The Church of Dives -and of Mrs Grundy.

Southland Times, Issue 9163, 11 March 1886, Page 3

The Church of Dives -and of Mrs Grundy.

♦ ■ How long, we wonder, will it be before Miss Ellice Hopkins or some other gifted Churchwoman is allowed to preach io the pulpit of St. Paul's ? Not very long perhaps, if we note tbe signs of the times, and 6ee bow steadily 'the now ideas of a new era are penetrating the dark places of the old Establishment. Of course, the clergy will have to recognise lay preaching before they admit lady preaching ; but Lord ■Sydney Godolphin Osborne's remarkable letter in tbe Times, is a sufficient illustration of the conversion of the more clearbeaded clergy to the conviction that it is inevitable. He is at last forced to tbe conclusion that lay services, such as those { of the Primitive Methodists, of which the latest types are those of the Salvation Aimy, " meet a want which a more orderly Church service oould not meet." And he remarks that in " evangelising we must stoop very low to save those who are low. 11 This is a curious mteuso of the term "low," but it is Mra Grundy all over. There is nothing bo "low" as unreality, perfunctorinesp, dead»aliveness in the work of evangelisation. And there is nothing " low" in earnestness, enthusiasm, impromptu responses. So ingrained in tbo clerical mind is the idea thut a kind of human prayer mill a la Thibet on a grand scale, automatically grinding out stereotyped responses, is the ideal of Divine worship, that any irregularity, due either to nature or inspiration, strikes them as '"low," if not absolutely blasphemous. " Let everything be done decently rind in order, 1 ' in tho precept which sums up all the law and the Command mentß. And it i« barJly an oxaggeraiiont to say that there are many clergy who would prefer the decency of death and the order of the gra 7 e rather than be Bbocked by the free and natural expression of intense religious emotion on the part of the common people. There is an immense deal of starch to be shaken out of the Church before it can hope to touch millions of those who are nominally within its pale. The Church Army is a reassuring sign of the limes, but to how many excellent clerics is not the Church Army almost as abhorrent as the pioneer organisation of General aßooth ? And why, with the lesson of Wesley before it, and with Macaulay's memorable lesson as to the contrast between the Church of Borne and that of England in the utilisation of enthusiasm, did the Church allow that pioneer organisation to gro*r up o«steide her pale ? The reasoD, we suppose, ie always the Batne, The Church of England, from tbe point of view of active, aggressive, evangelising religion, is always half and sometimes three-quarters dead, It is true that our Churchmen — except those more Bpirituoua than spiritual— do not emulate the holy aeal of the devout Orthodox who mobbed Whitneid and treated the local preacher aa an emissary of the Evil Ono r but that is because the metLod, not the spirit, has changed. In too many cases the brickbat is only exchanged for the sneer ; the cold shoulder is found aa efficacious and more convenient than incitiug a mob to lynch "the Methody," and a ohfug of contemptuous disdain for the vulgarity of the men who save their fellows, phows that the same fatal spirit that regards respectability as the soul of religion is still powerful in the Establishment. Of course there are thousands of excellent clergymen of whom this is not true. But it is true of the class. They care for propriety more than for piety, for respect for the social and ecclesiastical conventionalities mori than for holine3f, fervour, or any of the distinctive characteristics of the Fishermen of Galilee from whom they j claim their deoceDt. The cause must be sought in the system. The Cburch is primarily a social and only second urily a regions body. Its traditions, its instincts, all recent any departure from offijinliem or the established routine. Its abuses are defended because they tempt young men of good fabiily to take orders. L ; ke Quarter Sessions the Church is an affair of the equiree, an! the average rural clergyman's standpoint in judging each fresh outburst of religious entbusuem is much nearer Mrs Grundy's than that of the Apoßtle Peter. And now tbe new Democracy is going to change all that — not, at any rate, at first by Disestablishment, but by endeavouring to democratise the Church. . For the British householder is a religious man, and practical witba', and he will not end an institution until he has tried to mend it and failed. The Church has been hitherto organised from above downward, Jt will in the future have to revert to its original type, and be organised from below upward. AU the clergy will have to be taught what the better clergy have.already learned, that the laity does not exist for the clergy, but that the clergy exist for the laity, and that their appointed role; is to be servants of all. And although it will be a hard time, this traneition from despotismto democracy, it will enormously benefit the Church. What were almost the Hit words of Bishop Fiaser?— The Church's greatest weakness is, and has long been, the existence of the idea th*t sbe is ruled by, and in tbe interest of, a clerical antocfacy ; that the lai£y are only called into her councils in moments of danger or dimV colty, and that even then tfieir rights are, a'.owJy-and reluctantly recognised ; and that, though it is convenient- -t0,;. -style, her the Ohurch of the people, the people rieat y hive a very small voice in the management of her affairs,. Kvery day iashowiog more and more the miachievouiness of euch a. conception. But the Church 1 willinever shake itself free from "its: greatest weakness" until the Karid of the reformer is applied to enthe householders- in affair ;cccießiaßtic, as t|»ey have already been enfranchised in affairs of State, - Anii Jrs nfcrUmeT What has. come of this e^liahmeßt fl^ MrtJ $H)ftty &9 &9

patron eaint of -the English Churcbj and substitution of the cult of respectabilitj for religion ? Of luxurious devotiop, ol "first-class carriage religion," there 1 hat been enough, in order, as this reverend noble says, to minister to the " tastes oi those whose worldly lives need costlj stimulants." But what of the preaching of righteonsneßs? Let Lord Sydney Godolphin Odborne answer : — ■ ' The Established Church is held^to be,toi all Cbristrian ministries; the one which if singuUrly indulgent towards its higher. class supporter?, most useful in regard to the morali of other claste*, but uu^Vrujiivp a^to -those of Knov?n bahite whici§ may t < on the teaching of the-'pulpir; zealoitf ia v the jwork of the reclamation of the victims of purchased vice, but slow to -rebuke the promoters &nd purchasers. I own to ha\ing my doubts as to whether,. if the bishops and (clergy were .one-hand red th part as zealous to Christianise % very large proportion of these wealthy Church supporters as they are to attack the vice of an inferior order with -the money obtained from Chem.they would not find fin ancial support as proof of their affection for the Church very rapidly diminish. The Church of Mrs Grundy is thus the Church of Dives, who compounds fpr^ia sins by liberal subscriptions. Is it not about time that we turned the whole Establishment bottom side op, and reorganised the Church on such a democratic basis as to give poor Lazarus a chance?