The Brighton Gazette reported that Fr Enraght’s lecture at Brighton’s Town Hall lasted 50 minutes.
 |
| copyright ©
Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Brighton's Town Hall in the 1870s, the location of the National Association for Promoting Freedom of Worship's Public Meeting |
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PROMOTING FREEDOM OF WORSHIP
AND THE
WEEKLY OFFERTORY
Brighton Town Hall - 14
December 1871
The Public Meeting advertised to take place in Brighton, in connection with the above Association, proved a great success. The large upper room of the Town Hall, in which the meeting was held, was densely thronged, hundreds being unable to obtain admittance. The working classes largely predominated. Notwithstanding this, however, the proceedings were most orderly; every speaker was listened to with the deepest attention; and not a rude or coarse ejaculation came from the “masses.”
The LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER, who presided, was loudly cheered on coming upon the platform. Amongst those present were the Vicar (Rev. Dr. Hannah), the Ven. William Emery, Archdeacon of Ely; the Rev. R. W. Enraght (formerly Organizing Secretary of the Society); the Rev. W. S. Lewis, Vicar of St George’s Worthing; the Rev. J. S. Jones, Preacher at the Magdalen, London; the Rev. Wm. Dawson, Rector of St John’s, Clerkenwell, the Rev. A. A. Morgan, the Rev. W. W. La Barte, the Rev. C. H. Campion, Rev. J. J. Hannah, Rev. C. Beanlands, Rev. W. W. Godden, Rev. R. J. Salmon, Rev. M. W. Mayo, Rev. A. O. Mangles, Rev. T. Halliwell, Rev. H. W. Beverley, Rev. H. W. Meeres, Rev. R. Hooper, Rev. J. M. Fincher, Rev. J. P. Kane, Rev. R. Hammond, Rev. E. S. Grindle, Rev. C. Thompson, Rev. F. G. Holbrooke, Rev. H. Elwell, Rev. D. Robertson, Rev. F. Barker, F. Barchard, Esq., Douglas Fox, Esq., W. Henty, Esq., Alderman Martin, Dr. Fussell, Arthur Woods, Esq., H. Smith, Esq., E. C. Tainsh, Esq., Mr Wakeling, Mr Challen, Mr Merry, Mr Hamilton, Mr Wilton, Mr Woodward, &c., &c. The proceedings were opened with prayer.
The LORD BISHOP then rose, and was received with immense applause. He said: It is scarcely necessary for me to express the satisfaction I feel in seeing so large a meeting assembled to hear the arguments about to be adduced on a subject of immense importance, not merely to this assembly and to the Church of England herself, but to the whole cause of religion in this country. (Hear, hear.)
It is many years since I became intimately acquainted with the origin and progress of this Association. I have watched it from the cradle of its birth, and have seen its constant and steady progress, and I am bound to say that, although not free from shortcomings and mistakes, it has, on the whole, effected a very great good. Its only object has been to make the Church of England in practice what it is in theory, - really the Church of the People; and whatever measures it has adopted have been directed to that clear and definite end. (Applause.)
The theory of the church in public worship, which, being based upon eternal truth, can never be controverted, - and the Association rests upon this great truth – is that as God is no Respecter of persons, the rich and poor must meet together especially in His house, and it maintains that no religion deserves the name that does not provide for that mixed public worship, with as little impediment as human infirmity can permit. (Applause.)
That is the theory of the Church of England, based upon the eternal law of God; and as the laws of our land rest fundamentally on God’s law, that is the law civil and ecclesiastic of this realm. (Applause.)
The law declares the area of the parish church is free to every parishioner, rich and poor, without exception; and that to take any money for seats therein is absolutely illegal, and further, whatever appropriation of seats takes place in a parish church must be done with proper authority and under proper direction, and never to the detriment of the people, but always to their advantage. (Applause.)
All present here are well aware that the churchwardens are empowered to allot or assign seats to parishioners according to their several needs and requirements. That is the law of the land. There are no doubt certain exceptions with regard to privileged chapels, certain prescriptive rights, certain rights by faculty; but they are, in fact, so insignificant and bear so small a proportion to the accommodation of the churches in general that they hardly deserve to be considered; and such exceptions, like all exceptions, strengthen the general rule. Well, the churchwardens then are to seat the parishioners according to their wants and requirements; and when the church is large and when the parishioners are few, there is not at first sight any objection to this ancient arrangement.
And yet there are objections to it. It is very clear to us that in churches even of this kind the richer classes occupy the best and most advantageous seats; and that the poor, those to whom the gospel of Christ ought specially to be preached, - those whom He had most intimately in His nearest affection, those to whom He declared He came particularly to comfort and to help, - that these people, the masses of the people, are thrust into some dark mouldy corner, far away from sight and sound of the ministrations which they come specially to attend and by which they ought to profit. (Cheers.)
And yet these are the people who ought to be nearest to the minister; these are the people who hang, it may be, with the most intense faith on every word which comes from his lips; these are the people who, being less instructed, need to be nearer to him to catch the whole course of his argument; and yet these people in our churches are thrust into some out of the way corner, so dark as to be, in fact, unfit for anyone; or put into some deep gallery most favourable for sleep but most unfavourable to devotion. (Laughter and applause.)
I say these are the inconveniences which attach to the appropriation of seats even in the most favoured and privileged churches, - where the church is large, the population few and scanty; and where, therefore, there ought to be no difficulty in seating the parishioners according to their needs. But suppose a conscientious church-warden sees a large seat is occupied by a small family and that other families are anxious to have accommodation in the church, and that they claim this accommodation which, as parishioners, they have a right to do. “There is Mr So and So’s seat,” says the churchwarden, “he occupies three sittings and has a pew which will hold seven; I will give you four seats in that comparatively empty pew.” Then the original holder rebels and claims a right which, in reality, he never possessed, and which he could not support in any court of law, - certainly not in any court of conscience. (Applause.)
He claims a right to the pew, and either excludes the new comer or makes the place so disagreeable that he does not dare to enter. Or, if the churchwarden insists on the right of his office and forces the new comer into the seat, what follows? The old proprietor takes away his cushion and Prayer Book, and goes possibly to some dissenting chapel. (Laughter.)
Really that is the sort of course the appropriation of pews often leads to even under the most favourable circumstances. I have seen it and lamented it a hundred times, both as a clergyman and an archdeacon, and have had no power to remedy it, because the law does, in a certain sense, countenance the appropriation of pews, in parish churches, and it is difficult to get churchwardens to incur the odium they must incur by giving the people the seats they need and will occupy. (Applause.)
This is a very great difficulty. But let us take another case, - the case of a populous parish, where the church is not extraordinarily large, and a large number of people desire to come and claim seats. To whom is the unhappy churchwarden to give the seats? If he gives to one he displeases another; and I see no way out of the difficulty except by saying - “The area of the church is open; come in and take places. First come, first served.” (Applause.)
Then equity will have its course; all persons of really conscientious mind and truly religious feeling will be thoroughly satisfied; and the churchwarden will be borne out by public opinion in this enlightened age. (Applause.)
But now we come to the matter of the appropriation of seats as a never-failing source of heart-burnings, jealousies, divisions, law-suits, and everything intolerable in a Christian community. There is no one thing which so stirs up evil passions, in which charity is so wholly forgotten, as the appropriation of seats; there is nothing in which one Christian will concede so little to another as in the matter of his seat at church; and the consequence is that as many persons are lost by the appropriation of seats as can be gained or secured by it. I speak of this not wholly without experience.
You may say, “If you open your church to all comers, the church will be overrun by a crowd of people who have nothing to do with the parish; by chance comers attracted, it may be, by curiosity or other motive; and the old regular parishioner will be ousted of his right; and will be even, in fact, turned out of the parish church which belongs to him far more than to these intruders.” Upon this, I can speak from experience. The churchwarden of a large parish church in a large manufacturing district, after trying all possible ways, came to the conclusion there was but one way by which the demands of the people could be satisfied; and that was that the church should be thrown entirely open, and that they must trust to the good feeling of the parishioners to conduct themselves with that sobriety of mind and that propriety of demeanour which, I must say, characterises our nation in all matters of difficulty. (Hear, hear.)
And what was the result? Not one was really disturbed; I saw the same old faces in the same old seats; there was no disturbance, no confusion; the only difference was that the church which was before empty now became full; and that, as a clergyman, I must say was a most satisfactory conclusion. (Cheers.)
Permit me now to view the matter from the stand-point of a parish priest; a stand-point more familiar to me than that which I now occupy. The priest says that there can be no true religion without an open and acknowledged worship of Almighty God; that it is a very great loss to all people who neglect it; and a great shame to Christian England that there should be millions who never enter the doors of the church. (Hear, hear.)
This is a state of things unheard of until this present age; and, I think, never heard of in any country in the same degree as our own. We look round about, not in despair, but with an anxious desire to remedy what must be confessed to be a great and crying evil. Let us suppose that an industrious and zealous clergyman visits his people, - and remember it is the house-going clergyman which makes a church-going people, - he finds many to be indifferent to church worship, and that few among the vast number go regularly, and he says, - “Why don’t you come to church? The doors are open, it is your parish church; it belongs to you as much as to the richest in the land; it is the common property of all, and, in fact, the only property the poor man has, except the grave.” (Applause.)
