The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1949 BARCHESTER TOWERS

Wanganui Chronicle, 5 November 1949, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1949 BARCHESTER TOWERS

"yilh cynical eyes and heart of Anthony Trollope could not survey the English countryside of the nineteenth century without his attention being drawn to the clergy of the Church of England. They occupied an important, or at least a prominent, place in the rural scene, a place that was a challenge to themselves as well as it was to others.

The clergy were, and still are, like any other body of professionals. occupied with the politics of their order and in an ecclesiastical body the personality of the bishop loomed large as a factor to be taken into account by everyone. Who would be the next bishop? was a burning question in Barchester as it is in many another diocese today. But bishops have wives and wives have a habit of minding their husband’s business and so it often happens that the way to the bishop’s mind is through that of his wife. Quite unprofessional, of course, even to mention it. But the fact has been noted by no less an authority and keen observer than Francis Bacon that when a man is on the throne women rule. A bishop’s throne may prove to be no exception to this. Throughout the history of Barchester, as recorded by Trollope, a Christian congregation finds notice but once and then it does not appear that the clergy are in any way interested in it nor in any member of that congregation. It is a necessary adjunct to a “living.” and the living was the thing. Trollope provides a good laugh at the expense of the clergy- of the nineteenth century, he presenting them as a gang of professionals on the make for themselves. There is no denying that this was true of a number of the clergy then as it is now. Human nature remains very much the same in all walks of life. The case penned by Trollope seems to be complete. And so it would or could be, but for one simple fact. That fact is that a church which was manned by a clergy such as Trollope described, and by none other, would not only have been dead, but it would also have been damned as well as dead.

While it is true that there was a great deal of professional gogetting among the clergy during the last century it is also beyond doubt that compared with the previous century the Church of England was quite a virile body. Whence came this virility? It could not have come from a lot of peddlars. There must have been some hidden spring which renewed the pastures and kept green the fields that only a few decades before were rather barren. The French historian, Elie Halevy, wrote of the English clergy of the last century: “In consequence of the decay of the old aristocracy of landowners and the invasion of its ranks by wealthy men of every class, the governing class was becoming less rural, its members spent more time in London or abroad. The clerical profession was, therefore, ceasing to be an apanage of the landed gentry, a career in which their younger sons, if they had leisured tastes and liked to live in the neighbourhood of the family seat, could enhance the moral influence of their cloth by the social influence of their rank. In ever increasing numbers men of humbler station, members of the middle class, farmers, were sending their sons into the Church. Did they hope in this way to see them take their place among the gentry? If such was their ambition it was doomed to bitter disappointment. The clergyman of humble origin found himself condemned to a life of isolation in his vicarage or rectory. He no longer cared to mix with the class from which he sprang, and at the country houses of the neighbourhood he was not received, as a clergyman of the old type had been received, as a friend and an equal. He was badly paid, and a full half of the parochial clergy were obliged to live on a stipend of less than £2OO a year and the position of the curates was far worse. No wonder the supply of candidates for ordination fell off.” The Reverend C. Anthony Deane wrote in 1898: “We want to induce the best class of men to take Holy Orders, and not those who probably would have been failures 'in any other profession.” That was the problem which confronted the Church at the beginning of this century. Well, how has it fared? It is not easy to answer that question. But certain it is that the Frenchman’s assessment was too cynical. Was he bent towards that view by a natural instinct of the Gallic mind? or was he inclined in that direction also by the picture drawn for him by Anthony Trollope in Barchester Towers? It is a nice question to ask, but it is by no means easy to answer.

If the profession of clergyman has become unattractive, and made less so by the lowness of the stipends in a world where the laiety does not lack for education and is very frequently superior intellectually than the clergy, then it cannot be for the sake of the salaries, nor for the social rating that men have gone forward for ordination. That is the point which Halevy missed. Nor can it be said that the Bench of Bishops has been packed entirely by women-ridden gentlemen. In spite of the incongruity of a Prime Minister appointing the Bishops of the Church, the system has worked out very well indeed and notwithstanding some outworn details such as the inability to retire a bishop when his usefulness has actually ceased, the results have been not without some gratification. It is for readers of Trollope—and today they are on the increase—to remember that fact.

In the United States the Methodist Church has gone holus bolus for bishops and these church dignatories actually bear that title. The same tendency is to be discerned in the Methodist Church in other parts of the world, even though the title of bishop had not been adopted. In the Presbyterian Church there is a protection of the clergy, if not from all the assaults of the devil, at least from some of the assaults of the laity. The Baptist Church in New Zealand recently' lost control of its citadel through having too loose a federation. Now. happily, the Tabernacle in Auckland has been restored to it and the chances are that the experience will lead to a change of policy by the Baptist Union of New Zealand. It would occasion no surprise if Baptist Bishops, or their equivalent, appeared on the scene in the not distant future. Despite the dangers to be apprehended from the “Mrs. Bishops” it does not appear that the Episcopal system is likely to fall into disuse. Just when the world seems to be set for its extinction it sits up and shows an unexpected liveliness. Trollope equid not kill it with his cynicism, nor Halevy pierce its heart with his Gallic realism. There it remains for men Io argue about, if they feel so inclined. They do not seem to be particularly interested in this argument today and that again is hard to explain away in a time of ferment in the Christian Church.