Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
it, and when I compare my recollections with what I see now, I note, of
course, a good many changes, and not all of them improvements. The
Evangelicals, with their plain teaching about sin and forgiveness, are
gone, and their place is taken by the professors of a flabby
latitudinarianism, which ignores sin--the central fact of human
life--and therefore can find no place for the Atonement. Heresy is
preached more unblushingly than it was thirty years ago; and when it
tries to disguise itself in the frippery of aesthetic Anglicanism, it
leads captive not a few. In the churches commonly called Ritualistic, I
note one great and significant improvement. English Churchmen have
gradually discovered that they have an indigenous ritual of their
own--dignified, expressive, artistic, free from fuss and fidgets--and
that they have no need to import strange rites from France or Belgium.
The evolution of the English Rite is one of the wholesome signs of the
times. About preaching, I am not so clear. The almost complete disuse of
the written sermon is in many ways a loss. The discipline of the paper
protects the flock alike against shambling inanities, and against a too
boisterous rhetoric. No doubt a really fine extempore sermon is a great
work of art; but for nine preachers out of ten the manuscript is the
safer way.
As regards the quality of the clergy, the change is all to the good.
When I was a boy at Harrow, Dr. Vaughan, preaching to us on our
Founder's Day, spoke with just contempt of "men who choose the Ministry
because there is a Family Living waiting for them; or because they think
they can make that profession--that, and none other--compatible with
indolence and self-indulgence; or because they imagine that a scantier
talent and a more idle use of it can in that one calling be made to
suffice." "These notions," he added, "are out of date, one Act of
Disestablishment would annihilate them." That Act of Disestablishment
has not come yet, but the change has come without waiting for it. Even
the "Family Living" no longer attracts. Young men seek Holy Orders
because they want work. Clerical dreams of laziness or avarice,
self-seeking or self-indulgence, have gone out for ever; and the English
Church has in her commissioned service a band of men whose devotion and
self-sacrifice would be a glory to any Church in Christendom.
An active politician, as I was thirty years ago, has not much leisure;
but all through my parliamentary work I sought to bear in mind that Life
is Service. I helped to found the White Cross League, and worked hard
for the cause which it represents. I bore a hand in Missions and
Bible-classes. I was a member of a Diocesan Conference. I had ten years
of happy visiting in Hospitals, receiving infinitely more than I could
ever give. And I should think that no man of my age has spoken on so
many platforms, or at so many Drawing Room meetings. But all this was
desultory business, and I always desired a more definite obligation.
On St. Luke's Day, 1895, my loved and honoured friend, Edward Talbot,
formerly Warden of Keble, was consecrated 100th Bishop of Rochester; and
the diocese at that time included all South London. As soon as he
established himself there, the new Bishop, so I have already stated,
asked me to come across the Thames, and do some definite work in South
London. At first, that work consisted of service on a Public Morals
Committee, and of lecturing on ecclesiastical topics; but gradually the
field contracted in one direction and expanded in another.
It was in 1891 that Dr. Temple, then Bishop of London, and afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury, being anxious to lighten the burden of
preaching which lies so heavily on hardworked clergy, determined to
license lay-readers to speak in consecrated buildings. It was a bold
step, and of doubtful legality; but the Bishop characteristically
declared that he would chance the illegality, feeling sure that, when
the Vicar and Churchwardens invited a lay-reader to speak, no one would
be churlish enough to raise legal objections. The result proved that the
Bishop was perfectly right, and the Diocese of London has now a band of
licensed lay-preachers who render the clergy a great deal of valuable
aid. I was from the first a good deal attracted by the prospect of
joining this band, but Parliament and Office left me no available
leisure. When Dr. Talbot became Bishop of Rochester, he at once took in
hand the work of reorganizing the body of Lay-Readers in his Diocese;
and before long had determined to follow the example set by Bishop
Temple, and to license some of his readers to speak at extra services in
consecrated buildings. He made it quite clear from the first--and the
point has subsequently been established by Convocation--that there was
no idea of reviving the Minor Orders. The lay-reader was to be, in every
sense, a layman; and, while he might speak, under proper restrictions,
in a consecrated building, he still would speak not "as one having
authority," but simply as brother-man to brother-men.
I was admitted to the office of a Diocesan Lay-Reader, in the Private
Chapel of the Bishop's House at Kennington, on the 15th of January,
1898, and have been permitted to spend fifteen years of happy service in
this informal ministry.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] Cf. Froude's "Short Studies in Great Subjects."
[63] It may perhaps be worth noting that my parents were married, in
1834, by a Special License issued by my grandfather as Abbot of Woburn.
[64] _Letters on the Church and Religion._ Vol. I., p. 385.
[65] Pottesgrove.
[66] J. H. Shorthouse--Introduction to George Herbert's _Temple_.
[67] _Influences of the Holy Spirit._ University Sermons, Series II.
[68] Charlotte Sophia, Duchess of Beaufort, a leader of the Evangelical
party, died 1854--aged eighty-four.
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