In law and in theory this is perfectly true; but what does the labouring man, the independent artizan, the well-paid mechanic, the industrious weaver, retort? He says - “The last time I went to church, I think it was after a funeral, I walked into a pew quite unoccupied. Then the pew-opener came and said, ‘Come out, you have no business there; the pew is appropriated, in a few minutes Mr So-and-So will be here, and you must make place for him.’ ” This is the commentary on your Christian equality. (Hear, hear.)
Another man says - “I went and asked for a seat, and they said, ‘Sit down there; that is the place for you, down at the bottom of the church, that is the free seat,’ - where I could not see or hear.” That is the seat they offer a poor labouring man who had no appropriated seat. Is this not an outrage on Christian equality? Is it not treatment such as no labouring man, or any independent man, can endure? (Applause.)
Supposing the rich were subjected to the same treatment, do you think they would bear it? Most clearly not. And I say the spirit of England at this time and at no time would endure that sort of injustice. (Cheers.)
That is the way in which I was often met by working men; and I could not say, “Your story is untrue,” because I knew it to be true, so true that it cut me to the heart. Then I said to my parishioners, “If I am to visit in my parish I must be furnished with power to say to all these men, ‘Come, the church is open; if it is full, you cannot complain, for you have as good a chance as any, and all room for complaint is cut away.’” There were people who opposed me, people who possessed privileged and appropriated seats in most outrageous galleries, dreadful excrescences which deformed the church. But after less than a year’s experience, these people came to me and threw their title deeds into my lap, and said, “Take the galleries and do as you please with them.” We cleared the galleries away, and we filled the church with good, clear, open benches, in which the rich sit side by side with the poor, and all are contented and satisfied. (Cheers.)
This is a practical illustration of the present movement. I do not consider it any merit of my own, because it entirely arose from the good sense and practical feeling of the people. (Hear, hear.) In the vast cathedral and parish church of Manchester, the whole area is free as air; and I have seen, Sunday after Sunday, almost the same people in the same seats. (Cheers.)
In fact, people greatly miscalculate the feeling of the labouring population. There is as much sensitiveness and delicacy of feeling amongst those who labour for their bread as amongst the higher classes of this country. That is really the truth; and vulgarity, if it is to be found anywhere, is not to be found among them, but rather among those above them; that is, above them in means and circumstances. (Applause.)
Hitherto I have spoken of those churches which are strictly parish churches, and which belong to the people; but, as everybody knows, there are many not parish churches, which stand on a totally different footing. The legislature, by divers statutes, has sanctioned in those churches the allotting of pews. It is sanctioned by repeated statutes, which are confirmed by long usage. Now, if this Association means to institute a direct crusade against all appropriated seats and all pew-rented churches; if it means to say all are, ipso facto, illegal and ought at once to be abolished, I say so far I cannot go with them. (Applause.)
I think mercy should be shown to all, and endeavours should be made to bring people to the more excellent way by showing its advantages. We should carefully abstain from any want of charity on our own part. I think in certain places,- possibly this is one, - some pew rented churches are in a manner a necessity. How long that will be so, and whether they ought always to be so, is quite another question, which depends for its solution on the good temper of all parties concerned, and greatly, no doubt, on the temper of those who occupy those pew-rented churches. The income of the clergymen arising from pew rents is generally a most modest income; and if the clergyman says he is not willing to exchange what he considers a sort of certainty for an uncertainty, - that he is not willing to exchange his pew rents for an offertory, - I, for one, could not presume to compel him. (Applause.)
But at the same time, I fail entirely to discern how it is more derogatory to the character and independence of a clergyman to depend on the offertory than to depend upon stipulated pew rents, for I think it is worse to depend on the contributions of the few than on the voluntary offerings of the many. (Cheers.)
If the clergyman gives offence, nothing is easier than for the few who rent his pews to withdraw the support on which he relies; whereas if the offertory fails, it can only be by the deliberate purpose of the whole community to starve out their minister. But, with regard to the productiveness and present value of the offertory, those questions I leave to be treated by those who will follow. So far as my experience goes, it is thoroughly satisfactory. We seem to have really touched a spring which, the more it is worked, the more it yields; we seem to be working a mine which, the more it is tried and explored, the more productive it appears to be. (Applause.)
There seems to be no limit to the liberality of Christian congregations, if we only keep to the scriptural method of collecting their alms in secret, that none may know what the other gives; of collecting regularly so that each gives according as God has prospered him during the week; and of collecting for a truly religious purpose that all may know to what their alms will be applied. (Applause.)
This Association is not aggressive; its object is simply to restore to the people the rights they have lost. If this spirit grows and prospers, we shall have more churches thrown open; we shall have more and more parish churches; and a parish church deserves not the name if it be cut up into innumerable seats and parcelled out as the property of the minority. (Cheers.)
I have now only to request attention for each speaker. The subject is far removed from party passion and miserable prejudice; it lies in a higher region altogether; and to that I desire to lead your minds and the minds of the speakers that will follow. I rely upon the good sense of the meeting; and trust everything will be conducted harmoniously and in good order. (Loud cheers.)
The Rev. R. W. ENRAGHT, then delivered a lecture advocating the objects of the Society. The lecturer was repeatedly and warmly cheered. He said: It gives me the greatest pleasure to be able, with perfect truth, to say that our subject this evening is absolutely unconnected with any party either in Church or State. For the subject of this evening, it does not in the remotest degree matter whether a man be, in religion, High, Low, or Broad; or in politics, the highest old Tory or the strongest Liberal. We want to see the parish churches of this land opened for the free and unrestricted access of the people, and the system of Church finance one which will not interfere in any way with such free access. That is our whole object. We have absolutely no ulterior motives whatsoever in the background. We do not, moreover, pretend in anywise to condemn persons, but a system.
It would be Pharisaism in free and open churchmen were they to think themselves better men than the advocates and upholders of the pew system. It has also been said that “the object of this Free Church Association is to impose upon the country one unvarying type of Church.” Nothing could be more contrary to fact. Hear an extract from one of the Society’s papers: “The Society proposes no change in any church except with the initiative and full consent of its clergy and congregation. No abolition of pew rents is proposed except by the substitution of endowments, or in churches whose clergy are satisfied that, from the nature of the population and other circumstances, a larger and more reliable income will be produced by weekly offerings from all worshippers than by half-yearly rents from a few families and individuals.” It has also been said that we wish to stir up the people against their clergy. This is also not true. We neither want to do, - nor have our operations ever resulted in doing, - anything of the kind. We want to awaken the public conscience to a clear sense of the presence of what we believe to be a glaring and gigantic evil, even as that conscience has long ere this awakened to a true sense of the presence of other, now acknowledged, evils. We have also been asked whether we “will adopt the post-apostolic primitive model for clerical and church revenue?” and whether it “is after the primitive model that the Association proposes to have our churches open to all comers; first come, first served?”
To both questions I answer, in the name of our Society: “With all our hearts; these are the very things we are here this evening to contend for in a Christian spirit.” The primitive system of church finance and the primitive mode of placing worshippers in church is admirably set forth in Bingham, who has been quoted by a most courteous opponent in to-day’s Brighton Gazette. Only just remember that in the primitive church worshippers were placed for no longer than the service to which they had come. Orderly quiet arrangement of worshippers, service after service (as they occur), under the superintendence of deacons or churchwardens, as the case may be, it is the object of the Society to promote.
And now let me say that I can only hope to give you a very faint and scanty outline of the two large subjects before me – (I.) Open Churches and (II.) the Weekly Offertory.
(I.) The history of English parish churches, and indeed of parish churches all over Christendom – in reference to our present subject – is simply this. Our forefathers in the faith built cathedrals and parish churches for the glory of God and for the common benefit of every single man, woman, and child who lives in the various parishes or cathedral cities. It never entered the heads of our forefathers in Christ to erect in the naves of churches pews (of whatever size or shape) for themselves.
The simple proof of this is the fact that for many years after “the Reformation,” there were no pews in the naves of parish churches, and there are none in the naves of cathedrals to this day. It is true that there were moveable seats or stools placed near the walls and pillars for the benefit of the aged and infirm, but the general body of the congregation stood or knelt during the time of divine service. Mr Toulmin Smith, barrister-at-law, in his work entitled, “The Parish,” says, In a remarkable old case (year books, 8 Henry VII., fo. 12) though the seats then found in churches were, as is now the case in continental churches, but a few loose and moveable ones, it is declared that even such a seat is ‘a nuisance,’ as interfering with the right of ‘ease and standing’ that belongs to the people: ‘for the church,’ it says, ‘is in common to every one, and there is no reason why one should have a seat, and that two should stand, for no place in the church belongs more to one than to another, while the parishioners are not able to have their standing room on account of these seats.’
How much more, then, is this true with the modern pew system.” I may perhaps be permitted here to say that we can date with sufficient accuracy the introduction of the use of chairs and seating into the French church. Theophilus Raynard, a learned Jesuit wrote on this subject. He died in 1663. In one of his works entitled, Sacrum Christianum Acathistum, he says, “Ten years have scarcely elapsed since, on my return from Italy, I was struck with astonishment at the novel practice of hiring, for a small sum, a chair or seat during the time of mass. The consequence is, that those who are walking up the church to break through a band of chairs before they reach the Rood-screen.” He then goes on to combat the objections against standing.
