SPARE HALF HOURS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1652, 21 July 1883, Page 25

SPARE HALF HOURS.

IN CHURCH.

By Henry Lapham. It is quite possible that some people, glanc ing at the title of this article, will be ready tobe offended thereby, for we all know, or at any rate have heard of, those very correct and proper persons who so soon as they enter the sacred doors shake their souls free from every vain and wordly thought, never permit their attention to swerve once from the services in which they are engaged, join in the petitions and hymns with fervour, and participate as fervidly in the malediction that it still is apart of the Christian's duty to denounce on Turks, infidels, and all unbelievers. " The Church -and by the Church I mean, of course, The catholic, apostolic mother Church lJrawa line* as plain and htrai^ht us her own wall, Inside of which aro Christians, obviously, And outside doge. I take off mybat to men such as these. I admire the very broad phylacteries they so conspicuously display, but; I candidly confess I do not share, nor wish .to emulate, their per-

fection ; indeed, were the truth to be told, I find it very difficult when in church to restrain my vagrant thoughts — they will wander to the most mundane, the most irrelevent subjects. For example, opposite to me sits a lady faultlessly attired, in whose sweet face and downcast eyes you might imagine you saw charity personified ; and now there enters an old woman with a big poke-bonnet, cotton gloves, and wincey govrn. She is a stranger, and wanders, confused and helplessly, frona pew to pew. There is a vacant place in tha seat just beyond where my lady sits. Now, I wonder will she gracefully and courteously step aside and let the decent old body come in. No ; she is engaged in finding the Lesson for the day, which, strange to Bay, happens to be the 2nd chapter of the Epistle to St. James, which speaks so unmistakably of those who are respecters of persons. Doubtless the lady's pew is paid for, and unfashionable old women are not the most desirable of neighbours, even in the wide Scriptural sense of the word. Another thing that often forcibly occurs to me when I have made myßelf easy, with my legs stretched out under the opposite pew, and my back at a proper angle, is what a very comfortable thing this present-day religion is, and how foolish, and wicked of course, the people are who do not take advantage of it. Sunday is still considered by the orthodox a day on which idleness is a duty. They forget, or do not consider, that " absence of occupation is not rest," so that I think that apart from any more praiseworthy inducement, church offers an excellent means of spending an hour or so. In the first place, the churchgoing furnishes an excuse for wearing and displaying your best attire. Men pretend to think this a nuisance ; but just take notice of the nice fit and scrupulous neatness of the clothes, linen, hat, and boots of churchgoing young men ; how jauntily they carry their canes ; how, with artless artfulness, they manage to display the signet ring upon their little fingers, and say if men are quite superior to all vain displays. As for the other aex — bless their candid, gentle hearts, — they make no pretence of undervaluing the charms of fair attire. - Indeed — Let never maiden think, however so fair, She is not fairer in new clothca than old.

