese, and Sunday
travelling too: I never in my life met his equal for sheer
impudence. Why, he must have thought we were two candidates for
ordination.'
'I declare I thought Mrs Proudie the worst of the two,' said Mr
Harding.
'When a woman is impertinent one must only put up with it, and keep
out of her way in future; but I am not inclined to put up with Mr
Slope. "Sabbath travelling!"' and the doctor attempted to imitate
the peculiar drawl of the man he so much disliked: '"Sabbath
travelling!" Those are the sort of men who will ruin the Church of
England, and make the profession of clergyman disreputable. It is
not the dissenters or the papists that we should fear, but the set
of canting, low-bred hypocrites who are wriggling their way in
among us; men who have no fixed principle, no standard ideas of
religion or doctrine, but who take up some popular cry, as this
fellow has done about "Sabbath travelling."'
Dr Grantly did not again repeat the question aloud, but he did so
constantly to himself, 'What were they to do with Mr Slope?' How
was he openly, before the world, to show that he utterly
disapproved of and abhorred such a man?
Hitherto Barchester had escaped the taint of any extreme rigour of
church doctrine. The clergymen of the city and the neighbourhood,
though very well inclined to promote high-church principles,
privileges, and prerogatives, had never committed themselves to
tendencies, which are somewhat too loosely called Puseyite
practices. They all preached in their black gowns, as their fathers
had done before them; they wore ordinary black cloth waistcoats;
they had not candles on their altars, either lighted or unlighted;
they made no private genuflexions, and were contented to confine
themselves to such ceremonial observances as had been in vogue for
the last hundred years. The services were decently and demurely
read in their parish churches, chanting was confined to the
cathedral, and the science of intoning was unknown. One young man
who had come direct from Oxford as a curate at Plumstead had, after
the lapse of two or three Sundays, made a faint attempt, much to
the bewilderment of the poorer part of the congregation. Dr Grantly
had not been present on the occasion; but Mrs Grantly, who had her
own opinion on the subject, immediately after the service expressed
a hope that the young gentleman had not been taken ill, and offered
to send him all kinds of condiments supposed to be good for a sore
throat. After that there had been no more intoning at Plumstead
Episcopi.
But now the archdeacon began to meditate on some strong measures of
absolute opposition. Dr Proudie and his crew were of the lowest
possible order of Church of England clergymen, and therefore it
behoved him, Dr Grantly, to be of the very highest. Dr Proudie
would abolish all forms and ceremonies, and therefore Dr Grantly
felt the sudden necessity of multiplying them. Dr Proudie would
consent to deprive the church of all collective authority and rule,
and therefore Dr Grantly would stand up for the full power of
convocation, and the renewal of its ancient privileges.
It was true that he could not himself intone the service, but he
could pressure the co-operation of any number of gentlemanlike
curates well trained in the mystery of doing so. He would not
willingly alter his own fashion of dress, but he could people
Barchester with young clergymen dressed in the longest frocks, and
the highest breasted silk waistcoats. He certainly was not prepared
to cross himself, or to advocate the real presence; but, without
going this length, there were various observances, by adopting
which he could plainly show his antipathy to such men as Dr Proudie
and Mr Slope.
All these things passed through his mind as he paced up and down
the close with Mr Harding. War, war, internecine war was in his
heart. He felt that as regarded himself and Mr Slope, one of the
two must be annihilated as far as the city of Barchester was
concerned; and he did not intend to give way until there was not
left to him an inch of ground on which he could stand. He still
flattered himself that he could make Barchester too hot to hold Mr
Slope, and he had no weakness of spirit to prevent his bringing
about such consummation if it were in his power.
'I suppose Susan must call at the palace,' said Mr Harding.
'Yes, she shall call there; but it shall be once and once only. I
dare say "the horses" won't find it convenient to come to Plumstead
very soon, and when that once is done the matter may drop.'
'I don't suppose Eleanor need call. I don't think Eleanor would get
on at all well with Mrs Proudie.'
