IX. A PEOPLE’S CHURCH.[1]

IX. A PEOPLE’S CHURCH.[1]

‘The object of the British Constitution is to get twelve honest men into a jury box,’ is an old-fashioned saying, which puts shortly enough the far-off end of our laws and institutions. The jury box may not itself survive, but whatever takes its place must in the same way depend on an honest public opinion. The object of the British Constitution is to secure freedom for thought and honesty among men. When its laws are enforced by the service of the citizens, and when the citizens are honest, politicians may cease to think of the need of a reform.

Reforms in the Constitution are now urged because they will make possibilities for greater honesty and greater devotion, but if the possibilities are not used the reforms will make little change for the better. A man who has a vote may be put within reach of a higher virtue, but if he gives his vote dishonestly the reform which enfranchised him will not tend to progress. A tenant who is secured from eviction, and the landlord out of whose hands the power to evict has been taken, may thank the land-law reformers, who have made honesty more easy; but if the tenant uses his power to make slaves of his labourers or his children, and the landlord his freedom from responsibility to do what he likes, the last state will be little better than the first. A population which is educated, through the efforts of the educational reformers, may have new capacities for virtue; but if they who are educated use their powers only to take care of themselves, there may at last be a difficulty in getting any to serve as jurymen.

The self-devotion which makes men willingly leave business to do some public duty, and the honesty which makes them subject interest to justice, are essential to the greatness and happiness of the people.

No Constitution can, therefore, neglect the means which are to develop these qualities. Neglect of duty is punished by fines, performance of duty is rewarded by the honours of title; dishonesty is prevented by a system of checks, which is ever being elaborated by new laws. All such means fail, and it has become a proverb that virtue cannot be made by Act of Parliament.

The Church is a part of the British Constitution, and is the means by which in old days honesty was promoted; and if in these modern days the Church fails, its failure, at any rate, has given no ground for a corresponding proverb, that virtue cannot be made by a religious agency. The majority still believe that if men were spiritually-minded they would care for things that are honest, and give themselves to duty in the spirit of the saints and puritans. There may be a morality which is independent of religion; but there is still confidence in the power of the Spirit to carry men over the rough road of duty. There is still a willingness to trust in spiritual agencies to promote morality.

Stated widely, the Church exists to spiritualise life. The ritual and the doctrine, which are often regarded as ends, are the means to this further end. A National Church exists to connect the life of individuals and the life of the nation with the life of God, in Whom all fulness is, to fill men with grace and truth, to make them to respond to high emotions and settle them on eternal calm. Its object is to make men friends, to unite all classes in common aims, to give them open minds, willing to learn, and to introduce them to whatever is honest and of good report. The Church aims to develop the sense of duty through the sense of God.

That the Church of England should fail to reach this object is not surprising. In an age of free trade, as a ‘protected’ society, it starts at a disadvantage. In an age of self-government, as a system which is not under popular control, it is suspected. In a democratic age, as an aristocratic organisation, it is not understood.

Chivalry worked well in its own day. The times changed, and there was no room in the new age for knights errant. Many were sorry to see it pass away, with its swift remedies for wrong, its attractive dress, and its power for good. They tried to revive its force, and ‘Don Quixote’ is a satire on the effort. The good man, with all his devotion, was out of place; the knight of the old age was the butt of the new age. Such a satire might be made on a Church which tries by old forms and through an old constitution to spiritualise life. A few followers may be attracted by sentiment, clinging to memories of good old times, and by striking forms of devotion; but the many will be bound to feel that the effort with all its beauty is out of place, that the realities of the old age have become the pictures of the new age.

The Church of England is not therefore effective to spiritualise the life of the nation and to develop honesty of living. Its present position is indeed indefensible. As a ‘Reformed’ Church, it offers the example of the greatest abuses. As a ‘Catholic’ Church, it promotes the principle of schism. As a ‘National’ Church, it is out of touch with the nation.

There is no other department in the State which can match the abuses connected with the sale of livings, with the common talk about ‘preferment’ and ‘promotion,’ with the irremovability of indolent, incapable, and unworthy incumbents, with the restriction of worship to words which expressed the wants of another age, and with the use of tests to exclude from the ranks of ministers those called by God to teach in fresh forms the newest revelations to mankind. There are no greater supporters of the schism from which they pray to be delivered than the bishops and clergymen who talk of ‘the Church’ as if it were a sect to promote ‘Church of England’ societies, and strive to cut off from the body of the people a section of its members. There is nothing national which so little concerns the nation as its Church. By the vast majority of those who are the coming rulers, namely, by the working class, the Church and its services are unused. The parson may here and there be popular as a man; he may even be regarded as of some use to take the chair at meetings to get up charitable societies and promote the education or the amusement of the people. He is not, though, looked to for the help he can give to life, and it is not through him that the people hope to get vice put down, virtue promoted, and life spiritualised.