Pews, as far as it can be ascertained, began to be generally introduced about the time of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, - and the reign of Charles II. The Commonwealth was certainly not a period from which sound churchmen will be willing to take example. There were instances of pews before that period. Archbishop Laud and Bishop Matthew Wren, of Hereford, had honour of strenuously opposing their introduction, and one of the charges brought against Bishop Wren before the Houses of Lords by the Puritans was, that he had oppressed many poor parishes by making them, at vast expense, remove pews from their churches. Selfishness, as history shows, had a great deal to do with their introduction.
I have said that for many years after “the Reformation” there were no pews in the naves of parish churches. “Burn,” in his “Ecclesiastic Law,” Phillimore’s Edition, page 358, says, “Before the age of the Reformation no seats allowed, now any distinct apartment in the church assigned to distinct inhabitants, except for some very great persons,” And “Cripps,” in his “Law of the Church and Clergy,” Fourth Edition, page 453, comments on “Burn” as follows. “It does not follow that the distinct apartments here spoken of (that is, the “distinct apartments” assigned to, “some very great persons,”) were pews in the body of the Church; but aisles or private chapels may very probably be intended.” Such, namely, a “private chapel” or small “aisle” attached to the Church was doubtless Sir Thomas More’s “pew,” mentioned in the Apophthegms of Lord Bacon.
This was the condition of parish churches under the old common law of England, and that common law is the common law still. By the common law “The use of the body of the Church is common to all parishioners.” (Ayliffe, Parergon, p.484.) “By the general law, and of the common rights, all the pews in the parish Church are the common property of the parish. They are far the use in common of the parishioners, who are all entitled to be seated, orderly and conveniently, so as best to provide for the accommodation of all. And every parishioner has clearly a right to a seat in the Church, without any payment for it.” (Oliphant’s Law of Pews.) “Returning to the normal state of things, where it remains unaffected by any special privilege, we have seen that the body of every parish Church belongs, of common right, to all the parishioners, and this right cannot lawfully be defeated by any permanent appropriation of particular places.” (Report of Lords’ Committee on Spiritual Destitution (1868) p. xviii.)
It is scarcely necessary for me to say that it is the restoration of parish churches to the common-law condition thus spoken of that we are contesting for. We should indeed be worthy of derision if by the term “ancient parish churches” we forget the condition of things which might be seen throughout the length and breadth of England some 40 or 60 years ago. I only allude to this because it has lately been taken for granted in this town that we are desirous to see restored the system prevalent in the old parish churches of this land some 40 or 60 years ago, - a state of things far worse than any that ever previously existed in England, – or, indeed, I should think, in any other land.
Yes, the history of the introduction of high pews was this; In degenerate days, succeeding “the Reformation,” when Bishops and Archdeacons had gone to sleep – and churchwardens had naturally followed suit - “the enemy came and sowed” the gigantic “tare” of the pew-system. The greatest man in a parish first bethought him that he would build unto himself a high, roomy pew, thereby showing his dignity and superiority to his fellow-parishioners. The second biggest man, before long, followed the lord of the manor’s example; and then the next and next, each building his pew, as regarded shape and elevation – not necessarily upon the model of the squire’s – but after his own bias; until at length the whole area of the naves of churches, and often the chancels, too, became covered with erections of various shapes and sizes, called in these later times - “cattle-pens” or “horse-boxes.”
I need hardly add that in parishes where there were many gentry and well-to-do people, the working classes came to be in church nowhere, for as a body they had no where to go to. The parish church in Wiltshire, where I held my first curacy, was no unusual example, and there, with a population in the parish of some 3200 souls, will you believe me, there were only about 60 out-of-the-way “sittings” provided for the working classes. It was no wonder, of course, that the parish was full of dissenting chapels. Such was one of the worst out of the many evil consequences which the selfishness of the Commonwealth has brought upon the Church of England. But during this period there were no pew-rents. “The first instance, probably, to be met with of making the income of a clergyman dependent on his pew-rents occurs at the erection of St Ann’s, Westminster, into a separate parish, in 1686.” Later on, in our own times, pew-rents have become common, in the modern pew-system churches, built under what are termed the “Church-building Acts.”
Since these later parish churches were built we have been gradually losing the “cattle-pens” or “horse-boxes”. The pews in these churches were built more upon one uniform plan. For this we may be thankful. But the seats in them provided for the working classes and poor were differently built from those occupied by the pew-renters, and moreover very few indeed. Later on still we have seen churches built with no doors to the pews, and with no difference made between the seats appropriated to certain persons for a pew-rent, and other seats appropriated to certain working-class folk, for either a merely nominal seat-rent, or no seat-rent at all. In these latter churches, as a general rule, are also to be found seats built upon exactly the same plan as the rest, entirely unappropriated and open to whomsoever may wish to occupy them. And here, if we are to believe certain persons, we have arrived at the perfection of church accommodation and church finances. The churches which I have last described are held up to us as containing all that can possibly be desired in order to make “rich and poor meet together” in church, “the Lord” being “the Maker of all.” But a very brief glance at the system acted upon in these churches will dispel the illusion sought to be raised about them. By the common-law, as we have seen, all the parishioners in a parish have an equal right to the parish church.
Now, take the case of a parish, containing, suppose, 8,000 souls, with a parish church which will accommodate 1,800 worshippers. We will suppose that the incumbent of this church, in order, as he thinks, to deal fairly by all his parishioners, (rich and poor alike – the nobleman as well as the working-man) allots 800 of the “sittings” to 800 of his well-to-do parishioners for a stated pew-rent, and allots for either a very small pew-rent, or no pew-rent at all, 800 of the remaining “sittings” (all similarly situated) amongst 800 working people of the parish who promise to attend regularly; leaving the remaining 200 “sittings” unappropriated. By this arrangement 1,600 of the 8,000 parishioners are provided for, with 1,600 out of the 1800 “sittings” contained in the church. And no doubt these 1,600 ought to be satisfied, as doubtless they are. But what, I ask, are the remaining 6,400 unseated parishioners to do?
For (1) if they ever learn to come to Church in any such numbers as working people used to do in early church times, or in old days of the Church of England, how can they possibly be accommodated in these remaining 200 “sittings”?
But (2) what right have they to be satisfied with any such arrangements? What superior right by the common law have these aforesaid 1,600 seated parishioners over the unseated 6,400? How can the Incumbent and Wardens satisfy themselves that they have treated the 6,400 un-seated parishioners with equal fairness as the 1,600? Be it remembered, I say again, that the unseated 6,400 parishioners have, by the common law, absolutely one and the same right to places in their parish church as have the favoured and seated 1,600. Of course I am not professing to argue upon the basis of the Church-building Acts.
Now this is a case as favourable to the pew-system as perhaps we could put. There are very few pew-system churches in England carried out upon as good a plan as this. And yet if this case be instanced to shew the superiority, or even the reasonableness, of the pew-system, as a system, it – as we have seen – utterly breaks down. It shows that system to be not only at variance with the common law, but also quite contrary to common sense. Few now-a-days are found to defend the plan which used to be so common in pew-system churches of having nearly the whole church pewed with roomy comfortable “boxes” for the rich and well-to-do, and a few seats in the centre and near the walls ticketed “free,” or, “for the poor,” thereby branding with the reproach of poverty the few poor who do go to such churches. But we have just seen that “pew-rented churches of modern build” which have been lately in this town called “the last best results of modern progress and enlightenment, and improved public feeling,” though they are certainly an “improvement” upon the previous pew-system churches, are, nevertheless, very far indeed from being true Parish Churches, or of meeting the wants of the great mass of the people. The plan upon which such churches are conducted would seem to be based upon the assumption (1) that the working classes are not more numerous than the other classes of the community. This we all know to be quite other than the fact. The working classes immensely outnumber all the other classes of the community put together – as the elections show. This plan also seems to assume (2) that the unseated 6,400 parishioners, - having duly filled (we will suppose) the 200 unallotted sittings, - will be behoven – either to their 800 richer brethren or to their 800 favoured brethren of the working classes – for any of their 1,600 “sittings” that may remain unoccupied.
Now all this shows a marvellous want of acquaintance with the habits of thought and independence of feeling of working men – especially in populous places. An unseated parishioner of the working classes would certainly not ask a gentleman or a lady for a “sitting.” And if he did he would stand a sorry chance of getting one. But, however unwilling he might be to ask a gentleman or lady for a “sitting” near them, he will be found much more unwilling to be behoven for a “sitting” to one of his own class, to whom he believes favouritism has been shown. This may be pride. But it is not for the favoured 1,600 to accuse him of pride. He will reply that “by the common law of his country he has the same right to his parish church as they have, and that he will stay away so long as he is treated differently from them in that place – the house of prayer – where (whatever distinctions there may be in the world) he has read in the Bible all are on a level, and no “respect of persons” ought to be shown. I do not say that this manner of reply is right, but I say it is the reply given.