So they prepare for worship by putting on their very handsomest gowns, their costliest shawls, their most bewitching bonnets, their daintiest gloves, and very prettiest shoes, and thank God for Sunday. Then what a pleasant thing is the walk to church. If your way lies through a city's street, how musical is the air with bells, the closed shops looking as if their eyes were shut in adoration, and how restful is the quiet and hush of the thoroughfares. If you are going to a country church, does not the sunshine steep more languidly the bare ranges and grey plain, and distant gleaming river, than on a working day? As you pass through the farmyard, how sleepily comes the sound of the cock crowing and the hen's boastful cry; how luxuriously, and with what security of undisturbed repose the old horse leans his head over the slip-rails, and in the clover paddock the red and white cattle sleep luxuriously ; while distant, subdued, and peaceful comes the w.atch dog's deep hollow bark. Then in the shady, grassy church-yard, how pleasant are the nods, and becks, and- wreathed smiles that pass current where all are neighbours and how unspeakably delightful the hurried gossip about the price of grain, or John Brown's failure, or Mrs White's baby s convulsions, or Misb White's " carryings on" with that dangerous spark, young Black. Ah, me ! when I think of all the confidences exchanged just before and after services, I feel inclined to exclaim, with the artless Scotch maiden, " I wadna'gi'e the crack in the kirkyard for a' the sermons !" And then, in the city churches, as soon as the bell ceases, there comes the low roll of the organ, while sweet as an angel's singing the vox humana stop lifts its sweet melody like a prayer. Anon the white-robed choristers troop to their places, and slowly, reverently, the stoled priest moves to the reading desk ana kneels in prayer, while red, purple, and golden rays from the pained window fall on the bending figure ; all is stnemn, soothing, suggestive of peace and holy thoughts. Alas, and alas ! that as soon as the clergyman speaks the charm ia gone. But all who have had any experience of modern clergy must acknowledge that this is so. The service is read in a brisk, quick, harsh, unsympathetic voice, as if the whole affair were a mere matter of business to be got over as soon as possible ; as much as can be is given over to the choir to save the clergyman trouble. It is quite right that the Psalms and Amens should be chanted, but it seems out of place that those so solemn responses, those touching petitions and confessions of our awful Litany, should be sung to a set tune by a ch»ir of not too reverent boys, while the congregation may listen or dream as best they like. We have not yet attained to the felicity of having the sermon chanted, but I am bold enough to assert that selections from " The Messiah," "The Creation," or some other equally impressive modern oratorio, would be much more effective and impressive than the majority of sermons. It is an instructive fact that a reproach that held good against the generality of preachers in the reign of Queen Anne should havelost none of its application to this day ; but is not the advice given by the worshipful knight, Sir Roger de Coverley, worth quoting, if only there were the least hope that any country clergyman would take the hint ? Sir Roger says of his chaplain : "At his first settling with me, I mado him a present of all the good sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in his pulpit. Accordingly ho has digested them into Buch a series that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued system of practical divinity." "And," Addison continues, "I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example, and, instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome elocution and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater matters. This would r.ot only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the people." But, unfortunately, very few of our clergy have attained even to the graces of "a handsome elocution," not to speak of choosing or composing good sermons. Perhaps, if there is one fault more irritating than another in a preacher, it is the adoption of a supercilious, patronising manner. The congregation feel that their very superior teacher is bending unwillingly to his inferiors. His drawling, hawhaw tone chills the best sermon that ever was composed, and induces very unfavourable comparisons between this white-handed, sleekhaired, stiff-starched exquisite and the Great Founder of Christianity, whose chosen comparisons were poor illiterate fishermen, whose earthly relations were working men, and who, though mightier than any monarch, was a friend, a companion, a sympathiser with the very poorest, the very low«at, the most abandoned, if only they bad a soul to save. Can you imagine this_ gentleman walking with his polished boots into muddy city lanes, brushing his euperfuje broadcloth against a beggar's rags, g\yipg one-tenth, one-twentieth

part of his income that a few thieves and protitutes may be fed? Alas no! but he will favour a number of well-to-do people with feeble platitudes — Dropping tho too rough H in Hell and Heaven, To spread the Word by which himself has thrived.

Scarcely less annoying are the peculiarities in which some clergymen indulge. They appear to assume that because they are earnest they need not be polite, or that they may display habits in the house of God which would not be tolerated in any drawing-room. Such things as "snuffling," and apparently forgetting the use of a pocket-handkercbiof, are small faultsindeed, but they ar« irritating to persons who have any self-respect. Nor can I see that a clergyman has any right to pre&oh Bermona of such a character that modest women blush at the illusiona they contain. Granted that there are sins which must be reproved, & clergyman would, I think, do better to reprove them in private, or at least to a congregation of men only, rather than introduce to a mixed congregation such topics as no gentleman would discusß before his sisters and daughters. Let a clergyman be as honest and straightforward as he please, and call a spade a spade unhesitatingly, but surely he, of all men, Bhould be careful not to give offence by so doing. Again, I cannot agrea with some good men who think it is permissible to make their sermons witty. I presume their design is to amuse and attract ; but has religion come to such a pass that we must be amused into heeding it ) If so, give us a funny Prayer-book and a comic New Testament. But the sermons of the most eloquent and successful preachers of our day are by no meana humorous, eloquent, heartsearching, earnest they must, but you will not find one suggestion of wit in all the polemic works of Kingsley, Farrar, or Robertson ; in those of Spurgeon you will, and for this reason the famous Baptist ia inferior to bia Anglican contemporaries. There ia another way in which young clergymen fail— that is, the ambitious desire to preach extempofe. The art of extemporaneous preaching is a gift, and few there be who possess it ; but how many well-meaning, earnest, and devout men wul, Sunday after Sunday, move the pity (and that is closely akin to contempt) of their audience by stammering, hesitating, breaking of! abruptly, making foolish similes, repeating their words and ideas, to the utter bewilderment of themselves and their congregation ; while, had they taken the trouble to write out their discourse and endeavour to read it with due emphasis and expressive gesture, it would have given much pleasure and possibly have done some good. I say possibly, because it ia difficult to estimate the good that is achieved by even the most earnest and eloquent of dia* courses. I have no doubt, my excellent reader, that you attended some ohurch or chapel last Sunday ; can you inform^ me what was the text? What were the leading points? Has it had much influence on your life? Haß it taught you to be more honest, more good tempered, more forbearing — in a few words, have you given it a thought all this week ? And yet it was a good sermon— a sermon that made you think you would' think about it; a sermon during which one could not go to sleep, but there was not in it one single sentence, one half-dozen words, that like a sudden light flashed into a dark cave, showed you all the worthlessnesß, blackness, foulness of your sonl, and made you ready to beseech " God, bo merciful to me a sinner." Indeed, it would scarcely be too much to assert that not one person in a hundred does gain any benefit by his attendance at Church.