The place of the Church in the Constitution is forgotten; so when there is a complaint that impurity is sapping the strength of the nation, or that cheating is ruining trade, or that selfishness is making men scamp work, it is not the clergy who are called on to do their duty and make a cure, but a new society is formed or a new law is demanded, and the clergy are not even rebuked for neglect. No one seems to expect that a Church, nominally co-extensive with the nation, which is established to spiritualise life, should do its work. The position is indefensible. Those politicians who are moved only by agitation may say, ‘The condition of the Church is not one of practical politics,’ and pass on. The greater number realising that the ultimate conflict is between those who would govern with God and those who would govern without God, and anxious that the Church should be effective for its purpose, are quietly making up their minds to one of two solutions—Disestablishment or Reform.

The present means for making the people virtuous or honest fail. ‘Disestablish,’ urge the Liberationists. ‘Let the clergy of the Church be stirred by competition and roused by interest, and we shall have better results.’ ‘Let the connection with the State continue,’ say the Reformers; ‘let the abuses be eradicated, but leave the teachers of the nation to be moved by duty and not by bigotry or sectarian rivalry.’ These two solutions for making effective the means of developing honesty offer themselves for examination. It is worthy of remark that the common arguments for Disestablishment, except those urged by the opponents of all religion, hardly touch the principle of Establishment. Secularists urge that religion being useless and spirituality a fancy, it is no business of the State to do anything to spiritualise the life of its members as a means to increase virtue. Their position is unassailable, and the day on which the nation decides that God has no relation to life, the Church as a spiritualising agency must be disestablished, its buildings turned into lecture-halls, and its endowments devoted to the reduction of the national debt or to the teaching of art and science.

The position of the Secularists is occupied by few. The ordinary advocate of Disestablishment is anxious that the life of the nation may be spiritualised, but he sees that the Church is ineffective, he marks its abuses, its rivalry with the sects, and its assumption of superiority. He argues that its ineffectiveness and its assumption are due to its connection with the State, and urges that Disestablishment alone will sweep out the abuses. He condemns abuses but he cannot condemn a principle which affirms the duty of the State to teach the higher life, because he himself has probably approved the principle as a supporter of Education Acts, liquor laws, and other legislation of a like aim.

It is allowed by the majority of the people that the State should teach the life of prudence, and schools are established under local School Boards to teach every child, so that he may earn his living. Further, it is allowed that the State should control the forces which, for good or evil, may rouse the people, and thus licensing boards are established to limit the sale of strong drink.

The same principle is involved in an Established Church. If the State educates the citizens, and admits its responsibility for the formation of their characters, a line can hardly be drawn at a point which would exclude it from giving the people the means which are the best security for happiness and for morality.

The principle of Establishment does not—as its opponents often think—assert that a sect has truth; it asserts that the nation has truth, or is seeking it. The truth abides in the best thought of the whole nation, and the Church is established to express that truth. The clergy have no special rights, they are servants appointed to do the will of the nation. Truth abides not in ‘the Church’ of the bishops and clergy nor in a book, it abides in the people. Once when it was proposed in the House of Commons to refer a matter of doctrine to the bishops, ‘No, by the faith I bear to God,’ said Mr. Wentworth, with the approval of the House, ‘we will pass nothing before we understand what it is, for that were to make you Popes.’ It is the people, therefore, which by its Parliament has settled, and may again settle, the limits of teaching and ritual. The clergy are its servants paid out of funds set apart for this special purpose. Lord Palmerston put it shortly when he said, ‘The property of the Church belongs to the State.’

The nation, in old language, is holy. The body of people called English is set apart for a special service, its laws are laws of God, its work is worship, and every one of its members owes a duty to God. The memory of such a fact was kept alive in Israel where every town’s meeting was a congregation, every parliament a solemn assembly, every law the Word of God, and every workman was inspired by the Spirit of God. The Jewish nation has been preserved in the Jewish Church. That the English nation is holy must also be kept alive. The nation, that is, must be a Church and its citizens organised for worship. ‘The spirit of nationality,’ says Burke, ‘is at once the bond and the safeguard of nations; it is something above laws and beyond thrones, the impalpable element, the inner life of states.’ In his own language Burke asserts the holiness of nations, and it is to protect this impalpable element that it becomes so important for nations to identify their secular and religious aspects, to be at once nations and churches with duties to men and to God.