It
is the very manner of reply which I have myself received from working
men in this town when I have asked them to go to a church carried on
upon the pew-system. Moreover, I do not say that every single
working man reasons and acts in this way. I do not, of course, say
that there are no exceptional cases of working men at pew-system
churches, but the exceptions are so rare as to be, alas! positively
startling. There must be some reason for this. There must be some
serious cause why “the common people,” who “were very attentive
to hear Christ” when on earth, and who “heard him gladly,” yea,
who trusted in him, and clung to him, and cried his praises when the
nobility and gentlefolk and authorities of their country, as a body,
looked coldly upon him, or rejected him, - there must be some serious
cause why these “common people,” once the most religious class,
are now, as a class, so utterly ungodly. The reason is to hand, - or
at least one very principal reason; a reason which I have no doubt
has had more to do in bringing about this most sad
result than any other. We have treated the upper and richer and
well-to-do classes with such manifest favouritism, and the working
classes, as a body, with such glaring unfairness, and I must really
say – cruelty – that they have gradually lost their interest in
the church – in the things of God, and of eternity. This is
neither common law nor common sense. And it is certainly in absolute
contradiction to Holy Scripture. For who is it our Lord says he
would pay most attention to? The ninety-nine sheep who remain with
Him, and have taken “sittings,” or the one erring sheep? The
1,600 in the parish church, I have been describing, clearly answer to
the ninety-nine sheep who remain with our Lord, and are willing to go
to His house. The one who has gone astray represents clearly the
6,400 who care not to take “sittings” in church at all. Which of
these does our Lord teach us, both by precept and His own example, we
should pay most attention to?
Does not our Lord speak of one
lost sheep, to teach us that each single erring soul should be as
precious to His ministers as the ninety-nine who attend church? To
say the very least – and in saying this we are saying much less
than our Lord has said – we must, if we would follow His teaching
and example, take at least the same care of the 6,400 as of the
1,600, and at the peril of our souls fear to put any, even the least,
stumbling block or “offence” in the way of the return to Him of
any one of these 6,400 who have gone astray. I am aware that someone
may say, “All those 6,400 have not gone astray. Many of them are
serving God according to their light. They go to the Meeting houses
of Dissenters.” I answer, making all necessary deductions, my
argument cannot be answered – that in pew-system churches the great
bulk of the parishioners are necessarily set aside for the favoured
few. There are distinctions enough in the world, and the lot of the
lower class is surely often hard enough without our depriving them
(so far as we can by the arrangement of our churches) of the pleasing
thought that at all events in church degradation and poverty are no
reproach, that church on earth, which is meant by God to be the
foretaste of the church and joys of Heaven.
It
has been well said that “it is the special office of the church to
think and feel for those on whom the world’s customs press most
heavily, to lighten their lot, and soften down the roughness of their
passage to our common Home.” I have said that the lower classes to
a most sad extent seem to have lost their interest in the affairs of
the church and of religion. I believe, as I have said, that this is
very mainly due to the pew-system. I do not want to be unjust
however. And, therefore, I must, in fairness, allow, as indeed I
have done in this Lecture, that the pew-system has benefitted certain
members of the working classes. These persons would very likely
speak well of the pew-system, and be satisfied with it. It is that
system’s utter failure to deal fairly by the great mass of
parishioners that we are compelled to denounce it for. That it does
thus fail, the working classes themselves are ready to declare. Many
working men take great interest in our efforts to restore the ancient
common law system of parish churches, and, as occasions offer, are
not slow to express that interest
in words.
On one occasion, when it was proposed in Sheffield to
build ten new churches entirely free and open, working men were heard
to say, “Ah, now at last they are going to act like Christians.”
What must be the thoughts of working men in Sheffield now that such
an excellent scheme has been to a great extent frustrated by
pew-system interests in that town? At Leicester, I remember a
working man getting up at an open-church meeting and saying, “how
glad he had been to hear the lecture which had been given, and that
the Church of England would be in a very different condition if the
opinions of the lecturer were more commonly held and acted upon.”
At the same meeting another working man got up and said that “he
had been a Dissenter until he met with a free and open church, but
that ever since he had been a staunch Churchman, and meant to
continue one.”
At the Conference on the subject of “Why the Working Classes do not attend Public Worship,” held at the London Coffee House, January 21st, 1867, where were present, among others, the Dean of Westminster, Revs. Dr. Miller, W. W. Champneys, J. E. Kempe, R. Maguire, the Hon. A. Kinnaird, M.P., Thos. Hughes, Esq., M.P., the following speeches were made by working men. Mr Patterson (Cabinet maker), said “Christianity came into the world, and they were told that it was received by the common people. The common people were now very much the same as they were then. If the people were now very much the same as they were then. If the people had not changed, there must be something, either in religion itself, or the way in which it was presented to them, that had changed, to give rise to the present extraordinary position of affairs, in which a religion which was formerly received by the common people and neglected by the richer classes, was now neglected by the former and accepted by the latter.
The
great Church establishment had drawn to itself an immense amount of
property belonging to the country, and absorbed it for the purpose of
a class, - it might not be a majority, but certainly it was to one
class; and working men saw that the wealthier classes in this respect
would not give up, in the slightest degree, any of their supposed
rights. It might, perhaps, be asked, why did they not go to
Dissenting chapels? The fact was, the same thing was manifest there.
He wished to speak freely. A Dissenting chapel in nine cases out of
ten was a religious shop. A certain number of men united in looking
out for a man with a certain amount of speaking power.
They got the
man – or the man got them, it did not matter which, and then they
formed a committee. A certain amount of money was subscribed, a
chapel was built, and it was mapped out into as many compartments as
it would hold; then there were certain rents paid, and there was a
certain proprietorship about the matter. But if the working man went
there to worship God he had to sit by the door in a draught, or
somewhere in the free seats, labelled as ‘a working man’; he felt
that he was an alien and an outsider, and that he had not paid for
his place. He did not wish to deny for a moment that men ought to
support public worship, but he did not think it ought to be put in
that way – so much Theology served over the counter for so much
seat-rent,”
Mr Wynne (plasterer) said “The distinction of classes was another great bar. This was more particularly manifest in country churches. If a working man was invited into one of those churches, he felt that there was an intolerable gulf between the classes, and that it was a mere matter of condescension to recognise him as one of God’s people outside the church.”
Mr Bebington (Bookseller’s Porter), said “But notwithstanding all these obstacles there was a large number who might go to church if they would. Why did they not? Because whenever they attempted to go they were made to feel more like intruders than welcome guests. Sometimes they were kept standing for a length of time, or sometimes they were shown to forms or pews set apart for the working classes; and on purpose that there should be no mistake on the subject he had seen words ‘Free Seats for the Poor’ painted upon them, thus pauperising very occupier of those seats. He had known working men suffer the greatest possible distress and destitution rather than apply to the parish, and if they would suffer that, was it to be supposed that they would go to a church or a chapel to be thus degraded? No; indeed they would not.”
Mr Salmon (ex-Scavenger), said “If the Gospel was worth anything they had a right to pay for it, and then they would feel the privilege to be all the greater. But how were they to get the working classes to pay? By abolishing the quarterly subscriptions, and having boxes at the door to receive their weekly contributions. Break down the pew doors, and his word for it, when that system was abolished, they would have a large number of the working classes present, there church finances would be increase.”
And
Edmond Beales, Esq., added that “It had been repeated several times
that night, and he knew from experience, that one of the great
reasons for the artizans of this great country not attending their
churches and chapels as they otherwise would be, was that they did
not find themselves at ease and in comfort. How was that to be met?
Probably many were aware of the movement going on in the Church of
England for the express purpose of having free churches and doing
away with pews altogether. That was almost the only practical method
of meeting the difficulty. It was not that the working men were
opposed to the Gospel of Christ.
That Gospel, that was received with
such delight when the Apostles were preaching, would be received with
equal delight by the common people now, if they could get at it in
the way in which it was got at then. Did they suppose that if the
Gospel was preached in all its fullness and simplicity to working men
they would not come to hear it in the same way as the common people
did then? But what was the use of preaching the Gospel to working
men in their churches and chapels, when there was no place for them
to be there and hear it? He must be excused if he had spoken warmly.
That was the great difficulty in the way, and if it was removed, they
would remove almost the sole impediment to Christianity being as much
welcomed by working men as by any other class.”
These
speeches speak for themselves. Yes, the pew-system violates the
common law, common sense, and the spirit of Holy Scriptures. It also
violates the letter of Holy Scripture. Remember that our Lord Himself
chose to be a poor man, born of poor parents, and that He chose that
He and His companions should live in
deep poverty. Poverty He ever honoured. How invariably throughout the
sacred Scriptures the common people and the poor, both in their souls
and bodies, are said to be the especial objects of the Divine
Shepherd’s care.
To these especially
He said He came to preach the Gospel. And it is these He has
specially commended to the care of His Church on earth, His kingdom,
that is His church, He said, should belong especially to the poor. Is
it always so now? It ought to be, Any injury either to the bodies or
souls of the poor, any “respect of persons” shown to the rich and
great and well-to-do rather to the poor, the Holy Scriptures
everywhere tell us render us liable to the curse of Jehovah – the
God of the poor. If any “respect of persons” be shewn – the
letter and spirit of Holy Scripture would have us shew it to the
poor. They are to be our special care. Again, we know what St. James
the Apostle says on this subject in the second chapter of his
Epistle.
I should have spent very few words upon the 2nd
chapter of St James if advocates of the pew-system had not said –
as they have on various occasions – that because it possibly refers
to Christian law-courts – therefore the condemnation it contains
about “respect of person” in reference to “seats” has nothing
whatever to do with Christian “Assemblies” in church for the
worship of God.
Now, I may observe in the first place that συνδεσμολογία (translated “assembly” in St James ii., 2.) does not seem to have been used by classical authors in the technical sense of “an Assembly” The LXX appear to have been the first to use it in that sense. In that sense the N.T. writers use it, and always of a religious Assembly, unless this passage of St James be an exception.
Secondly, in this very passage, St James, in the 6th verse, when he obviously means a court of Justice, uses the word ἐκκλησία , not συνδεσμολογία.