These youths and maidens, these middle-aged ladies and gentlemen, who attend so decorously to the prayers, lift up their voices so heartily in psalm and hymn, listen so gravely to tha sermons — which of these will renounce one plea« sure, give up one luxury, refrain from making one pound, or give an extra shilling in charity, for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake ? They live harmlesßj decent lives, getting what pleasure and pront they can, but taking no thought whatever as to whether life should have any higher purpose. They are honest, polite, forbearing, courteous, do not despise forbidden pleasures so long as no scandal attaches to them, nor hesitate to do a smart action if it will not compromise them ; but all these virtues they would have if they were worshippers of Buddha or dog -faced Anubis. They are respectably and fairly upright, not because they are Christians, but because they are ladies and gentlemen. But for the religion that shall teach them — nay, shall oblige them — to pay everyone his just due, to forgive all sins as wa hope to be forgiven, to make our whole life but the preparation for an immortal hereafter ; to offend brother, sister, father, mother, all the world, that we may serve the great Taskmaster; to sell all we have and give to tha poor, and never at any time or anywhere to be ashamed to acknowledge _ the Author and Finisher of our Faith, is simply impossible in the modern world. So we take our religion out with our Sunday coat, and with grave looks put it on for the day, to be laid aside with best clothes at night for a week. Do you remember when Mrs Quickly gives the account of the death of the worshipful knight, Sir John Falataff, how she says : " A made a finer end, and went away, an' it had been any Christian child, a' parted even just between twelve and one, c'en at turning o1o 1 the tide ; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way, for his nose was as Bharp as a pen, and a babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John V* quoth I, " what man, be of good cheer ! " So a' cried out, " God, God, God," three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him, "A 1 should not think of God. I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet." Well, most of us comfort ourselves as Mrs Quickly comforted Sir John. We do not trouble ourselves with such thoughts yet, only when all hope of pleasure or profit in this world is slipping away do we creep under the wing of religion, and beseech the Church to help us with its prayers, and assure us at least a comfortable corner in the unknown territory whither we are bound. For, according to the majority of authorities, after death there is no redemption. The hapless sinner who dies unforgiven must expiate through an eternity of torment, the failings, l faults, and sins of a transient life ; and, if we are to believe that the greater proportion of mankind must of necessity be damned, then the hallelujahs of Paradise must be drowned in the groans of hell. But I make bold'to doubt that any person who believes in the mercy, the tenderness, the infinite comparison of the man who gently reproved and readily pardoned the woman taken in adultry can possibly believe in the cruel vindictiveness of the God who never can forgive.

However, I am venturing on a Bubject far beyond niy powers. And while I have been dreaming, benold, the Bervice is concluded, 80 let us hide our faces in our hats. Then, with a pleasant feeling of having done our duty, let us gaunter decorously, out of church, to th* glorious roll of " The Silrer Trumjbtfe " march Yoluutary,