'Not the least necessity in life,' replied the archdeacon, not
without the reflection that a ceremony which was necessary for his
wife, might not be at all binding on the widow of John Bold. 'Not
the slightest reason on earth why she should do so, if she doesn't
like it. For myself, I don't think that any decent young woman
should be subjected to the nuisance of being in the same room with
that man.'
And so the two clergymen parted. Mr Harding going to his daughter's
house, and the archdeacon seeking the seclusion of his brougham.
The new inhabitants of the palace did not express any higher
opinion of their visitors than their visitors had expressed of
them. Though they did not use quite such strong language as Dr
Grantly had done, they felt as much personal aversion, and were
quite as well aware as he was that there would be a battle to be
fought, and that there was hardly room for Proudieism in Barchester
as long as Grantlyism was predominant.
Indeed, it may be doubted whether Mr Slope had not already within
his breast a better prepared system of strategy, a more
accurately-defined line of hostile conduct than the archdeacon. Dr
Grantly was going to fight because he found that he hated the man.
Mr Slope had predetermined to hate the man because he foresaw the
necessity of fighting him. When he had first reviewed the carte de
pays, previous to his entry into Barchester, the idea had occurred
to him of conciliating the archdeacon, of cajoling and flattering
him into submission, and of obtaining the upper hand by cunning
instead of courage. A little inquiry, however, sufficed to convince
him that all his cunning would fail to win over such a man as Dr
Grantly to such a mode of action as that to be adopted by Mr Slope;
and then he determined to fall back upon his courage. He at once
saw that open battle against Dr Grantly and all Dr Grantly's
adherents was a necessity of his position, and he deliberately
planned the most expedient method of giving offence.
Soon after his arrival the bishop had intimated to the dean that,
with the permission of the canon then in residence, his chaplain
would preach in the cathedral on the next Sunday. The canon in
residence happened to be the Honourable and Reverend Dr Vesey
Stanhope, who at this time was very busy on the shores of Lake
Como, adding to that unique collection of butterflies for which he
is so famous. Or, rather, he would have been in residence but for
the butterflies and other such summer-day considerations; and the
vicar-choral, who was to take his place in the pulpit, by no means
objected to having his word done for him by Mr Slope.
Mr Slope accordingly preached, and if a preacher can have
satisfaction in being listened to, Mr Slope ought to have been
gratified. I have reason to think that he was gratified, and that
he left the pulpit with the conviction that he had done what he
intended to do when he entered it.
On this occasion the new bishop took his seat for the first time in
the throne allotted to him. New scarlet cushions and drapery had
been prepared, with new gilt binding and new fringe. The old carved
oak-wood of the throne, ascending with its numerous grotesque
pinnacles, half-way up to the rood of the choir, had been washed,
and dusted, and rubbed, and it all looked very smart. Ah! How often
sitting there, in happy early days, on those lowly benches in front
of the altar, have I whiled away the tedium of a sermon considering
how best I might thread my way up amidst those wooden towers, and
climb safely to the topmost pinnacle!
All Barchester went to hear Mr Slope; either for that or to gaze at
the new bishop. All the best bonnets of the city were there, and
moreover all the best glossy clerical hats. Not a stall but had its
fitting occupant; for though some of the prebendaries might be away
in Italy or elsewhere, their places were filled by brethren, who
flocked into Barchester on the occasion. The dean was there, a
heavy old man, now too old, indeed, to attend frequently in his
place; and so was the archdeacon. So also were the chancellor, the
treasurer, the precentor, sundry canons and minor canons, and every
lay member of the choir, prepared to sing the new bishop in with
due melody and harmonious expression of sacred welcome.
The service was certainly well performed. Such was always the case
at Barchester, as the musical education of the choir had been good,
and the voices had been carefully selected. The psalms were
beautifully chanted; the Te Deum was magnificently sung; and the
litany was given in a manner, which is still to be found at
Barchester, but, if my taste be correct, is to be found nowhere
else. The litany of Barchester cathedral has long been the special
task to which Mr Harding's skill and voice have been devoted.