Thirdly, St James’ teaching in this passage seems to be exactly parallel to that of our Lord in Matt, XXIII., 6, where he condemns those who “love the chief seats in synagogues.” Our Lord’s point is “love.” Certain persons must perforce occupy “the chief seats,” but they must not “love” sitting in “the chief seats.” This passage in St. Matthew, where an assembly for worship is undoubtedly meant, goes to prove that St. James means the same in his second chapter, and that he there likewise condemns “loving the chief seats” in such assembly.
Fourthly,
none will deny that the exhortation of St. Paul in Hebrews x., 25 -
“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” - refers
(from the context) without doubt to assembling in church. But the
Greek expression used by St. James in his second chapter and second
verse, is the very one used by St. Paul in Hebrew x., 25. Further, I
distinctly, though very respectfully, deny that the interpretation
which says that “your assembly,” in James ii., 2, means a
Christian judicial assembly – is “endorsed by the opinion of the
great majority of the best commentators” - or that it is in any
sense whatever “the received interpretation.”
The great majority
of the really best commentators say nothing about that exclusive
interpretation, or allude to it, since its invention, only to reject
it. Calmet seems to imply that he thinks our own divine, - Hammond,
- invented it,
and very possibly Calmet is right.
Calmet says the context proves it to be a religious assembly.
Whitby, it is true, seems to endorse the supposition that St. James
means a law court, - though, indeed, he does not seem to me to
express his own opinion on the passage very decidedly. But he
interprets the first verse to condemn “respect of persons” in the
most general terms, by whomsoever or however shows. Dr Doddridge has
been quoted as supporting the interpretation of law court, but if his
“Family Expositor” be read attentively, he mentions this
interpretation in one paragraph only to
reject it in the next.
The patristic
interpreters know nothing of any such exclusive interpretation, as
confining the term “assembly” to Christian “assemblies for
judicial purposes.” As far as I know, they mostly do not touch
upon the question, and no wonder, seeing that in their days the pew
system was unknown. All churches were then free and open.
Bengel says St. James means the assembly of Christians for divine worship. Saicer gives the same interpretation, and he quotes in his support – Ignatius, Clemens Alexandrinus, &c. Our own Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln, and the late Dean Alford, in their commentaries on the Greek New Testament, say St. James means a Christian assembly for worship. And Cornelius a Lapide, - held by most Biblical scholars to be the greatest commentator whom the Church has seen, - interprets “your assembly” in a wide sense, namely to mean any Christian assembly for whatever purpose, - whether sacred or secular.
This
wider interpretation best suits the etymology of the word used by St.
James. That word means “a collection together,” or “people
collected together,” or “a gathering.” Grotius adopts the same
wide interpretation of the expression, - “your assembly.” Estius
says συναγωγή, here cannot mean a judicial assembly, because
St. James wrote his Epistle to the Christian Jews of the Dispersion,
and they were never permitted to hold judicial assemblies in the
countries where they dwelt. But let us pass on to say that if “your
assembly” means either (1) an assembly in church for the worship of
God, or (2) any Christian assembly for whatever purpose, whether
secular, judicial, or religious, in either case St. James earnestly
condemns any “partiality” and “respect of persons” being
shewn in such assembly by placing the rich in better seats than the
poor.
But it is remarkable that persons who, for the sake of
defending the pew-system, will have it that St. James means by “your
assembly,” “simply and solely” an “assembly held for judicial
purposes,” - do not see that, if the matter be so, we have an d
fortieri argument against them. For if
in a court of justice, where all other distinctions of “high and
low, rich and poor” are
certainly permitted by God, “partiality” and “respect of
persons” in reference to seats be the only thing not permitted:
much more in Church assembly – where all distinctions between “high
and low, rich and poor” ought to be forgotten and laid aside –
would St. James condemn “partiality” being shown to the rich
above the poor in the matter of seating worshippers, all of whom –
whether rich or poor – are alike miserable sinners – suppliants
for mercy before one and the same throne of grace.
If it be replied
that this d
fortieri
argument will not hold, because St. James’s point in forbidding the
rich to be seated above the poor was solely lest any injustice to the
poor in a court of justice should thereby seem to be in any wise
countenanced, I reply that this only strengthens my argument. For if
injustice to the poor in matters of this world – in matters between
man and man – be so earnestly guarded against by St. James, much
more would he guard against any the least injustice to the poor in
matters relating to the world to come – in matters of the soul –
in matters that had to do with the poor man in reference to his God,
in the matter of the poor man having free access to the worship of
God, and the reading and preaching of God’s Word. Whatever view be
taken of St. James’s meaning in this celebrated passage, he most
emphatically condemns “partiality” and “respect of persons”
in reference to seating Christians in their public assemblies.
As a writer of the present day has said: “How the passage in St. James ii., 1-10, can be quietly passed over, or how it can be so glossed over as to deceive any reasonable human being who has arrived at years of discretion, passes my power of comprehension.” But it is not only the lower-middle class, the working classes, and the poor that suffer in pew-system Churches. Well do I remember the testimony given to me by a gentleman, who, as a civil engineer, had to travel about England a great deal. He described to me, in glowing terms, the dog-in-the manger unkindness and discourtesy shown him over and over again in such Churches.
Not
long ago I witnessed the following incident:- In the middle of a
service a verger showed a gentleman into a pew that would hold six –
occupied by a gentleman and lady. The gentleman would not move an
inch to make room for the entrance of his brother in Christ. The
lady looked the very picture of annoyance, and stood outside the pew,
certainly not to make way for the gentleman to go in, for he had
already gone in, and was sitting down. I may be wrong, but my
impression was that she did so that she might see him out before she
herself re-entered. Need I add that when next I looked for my friend
who had so dared, at the invitation of a verger, forsooth, to enter
the sanctuary of that pew, he had escaped, the place was “too hot
for him,” the pew that would comfortably hold six was only just
large enough to accommodate the dignity of the two persons who were
in it before the entrance of this intruder. And this occurred in a
church where, as in some others, the rule is supposed to be that all
vacant seats are to be filled up a short time previous to the
commencement of Divine Service.
But the truth is, you can as easily
mingle oil and water as graft the benefits of an open church upon the
pew-system. The thing simply has never been, and can never be, done.
You may, it is true, to some extent lessen the evils of the
pew-system, but those evils still remain, and will continue as long
as the system itself continues. Only the other day a gentleman was
describing to me how, in this same Church, he has seen persons, whom
he named, of both sexes, upon their coming in late, long after
service had commenced, deliberately turning out the persons who, in
their absence, had been put into their seats. A lady described to me
some time ago her seeing one of the vergers of this same church
loudly abused
by a gentleman, who had come in late, because his seat had been
filled up in his absence.
Again, about three weeks ago, a lady
described to me how, in another Church in this town, a lady, who came
in about the middle of the service, attacked, in a loud voice another
lady who, in her absence, had occupied her seat, and routed the other
lady out of the seat. This also is a church whose incumbent would not
sanction such doings, but so long as he carries on his church upon
the pew-system he cannot get rid of such unchristian doings. Such
incidents in pew-system churches are a matter of daily occurrences.
We see them ourselves, and hear of them in all directions. Now such
incidents as these never occur in a free and open church, provided
only that system be rigidly carried out. If the incumbent and
churchwardens of such a church are too timid to carry out the open
system with firmness, very likely, from past bad habits, pew-system
abuses will creep in. But most certainly where care is taken,
pew-system abuses and unchristian selfishness and rudeness are
unknown in open churches.
Many objections are brought by advocates of the pew-system against open churches. I know them all only too well, but I have no time now to answer them. With reference to all of them I would say to persons – solvitur ambulando – try a free and open church, and you will see that your objections are the invention of your own brain. They do not exist, in fact.
As an Oxford churchwarden said to Professor Burrows, of Oxford, when about to set off for the Norwich Church Congress - “Pray tell anyone who starts any objections to free churches that none of them apply to our church; you may safely say that it works well in every respect.” Professor Burrows himself said “He knew of no movement amidst the multitude of schemes for good on all sides more calculated to bring back the Church of England to that position of strength and glory to which she was entitled by every right.” Let me give the testimony of the Vicar of Leeds. The area of Leeds parish church has sittings for 1600, wholly free and unappropriated. The Vicar of Leeds says - “I believe the freedom of the area of the parish church is the main cause of the very large attendance of artizans, who frequent the church to a greater extent than I have seen anywhere else. There are churches in Leeds free and open, and I have reason to believe that they are amongst the best attended.”
Hear
the words of Archdeacon Sandford – the Archdeacon of Coventry –
spoken at the Free Church Conference in Norwich. He said - “He had
not on that occasion intended to take any part in the proceedings,
but hearing that the Free Church movement was not popular in Norwich,
he felt it to be his duty to attend. He did not come before them as a
theorist, but as a practical man. He had experienced the evils of
appropriated pews in parish churches. He had been curate in a large
parish church, had held a proprietary chapel in London, had been a
Vicar of both small and large country parishes, and was now Rector of
a large parish, and had exercised the office of Archdeacon for many
years in a district which included the populous and important town of
Birmingham.
There formerly existed, in his own parish, a strong
antipathy to the free system; but this had been overcome, and now
there was a
large and beautifully restored church and two chapels of ease, in
which there was not a single appropriated seat. He believed that
there was perfect harmony in his parish, and perfect courtesy on the
part of the poor who attended, towards all others. He was convinced
that if this question was taken up in a loving spirit throughout the
length
and breadth of the land, incalculable blessing would result to the
national church. The cause was the cause of God and the cause of man.