Disestablishment denies this holiness, and so lets escape the strongest element in nationality. Disestablishment is, moreover, a short-sighted policy, because, however great be the measure of Disendowment, it would make the Church of England the strongest of the sects. In a short time one of the parties now held in union within the Establishment would obtain the supremacy, and that party would inherit all the power and prestige of the position. This party—being only a section of the religious body—would pose as the representative of religion, and its clergy would identify their interests with the interest of God. Again, there would be some Becket to oppose the will of Parliament, and to call some law affecting his order ‘irreligious,’ and a clericalism would be let loose to assume, and perhaps make hateful, the name of religion. ‘Clericalism is the enemy of men,’ is a saying which has much truth in it. The pity is if clericalism and religion are enabled to seem to be the same thing.

Disestablishment, finally, would intensify the competition of sects. To make one proselyte, the supporters of various forms would compass sea and land. The standard of morality would be lowered and the flags of doctrine, invented out of will-worship, would be waved to bring in rich adherents, and get the use of their money. Even, as it is, there is no need to go far to find work, which would fall to pieces if the preacher spoke the truth to the subscribers about their private life or their tempers. It is urged that the congregations in American non-established Churches are large; it is not urged that the people in America are above bribery in politics or above cheating in trade. It is not urged that American social life is spiritualised, and that is the only fact which would be evidence of the good of the system.

To sum up the case against those who offer Disestablishment of the Church as an answer to the question, ‘How is the nation to be brought into union with the spirit of goodness?’ it may be urged that—

1. Disestablishment is a destructive and wasteful method of getting rid of abuses, and would destroy the power of the State to teach what the State holds to be truth.

2. Disestablishment would establish clericalism, a force which more than once in history has made religion hateful, and roused for its repression the God-fearing men of the nation.

3. Disestablishment, trusting to competition, would leave poor neighbourhoods unhelped. A poor congregation could not hope for a church in which worship should be stirred by the beauty of sight and sound. An ignorant population would not exert itself to get either a church or a teacher. The most needy would thus be the most neglected. It is only the State which can give with equal hand to all its members, and which thus can either educate or spiritualise the masses.

The solution offered by those who say, ‘Reform the Church,’ remains for examination.

These, like the religious liberationists, are anxious that the instrument for spiritualising life should be effective. The Reformers, though, recognise that this, the highest object of any organisation is also the object of the State, and can only be attained by means of the Constitution. Individuals may be left to provide for the wants they have recognised. The State must provide for the wants of the higher life and send out teachers to tell individuals of things beyond their ken. The Church reformers urge, therefore, that the principle of Establishment should be retained, but that abuses should be eradicated and old-fashioned methods reformed.

The practical difficulties of reform are doubtless many, but they are not insuperable. Inasmuch as Burke has said, ‘What is taught by a State Church must be decided by the State, and not by the clergy,’ it is possible to conceive that the nation, and not a sect, might determine how truth should be sought and taught. Inasmuch as now it is the people who directly or indirectly appoint their rulers, it is easy to conceive how the people, and not a patron, might have a voice in the choice of the parson, and how the parishioners, and not the parson, might govern the Church and the parish. There need be no ill-paid, no over-paid, no unworthy incumbent. There need be no neglected parish, and a State Church might be as effective an organisation for promoting spirituality as the State Post-office is for promoting intercourse.

Institutions have survived a greater reform than that which is required in the Church, and those who have seen the changes which the law-making department of the State has endured may without fear submit the right-making department to like changes.

It is no new principle to reform the Reformed Church. By a law of Henry VIII. the king has authority to ‘reform, correct all errors, heresies and abuses,’ and the people’s Parliament now takes the place of the king. ‘The particular form of Divine worship,’ says the preface to Edward VI.’s second Prayer Book, ‘and the rites and ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being in their own nature indifferent and alterable, and so acknowledged, it is but reasonable, &c. &c.’ The Long Parliament changed the whole Constitution and Ritual of the Church. The Restoration Parliament undid that work. Throughout the seventeenth century the Teaching, the Ritual, and the Organisation were discussed as open questions, and the present system is the result purely of a Parliamentary decision.

Three hundred years ago, to suit the new age, the new birth of learning, the Church was reformed. The present times are marked by changes as great as those of the Renaissance, and the Church remains unchanged. As was the Church of the sixteenth century, so is the Church of the nineteenth century.

The government of England has become popular, and the people elect the Parliament which makes the laws; the Church of England is still exclusive, and the clergy in ‘their’ churches and ‘their’ parishes are still supreme.

Freedom has destroyed monopolies; and, according to a rough scale, justice is equally administered. In the Church, monopolies still exist, justice is defied in arrangements which are for the benefit of the strong, and the clergy are a ‘protected’ class.