Crowded audiences generally make good performers, and though Mr
Harding was not aware of any extraordinary exertion on his part,
yet probably he rather exceeded his usual mark. Others were doing
their best, and it was natural that he should emulate his brethren.
So the service went on, and at last Mr Slope got into the pulpit.
He chose for his text a verse from the precept addressed by St Paul
to Timothy, as to the conduct necessary in a spiritual pastor and
guide, and it was immediately evident that the good clergy of
Barchester were to have a lesson.
'Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.' These were
the words of the text, and with such a subject in such a place, it
may be supposed that such a preacher would be listened to by such
an audience. He was listened to with breathless attention, and not
without considerable surprise. Whatever opinion of Mr Slope might
have been held in Barchester before he commenced, his discourse,
none of his hearers, when it was over, could mistake him for either
a fool or a coward.
It would not be becoming were I to travesty a sermon, or even
repeat the language of it in the pages of a novel. In endeavouring
to depict the characters of the persons of whom I write, I am to a
certain extent forced to speak of sacred things. I trust, however,
that I shall not be thought to scoff at the pulpit, though some may
imagine that I do not feel the reverence that is due to the cloth.
I may question the infallibility of the teachers, but I hope that I
shall not therefore be accused of doubt as to the thing to be
taught.
Mr Slope, in commencing his sermon, showed no slight tact in his
ambiguous manner of hinting that, humble as he was himself, he
stood there as the mouthpiece of the illustrious divine who sat
opposite to him; and having presumed so much, he gave forth a very
accurate definition of the conduct which that prelate would rejoice
to see in the clergymen now brought under his jurisdiction. It is
only necessary to say, that the peculiar points insisted on were
exactly those which were most distasteful to the clergy of the
diocese, and most averse to their practices and opinions; and that
all those peculiar habits and privileges which have always been
dear to high-church priests, to that party which is now
scandalously called the high-and-dry church, were ridiculed,
abused, and anathematised. Now, the clergymen of the diocese of
Barchester are all of the high-and-dry church.
Having thus, according to his own opinion, explained how a
clergyman should show himself approved unto God, as a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, he went on to explain how the word of
truth should be divided; and here he took a rather narrow view of
the question; and fetched arguments from afar. His object was to
express his abomination of all ceremonious modes of utterance, to
cry down any religious feeling which might be excited, not by the
sense, but by the sound of words, and in fact to insult the
cathedral practices. Had St Paul spoken of rightly pronouncing
instead of rightly dividing the word of truth, this part of his
sermon would have been more to the purpose; but the preacher's
immediate object was to preach Mr Slope's doctrine, and not St
Paul's, and he contrived to give the necessary twist to the text
with some skill.
He could not exactly say, preaching from a cathedral pulpit, that
chanting should be abandoned in cathedral services. By such an
assertion, he would have overshot his mark and rendered himself
absurd, to the delight of his hearers. He could, however, and did,
allude with heavy denunciations to the practice of intoning in
parish churches, although the practice was not but unknown in the
diocese; and from thence he came round to the undue preponderance,
which he asserted, music over meaning in the beautiful service
which they had just heard. He was aware, he said, that the
practices of our ancestors could not be abandoned at a moment's
notice; the feelings of the aged would be outraged, and the minds
of respectable men would be shocked. There were many, he was aware,
of not sufficient calibre of thought to perceive, of not sufficient
education to know, that a mode of service, which was effective when
outward ceremonies were of more moment than inward feelings, had
become all but barbarous at a time when inward conviction was
everything, when each word of the minister's lips should fall
intelligibly into the listener's heart. Formerly the religion of
the multitude had been an affair of the imagination: now, in these
latter days, it had become necessary that a Christian should have a
reason for his faith--should not only believe, but digest--not only
hear, but understand. The words of our morning service, how
beautiful, how apposite, how intelligible they were, when read with
simple and distinct decorum! But how much of the meaning of the
words was lost when they were produced with all the meretricious
charms of melody! &c &c.