It had increased, and was increasing, and would increase, until it
was finally triumphant, and they would yet live to see the National
Church the real mother of the English people, and the English people
thronging the house of God.”
I may say that Archdeacon Sandford meant by “the free-church movement not being popular in Norwich,” that there was a strong pew-interest opposition. That the open church movement was popular enough with the people generally was proved clearly enough by a crowded attendance of all classes at a public open-church meeting held at the close of the Congress in the large Congress Hall, at which the speakers were cheered to the echo by the large audience.
Hear
the words of the Rev. J. Erskine Clarke, of Derby, spoken at the same
Conference, in reference to those Sunday school children, whom we so
commonly lose from pewed churches when they leave school. He remarks;
“I said that the continual reception into our churches of our
up-growing scholars would necessitate the expansion of the church or
the addition of services. We have found it so in both respects.
We
have had for several years a fourth service at a quarter past nine in
the morning for children, and for two years we have had three
services in a school-church; and we hope early next year to see
opened a grand church (St Andrew’s) for a swarm which has left our
hive of St Michael’s, ** Moreover these young folk do not come
empty-handed. ** I hold, then, that there is a very close connection
between Sunday schools and freedom of worship, and that by welcoming
all to our churches freely and cordially, our churches are likely to
be filled with young people whom we have loved as children, and who
will be hearty and liberal fellow-helpers; our school-work will not
be checked or nipped at the very time when it is becoming of the most
interest, while our schools will become more and more what they ought
to be, the nurseries and feeders of our churches.”
These words were spoken in 1865. The “swarming” spoken of by Mr Clarke – necessitating as it does, new “hives” - has by no means ceased since then. It is the inevitable result of the good old free and open church system. Did time permit, I might multiply such quotations ad infinitum.
I could read you passages from the strongest speeches and letters in our support by such men as the late Archbishop of Canterbury, or Dr. Magee, the present Bishop of Peterborough, or the present Archbishop of Dublin, or that eminent hater of all abuses, Archdeacon Denison. But time will not permit. Let me just quote part of a letter of Dean Close, of Carlisle. He says, “I believe pews and pew-letting to be the chief cause of alienation of thousands of the middle and operative classes from our church. Necessity, as I then thought, and the peculiarity of the case, led me to promote the erection of churches in Cheltenham, supported by pew-letting. I now deeply regret it, and am taking measures to abate the mischief. I never would again have anything to do with so unscriptural and suicidal a plan for raising money for church purposes.”
Your own former Archdeacon of Lewes – Archdeacon Hare, says, in his charge delivered in 1840, “Verily it would be a happy day if the whole body in our churches were to be thrown open to the congregation, and the wooden walls within which selfishness encases itself were to be cast down.” I wish I had time to quote more from the same charge.
But
the Bishop of London says that the open church system “fails to
secure the rights of the parishioners,” because an open church is
as free and open to others as to them. This is a strange assertion,
seeing that – as we have clearly seen – the free and open system,
the system of parish churches when there were no seats at all in
their naves, the people standing or kneeling during service, is the
good old parish church system, formerly universal throughout the
land.
But the fact that open churches are so much liked and are so
well-attended, is surely the greatest compliment which can be paid
them. If there be overcrowding in them, the remedy is – surely not
to shut them up or put them on the pew system – but to build others
like them, or turn more of the less-liked pewed churches into open
churches, in order to draw off the surplus, and gradually bring
people back to their own parish churches, from which they had strayed
on account of the pew-system in them; but to which, now that they
have been made open, they are glad to return. May I answer the Bishop
of London by quoting from the speech of the Archbishop of York,
delivered in Sheffield in reference to the ten churches of which I
spoke just now.
“Now I come to another point. I mean as to the disposal of the sittings in these churches. There are several ways in which they may be dealt with. You may have the whole of the church let for money; you may have part of the church let and part of it free; or you might have the church all free, and appropriated from time to time to the use of the parishioners; or, fourthly, you might have the church all free, where the churchwardens don’t take the trouble of appropriating it, but leave every worshipper to take his place as he comes in.
I confess I have myself a very strong opinion upon the subject, which I will now state. In the first place, it seems to me that in a town like Sheffield, the doctrine of the equality of mankind is pretty fairly established out of doors, and I don’t know why there, where men certainly are equal before our Almighty Father, I don’t see myself why we should take any human and personal distinctions into the church with us. And, therefore, I give my voice certainly for having all the people who come to worship God put on equal footing. If it is necessary to let the whole, then let them all be let. I should be glad if we could do without that, but let them all be let, because the one thing you have to avoid is establishing a distinction before God between the rich man and the poor. For that is a thing you will never persuade men to understand, whether they speak about it or not; that is the real grievance, the real wrong; it is a false note struck in the harmony of the Christian system.”
(I may say, in passing, that churchwardens in populous places find it simply impossible to let or allot permanent “sittings” to all parishioners. Therefore the Archbishops argument leads to, and was doubtless meant to lead to a, reductio ad absurdum, Unless, indeed, churches should be built capable of dealing fairly by all the parishioners by being large enough to hold nearly all of them; a church to hold, say, 6,000 in a parish of 8,000 population: a pretty waste of building ground, building materials, clerical voices, and church room! And yet this plan has been gravely proposed. Nothing could shew more clearly the shifts for a defence to which we have driven the advocates of the pew-system!)
The Archbishop proceeds, - “I now come to choose between totally free without appropriation, or free and appropriated to the parishioners. I think you will find it will be by far the best thing to throw the church doors open and say, ‘Here are the seats, and there you may sit.’ Why should we trouble the churchwardens when we can walk in and sit down? I must say that my interest in this movement would be greatly diminished, nay, that it would almost disappear, if it was to be used to keep up these distinctions in the house of our Lord.” If in certain localities – watering places, for instance – it be found that non-residents, or visitors, are likely to crowd out parishioners in an open church – a great compliment, as I have said, to the open system, - the evil (if indeed it be an evil) can be remedy by keeping, service by service, - not pews or single “sittings”, - but a block of seats – larger or smaller as may be required – into which non-parishioners may not enter until five minutes before the commencement of Divine Service.
The whole of the church is open to the parishioners, and these seats are for them alone until five minutes before service. It will be obvious to anyone that this is something quite different from letting pews, or assigning sittings to individuals for months together, in order, as it is said, to preserve the church to the parishioners. Such minor objections as that people “like to know where they are to sit,” or that “people like to have a pew in which to leave their books, and boxes, &c.” are selfish objections; and I will dismiss them all in the words of the Rev. E. Stuart, in a late letter to the Bishop of London.
He
says, - “Twenty years’ experience has proved that all that was
once said about confusion in free and unappropriated churches, is
mere moonshine: the churchwarden’s office and authority is quite
sufficient to make such arrangements as effectually hinder anything
of the sort. To say that people ‘like to know where to go’ in
church, is to praise free and unappropriated churches, for in them
everyone knows at once where he may go, viz., to any unoccupied seat:
to pretend that ‘families cannot worship together’ in free and
unappropriated churches, is simply nonsense, for they have only got
to sit together and
do it.”
Mr Stuart goes on to express his own preference for the “separation”
of the sexes – saying that it is the “old-fashioned” system –
as, indeed, it was – and that “nine men out of ten prefer it.”
But he adds, of course, that it is no necessary
part of the open church system. But exceptions, as they are supposed
to be, to the success of free and
open churches are sometimes brought up to us.
I can only say in reply
(1) I myself have never found objections brought against free and
open churches where the system of these churches is thoroughly
carried out. Where difficulties do arise you generally, on
investigation, find the reasons for them. It is either that the
authorities of these churches are not themselves hearty
open churchmen, but have been against their will made Incumbents of
open churches; or, that such Incumbents have been letting back
pew-system abuses, or that the Incumbents would not succeed anyhow.
Either these or similar reasons, I have generally found to cause such
supposed exceptions.
But (2) if there are exceptions, exceptio probet regulare – the exception proves the rule. That the rule is that open churches, when properly carried on, are very popular, and succeed admirably – is simply now beyond question. But finally, we have been told by anxious guardians of youth that if the parish churches are free and open, the various members of schools for young gentlemen and ladies will be scattered about the church; and no doubt the phantom has arisen in their excellent preceptors’ minds of the young gentlemen quietly seating themselves beside the young ladies. I may say, in passing, that were the sexes divided this supposed difficulty could not arise. But let that be. We have a complete answer to this objection. People do not, perhaps, think it, but it is a selfish objection. It advocates the sacrificing the interests of the many to the benefit of the few.
But (1) the Church has legislated for this supposed difficulty by the system of private chapels. (2) If anxious masters and mistresses will go and see many free churches, they will find that they are attended by schools – just the same as pew-system churches. But (3) as I have said, if we could not, as we can, meet this supposed difficulty, it must not be permitted to stand in the way of the benefit of the great mass of parishioners in this country. But, as I have said, schools will find all they want in Free and Open parish churches. There is far more courtesy and Christian brotherhood and “doing as we would be done by” in such churches – as we might expect – than in any other. But it has been said to us - “Even supposing we go with you so far, you surely do not want to starve the ministers of pew-system churches by depriving them of their pew-rents?”