The language and the fashion of Englishmen have changed, but the Church still addresses men with the language and the ritual of the Middle Ages.

The Church, once reformed to suit new needs, the rites of which are ‘alterable,’ has not been made to suit the needs of modern times. The Church must be again reformed. If details be asked as to the Constitution of the Church of the future, if questions rise to men’s lips, ‘What will be done about Bishops?’ ‘Who will fix the limits of doctrine?’ ‘How will the rights of minorities be considered?’ the simple answer is that all can be settled by the people. The Reformers of 1832 did not map out the details of the new government of England; they simply gave the power to the people, and the people rooted out abuses and reformed the administration of law. It will be sufficient to-day if the people are admitted to that place in Church government which is now usurped by the clergy or their nominees. The State is democratic, the Church must also be democratic. As the State is governed by the people for the people, the Church must be governed by the people for the people.

It is waste of time to make a paper constitution, which often binds the hopes of its makers to one plan. Church boards, a popular veto on patronage, or a general synod, may be the best means of introducing the people’s power, but it is not wise to proceed as if the means were ends. Church reformers need not advocate any means as essential, the one thing essential is to give the people power to form their own Church; to see, in a word, that the Church is the people’s Church.

The obstacle to Church reform is not the doubt as to its possibility or difference of opinion as to its method. The real obstacle is the general indifference to religion. The zeal or enthusiasm which passes as religious is most often roused by opinions, and, as Wesley said, ‘Zeal for opinions is not zeal for religion.’ In the noise of controversy and in the hurry of trade the very nature of religion seems forgotten. The arguments of theologians and the sensationalism of revivalists are discussed as religious problems, in which it is well to show an intelligent interest, but men do not feel that their daily lives, the lives of the poor, and the hope of England depend on their relation with God. If it were really seen that it is on religion, that is, on keeping up the communication between the little good within and the great good without, between man’s broken light and God’s full light, that trade, happiness, and life depend; if it were seen that England cannot be virtuous till Englishmen drink of the Fountain of virtue, then Church reform would be undertaken without delay. No difficulty would seem too great to prevent the vast resources of the Church being brought to the service of religion, and the highest intelligence of statesmen would be devoted to making perfect the organisation for spiritualising life.

It may not be in the power of those of less intelligence to tell the method of reform, but all who are weary at the thought of the present condition of the people may refresh themselves with hopes. Those who reflect on the cheerless faces so common to East London, the dull, weary round of the workers, their deathful life and their hopeless death, are borne down by the thought that each lives in the parish of some Church minister. They weary themselves wondering how the servant provided by the State might better serve the needs of the poor, how the great Church organisation might eradicate unfit houses, bring wealth to the relief of poverty, and make the means of joy more equal. They ask themselves in vain how the house of God might be a house for God’s children. Unable to answer, they may at any rate gladden themselves with an ideal.

The People’s Church then may be so close to the best thought of the nation that it will reflect that thought in every parish, as the ministers who have gathered light from the greatest teachers of science and history direct that light on to the lives of the hardest workers. It may be so near to every individual that its buildings will be the meeting-place of all, the scene of the Holy Communion, where men will learn to know and love God and man. It may so bring together rich and poor, the cultured and the ignorant, that the efforts and the money now fitfully wasted by rival philanthropists will be directed to the effectual remedy of ignorance and poverty. The ministers of the People’s Church may be near to God and near to men, a means by which the avenues to the highest are kept open, the spiritual teachers who, by their lives and doctrines, touch the divine within the human, and make all men respond to the call of right and duty, and settle life on eternal calm.

The conception of such a Church is possible, though it is not possible to say how it may be accomplished; or how these competing claims of creeds and rituals to be religion may be satisfied; or how the rights of men and the rights of their little systems may be sunk in the thought of duty. The organisation of the Church of the future is not now to be sketched. The first step which it is for this generation to take has been made clear. All progress has been through the people, and the Church must be in fact, as in name, the people’s Church. There must be a parish parliament and not a parish despot, and the government of the Church must be by the people as well as for the people.

This is the first step, and what will follow is in God’s counsels. It is the people who govern the nation and decide on peace or war. They have moulded the machinery by which justice is administered and freedom secured; the people must also mould the machinery by which right will be taught and life spiritualised. If they are excluded from exercising their will upon the Establishment, nothing can hinder them from destroying it. God speaks in every age; He has not forgotten to be gracious, and the people are now His instruments, as in old days were kings. It is by them His will is being done, and in that belief the people may be trusted so to order the Church that by its means the Holy Spirit will once more show among men the fruit of virtue and honesty.

Samuel A. Barnett.