Here was a sermon to be preached before Mr Archdeacon Grantly, Mr
Precentor Harding, and the rest of them! Before a whole dean and
chapter assembled in their own cathedral! Before men who had grown
old in the exercise of their peculiar services, with a full
conviction of their excellence for all intended purposes! This too
from such a man, a clerical parvenu, a man without a cure, a mere
chaplain, an intruder among them; a fellow raked up, so said Dr
Grantly, from the gutters of Marylebone! They had to sit through
it! None of them, not even Dr Grantly, could close his ears, nor
leave the house of God during the hours of service. They were under
an obligation of listening, and that too, without any immediate
power of reply.
There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on
mankind in civilised and free countries than the necessity of
listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in
these realms, the power of compelling audiences to sit silent, and
be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in
platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, (sic) and yet receive, as his
undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as though words
of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips.
Let a professor of law or physic find his place in a lecture-room,
and there pour forth jejune words and useless empty phrases, and he
will pour them forth to empty benches. Let a barrister attempt to
talk without talking well, and he will talk but seldom. A judge's
charge need be listened to per force by none but the jury,
prisoner, and gaoler (sic). A member of parliament can be coughed
down or counted out. Town-councillors can be tabooed. But no one
can rid himself of the preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the
age, the old man whom we Sindbads cannot shake off, the nightmare
that disturbs our Sunday's rest, the incubus that overloads our
religion and makes God's service distasteful. We are not forced
into church! No: but we desire more than that. We desire not to be
forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the
comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so
without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot
endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the house of God
without that anxious longing for escape, which is the common
consequence of common sermons.
With what complacency will a young parson deduce false conclusions
from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the
penalties of Hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he
has given us! Yes, my too self-confident juvenile friend, I do
believe in those mysteries, which are so common in your mouth; I do
believe in the unadulterated word which you hold there in your
hand; but you must pardon me if, in some things, I doubt your
interpretation. The bible is good, the prayer-book is good, nay,
you yourself would be acceptable, if you would read to me some
portion of those time-honoured discourses which our great divines
have elaborated in the full maturity of their powers. But you must
excuse me, my insufficient young lecturer, if I yawn over your
imperfect sentences, your repeated phrases, your false pathos, your
drawlings (sic) and denouncings (sic), your humming and hawing,
your oh-ing and ah-ing, your black gloves and your white
handkerchief. To me, it all means nothing; and hours are too
precious to be so wasted--if one could only avoid it.
And here I must make a protest against the pretence, so often put
forward by the working clergy, that they are overburdened by the
multitude of sermons to be preached. We are all too fond of our own
voices, and a preacher is encouraged in the vanity of making his
heard by the privilege of a compelled audience. His sermon is the
pleasant morsel of his life, his delicious moment of
self-exaltation. 'I have preached nine sermons this week, four the
week before. I have preached twenty-three sermons this month. It is
really too much.' 'Too much for the strength of any one.' 'Yes,' he
answered meekly, 'indeed it is; I am beginning to feel it
painfully.' 'Would,' said I, 'you could feel it--would that you
could be made to feel it.' But he never guessed that my heart was
wrung for the poor listeners.
There was, at any rate, no tedium felt in listening to Mr Slope on
the occasion in question. His subject came too home to his audience
to be dull; and, to tell the truth, Mr Slope had the gift of using
words forcibly. He was heard through his thirty minutes of
eloquence with mute attention and open ears; but with angry eyes,
which glared found form one enraged parson to another, with
wide-spread nostrils from which already burst forth fumes of
indignation, and with many shufflings (sic) of the feet and uneasy
motions of the body, which betokened minds disturbed, and hearts
not at peace with all the world.
At last the bishop, who, of all the congregation, had been most
surprised, and whose hair almost stood on end with terror, gave the
blessing in a manner not at all equal to that in which he had long
been practising it in his own study, and the congregation was free
to go their way.