And this brings me to (II.) the Offertory, on which I am afraid I have time to say but very little. But if conscientious men become convinced that the pew system hinders the gospel of Christ, they will not need many arguments to give up that system, together with its pew-rents, even supposing, we could not shew them a much “more excellent way” - a system of Church Finance invented – not by man (as the pew-system was), but by God Himself; and which can in nowise hinder the gospel of Christ, but is itself part of that gospel, and, therefore might be expected to have, as it invariably had had, the Divine blessing upon it. But we are sometimes met with the retort, “If you advocate the Offertory in an open church you are no different from the upholders of the pew-system. Do not tell us that you alone preach the gospel without money and without price.” If we ask for pew-rents, you send round your Offertory-bag. There is no difference whatever in principle between us.
As Mr Titcomb, Vicar of St.
Stephen’s, Lambeth, put it at the Nottingham Congress, “The truth
is, that whether it be pew-rent, chair-rent, or Offertory, it is a
tax which must be collected. The simple difference between them is,
that pew-rents, not being obligatory, are voluntary gifts paid
quarterly or half-yearly, while the money given at Offertories, or
for chairs, is the same sort of gift, only spread out over the period
in weekly payments. The first is a fixed payment, in one sum, for the
privilege of having an appropriated seat to go to; the second is a
payment for a seat; after its appropriation has been enjoyed.
Thus
the machinery may vary, and the name may be changed; but, call it
what you will, it is still the rendering in of a money payment for
church privileges received.” It is a marvel to me that a man like
Mr Titcomb could argue in this way. I certainly shall not spend any
time in making out a difference between pew-rents and chair-rents,
for there is no difference between them. But there is all the
difference in the world both in principle and practice between
pew-rents and weekly offertory.
For (1.) pew-rents secure pew-renters’ “sittings” for a longer or shorter period over the heads of their fellow parishioners, before they go to church at all, - although by the common law all parishioners have one and the same right to their parish church. The offertory in an open church cannot do anything of the kind, seeing that it is collected from those who have had free and open access to assemble in church. Pew-rents therefore tend to obstruct the free access of parishioners generally to go where they will in their parish church. The Offertory cannot possibly have any such obstructive tendency.
(2.) Pew-rents are a tax “which must be collected” from all pew-renters. The Offertory is entirely voluntary. People in open churches who never choose to give to the Offertory (if any such there be) have from month to month just a good seats as those who give the most. It has been well remarked - “We challenge the experiment of asking any tradesman in England whether helping yourself to any of his goods and giving him what you pleased, or nothing if you please, would come to the same thing as buying and selling.”
(3.)
Pew rents are not pretended to be specially offered to God as an act
of worship. The Offertory, or the offering of our money and substance
to God, as one of our acts of worship to Him when we go to His House,
is an institution of God found both in the Old and New Testament, and
is now a part of every Christian’s duty to God. We are bound to
worship Him with all we are and all we have. In advocating the weekly
Offertory, therefore, we are only teaching people to do this part of
their duty to God. I may say that we do not advocate too frequent
offertories. We do not wish to see the Offertory made a burden.
We do
not consider that anything like this will tend to its success. It is
simply profane, however, for people to make answer to our arguments,
as they often do, - “I do not like your Offertory bags stuffed
every week into my face.” What God has appointed ought not to be
spoken of in this way. To the Jews, when they went up to the
Tabernacle and Temple to worship, it was said, “they shall not
appear before the Lord empty. Every man shall give as he is able,
according to the blessing of Lord thy God which he hath given thee.”
(Deut. xvi., 16-17.) “Honour the Lord with thy substance (we read
in Prov. Iii., 9-10), and with the first fruits of all thine
increase; So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses
shall burst out with new wine.”
This was ever done in the days of
the Jewish Church, by offering “the first fruits” to God, in His
consecrated House, as an act of worship. And St. Paul gives an
“order” to the Corinthians in the 16th
chap., of his first Epistle, which he says he had previously “given”
to “the churches of Galatia” (and doubtless also to other
churches, for what was good for several, was good for all.) It was,
“Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in
store as God has prospered him.”
Here we have four points. (1) “Upon the first day of the week” - that is Sunday – (2) “Let every one of you” - high and low, rich and poor – (3) Give to God of his substance – (4) In proportion “as God hath prospered him.”
The ancient church over interpreted St. Paul to mean that we are to give of our substance to the Lord in His house on the Lord’s day, as an act of worship, in proportion as He hath prospered us. Money given in this way St. Paul speaks of in Phil. iv., 18, as “An odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God.” And again, in Heb., xiii., 16, as “a sacrifice” with which “God is well pleased.” Persons who say St. Paul means “laying by” at home, would not say so were they saturated with the Apostolic, primitive idea of being “continually in the temple” and “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,” but centering everything in God’s house and His worship. It has been well said that “the objection has a strong family likeness to the time-honoured ‘read my Bible at home’ of the un-pewed, non-worshipping class.” The first day of the week was the chief day of assembling for worship, and the first Christians on that day came to church to worship God with their substance, which they offered before His Altar, at the same time that they offered all their other worship.
That this was St. Paul’s meaning, and that it was the interpretation put upon this injunction of St. Paul, is witnessed to, amongst antient interpreters, by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and others; and, amongst modern divines, by Hammond, Cornelius, Lapide, Estius, Burkitt, Mede, Whitby, Doddridge, Bishop Mant, Bishop Philpott, Bishop Wordsworth, Bishop Harold Browne, Professor Blunt, Adam Clarke, Dean Hook, and others. The Tract Society’s Commentary, compiled from Henry and Scott, gives the same interpretation.
This has been the current traditional interpretation from the beginning. Besides the witness of the writers of the church, exactly the same witness is borne to this current interpretation by every Liturgy in existence. Verily, whoever may think fit to question this interpretation, no instructed churchman will do so. We may fairly ask (1) If it was not that St. Paul wished the Corinthians to go to church and worship God with their alms, why does he specify the first day of the week in particular as the day on which the money was to be “laid by?” And we observe (2) that unless the alms so “laid by” had been stored up in the treasury of the church, there would have been need of “gatherings” or collections “when the Apostle came.” The various sums of money stored up in the different private houses would then have had to be collected into one. St. Paul evidently does not like spasmodic monthly or quarterly church “gatherings” or collections. He would have worshipping by alms and offerings to be frequent, like our other acts of worship.
By frequently giving to God in His own house as an act of worship, giving is not only sanctified but it also becomes a habit. A sum of money which we should find it difficult or perhaps impossible to give in one sum, once a quarter or once a half year, we shall find it easy enough to give by degrees in smaller sums once a week. The weekly offertory, moreover, best suits the greater majority whose earnings are weekly. The money of such persons would be spent before the quarterly or monthly collection came round. In the institution of the weekly offertory, therefore, as in everything else, is shown “the wisdom and knowledge of God.”
The weekly offertory, therefore, being from God, it has ever had, as we might have expected, the greatest blessing from him. I most sincerely wish that time permitted me, and I could read you numerous statistics, supplied by a large number of clergy working in spheres of the most varied character, to show that open churches with the weekly offertory are undoubtedly very much more flourishing, generally speaking, than pew-system churches with pew-rents and collections. If an exception here and there be possibly to be found, it only goes to prove the rule. There are clergy, we know, who would not succeed upon any system. But the general success of the open church and offertory system is undeniable.
Facts simply have put this beyond dispute. And, as I have said, it is only what we might have expected, since God instituted the offertory, and His church has ever looked upon it as His mode of supplying her wants when she had no endowments. The success of the penny-post and penny-bank system will shew us that depending upon the offerings of the many rather than those of the few is a common-sense system.
In
a pew-system church those who have not pews will not think the church
dependant upon them for its support, whereas in an open church all
know that they are, each according to his means, called upon to
support their church. In an open church, too, dependant on the
offertory, the minister is much more secure, and much more
independent withal, than in a pew-rent church, - for in the former
case he appeals for his support to the mass of the people – in the
latter case he is at the mercy of a few pew-renters.
I may add that
people cannot be expected to give liberally to the offertory unless,
which is by no means always done (1) they are taught their duty in
this matter as set forth by holy scripture – and unless (2) a
strict account be rendered to them of all monies which pass through
the offertory:- (a) their amount; and (b) upon what they are to be
expended. It is calculated that the church of England loses at the
very least, a large part of £4,000,000 yearly by not universally
carrying out the weekly offertory. If each of her worshipping
members gave a penny at each of the two usual Sunday services, much
more than £4,000,000 yearly would be collected. I will conclude by
reading you part of a letter I have received from Mr
Parr, the Vicar of St. Martin’s, Scarborough. I wrote to Mr Parr
for some account of his church, because Scarborough is a
watering-place subject to the fluctuations caused by visitors, even
as Brighton is.
He writes:- “The population of Scarborough is 23,000; the population of my own parish, 2,000. There are five churches in Scarborough: three parish churches – St. Mary’s, holding 1,500; St. Thomas, holding 1,200; St. Martin’s, holding 1,150; when quite crowded, as we crowd it in the summer. If it were allotted, it would not hold more than 900 at most. And there are besides two chapels-of-ease: Christ Church, holding 1,200, and All Saints, holding 800. (1) Our offertory has upon the whole steadily increased from its commencement in 1863 to the present time, having been in 1864 (January to December) £867 0s 6d, and in 1870, (January to December) £1176 4s 9 1/4d, and so far the year 1871 is in excess of 1870.
We have Offertories only on Sundays and at the Saints’-day celebrations. We, last Lent, however, had Offertories after the Lectures at Evensong, on Wednesdays, and are doing the same this Advent, and shall probably continue to do so in Lent and Advent.
(2) Although our Offertory (in the absence of any pew-rents, and of any endowment above £36 per annum) has to provide for the expenses of every kind, including Vicar, £500; Curate, £120; organist, £70; besides verger, bell-ringers, organ-blower, education of choir-boys, coal, gas, water, cleaning, &c., yet a very satisfactory amount is yearly contributed to missions, charities, &c., outside our parish.
(3) Whilst of course we are to some extent dependant upon the liberality of visitors in the season, yet the contributions from our own permanent congregation are very satisfactory. The winter six months, which is likely to be the poorest from wet and cold Sundays, and when we have no visitors, produces us about £350, so that our offertory independently of any visitors would be about £700 a year. Now as regards Free Seats. If I were to poll my parish now, I feel sure that very few, if any, would vote to give up the free system. I candidly told my people that in asking them to adopt my plan I was asking them to exercise some self-denial. It is more comfortable to have your own pew and book-cupboard and cushions, no doubt. And in a watering place it is uncomfortable to have your church so crowded by visitors that the permanent congregation find it difficult to get room.
I have always felt it honest to admit that. Practically, however, these inconveniences prove very small. My people do not complain. I really think they are proud and thankful to see their Church so full. Certainly they would be unwilling to change the system. Our permanent congregation is good. We have, literally, no visitors at Easter, and last Easter we had 330 communicants.
As to the advantages of Free Churches, they are more than I can tell you. The working man will not wait about at the door, or in the aisle, until the pew-opener comes to show him a seat. The answer which I have had made to me by a working man is the true reason why, as Lord Shaftesbury says, 97 out of every 100 working men go to no place of worship. “I feel in the way in Church.” And I wish people could see that you do not remedy matters by making all the seats look alike. You get rid of the marks of inferiority, but you increase the inconvenience, for unless the working man can go anywhere without fear of getting into someone else’s pew, he is worse off then before. When I remember the evils that have followed upon the pew-system, I do not wonder that so moderate a man as the late Archbishop Longley should have written to me as he did once in these words:- “I quite agree with you in your abomination of pew-rents.”
One other fact I should mention. We have a ladies’ school of 14 girls, and a boys’ school rather larger, who come to us regularly. They certainly have to come early to church, but they always find seats without difficulty.” Now, my friends considering that Scarborough is a very much smaller place than Brighton, and considering that there are four other churches there besides St. Martin’s, and considering, besides other salient advantages mentioned by its Vicar, that it had an offertory last December of £1,176 for the year before – I think you will agree with me that it is a very successful church.
I have not brought it forward as being in anywise an out-of-the-way example of open church success, but simply because to seek a church to compete with Brighton churches we must go to a place somewhat similar to Brighton. Unless I am much mistaken, there is not a pew system church in Brighton which, for offertory success, can compete with St. Martin’s, Scarborough, remembering, as we must, that Brighton is a much larger and more fashionable place that Scarborough; and that (and this is a most important point) Brighton has a succession of “seasons” in the year in which to gain from visitors: Scarborough has only one. Brighton churches, also, gain financially from the visitors who come down from London from Saturday till Monday. My friends, we have spoken of Holy Scripture and the common law; but do, I ask you, use your common sense in this matter.
It is found that new Churches opened on the free and open, that is the ancient system, or churches where that system has been restored, are ever the most flourishing, both in congregations and financially. And no wonder. If you wanted to get in a regular old Tory for Brighton, what would you do? Would you invite the electors of Brighton, and especially the working classes, in whose hands the elections now virtually are, to the places of meeting upon the pew-systems, or open the free and open system. Would you think of appropriating a large portion of the area of those places of meeting to the well-to-do few, and just leave the remainder for the mass of the people, upon whose votes the election would really turn? You know you would not adopt any such idiotic plan.
Then do be as reasonable in the infinitely more important things of God and religion. Do not ask people to come to Church upon a principle, upon which you know you would not think of asking them to go anywhere else. You know that when you hold “a mission” you have to utterly abandon the pew-system, or else your mission would fail. Then why not seek to preserve the good of the mission by keeping on the system of church accommodation which answered so well at the mission? Oh. Satan would not be so foolish in carrying on his work! Prayer meetings held in school-rooms or elsewhere, are, in their way, excellent things; but, as sound church-men, you will not wish them more popularity and success than the services of the Church. When you have them, you invite people to them on the open and no-favour-to-anyone-in-particular principle. Without this people would not come to them. Then do, I entreat you, act as fairly by the Church and her services.
How many working people should we have seen here tonight if this Town Hall had been arranged by the promoters of this meeting upon the pew-system? Upon any such system we should neither have witnessed the numbers not the cordial good feeling which are manifest amongst us this evening. We have already, through the pew-systems, lost church-rates; and people are ready to listen to those who wish to Disestablish the Church; simply because they have been deprived of their rights in the Church. It has long pretended to be for the benefit of the people generally, but it has been appropriated by the few.
People might be willing to see a so-called Public Park or Museum disestablished, if it had been made a job of for the benefit of the few. Would the people, think you, refuse to support a really public Park or Museum, or allow it to be taken from them? Not if they knew it. Now apply this to the case of the Church. If we wish to wipe out the but too true charge that the Church of England is not in fact the Church of the great mass of the people of England. If we wish to regain the goodwill of the people, and thus ward off a fast-approaching dis-establishment; if we wish (far higher aim still!) to really have some chance of evangelizing the mass of the people of England, let us unite to make our churches what they once were – but what too many of them have long ceased to be – the working man’s and the poor man’s, just as much as the rich man’s, home on earth: a fore-taste of all true believers, both rich and poor, meeting in one common Home in Heaven.
The Rev. J. S. JONES then moved:- “That this meeting recognizes the general duty of Christians to make the arrangements for the public worship of God conformable with the letter and spirit of the Holy Scriptures, and, therefore, approves the design of the National Association for the Freedom of Worship, to promote the spread of sound principles and information on the subject, with a view to the gradual adoption, especially in new parish churches in populous districts, of the principle of equal religious privileges to all parishioners, rich and poor alike.”
He
said that he had worked amongst the poor, and knew what their needs
were, and could bear testimony that much good had been accomplished
and much benefit derived by means of an open church in their midst.
But it was not only the poor who were injured by the pew system, -
the remark applied almost equally to other classes of the community.
In the present day there were large numbers of our population who,
from habits, or circumstances, were compelled to be frequently moving
from place to place, and were consequently unable to become
parishioners, so as to entitle them to claim their rights as such in
a parish church.
He referred to working men, who were obliged to
travel from place to place in accordance with the demand for labour;
and to commercial travellers
and others, who, from the nature of their business, were unable to
remain long in one neighbourhood. Then there were the Sunday school
children, many of whom, as they grew up, graduated into domestic
servants, shop girls, or clerks, who were obliged to keep up a
respectable appearance, yet, having but little cash in their pockets,
and, while willing to contribute their mite to the offertory, were
unable to rent pews. Such persons could not be expected, and would
not adapt themselves to the pew system. (Hear, hear.)
In considering this question we must look at all the machinery of the present day with which we have to deal. He believed the parish system could be adapted to the serious requirements of the time; but if that were to be so, the parish, as an institution, must be managed not with a view to the exclusion of the people at large, but to their inclusion in every possible way. (Hear, hear.)
The system of appropriating one-half, two-thirds, or one-third of a church, not only implied that the working and powerful middle-classes constitute only a fraction of the population – which was a mistake, - but it implied that, do what they will, only a small proportion of them will ever come to church. He (Mr Jones) protested against that theory. (Hear, hear.)
He protested against working with his heart and hands tied in that way. The clergy believed in their mission, that God had given them a charge to evangelize every creature. (Applause.)
What were they to do with that mission if they went to work with the knowledge that they were going to win only half a victory? People thought they had done a great deal if they could have about one-third or even two-thirds of a church free; but what proportion did that bear to the vast working and middle-class population? Mission services had, he added, lately been held in London; and upon such occasions the church was open to all. The building was crowded at every service; but, directly the old system was reverted to, there was a falling off in the attendance. He believed that if it were a recognised principle that all churches should be free and open, the people would flock in, in such numbers that they would not know where to place them. (Applause.)
Allusion had been made to the Bishop of London. The Bishop had lately made use of this expression:- “The worst peril of the near future is the alienation of classes.” And, if this were so, ought they to acquiesce in or help to sustain anything which tends to keep up that alienation? They found themselves confronted in the present day by systems which they believe to be unchristian, unscriptural, and unsafe; and they proposed to substitute a principle which was Christian, scriptural, and safe. No one could be harmed by the change. The most advanced conservative or democrat would concede nothing by kneeling side by side and acknowledging a common Father in church. (Hear, and applause.)
If all our class distinctions were to be abolished in the house of God there would always be elements of hope for their work. (Hear, hear.)
He related an incident as to the belief that in India caste was breaking down; viz., the fact of a native of high caste being applauded for giving a drink of water to one of an inferior caste. But how was this done? It was with arm stretched out to its full extent, and with robe gathered round, so as to avoid the least fear of contact and contamination; the famishing man being merely allowed to catch the water with his lips. If that was the way in which, in the Church of England, they gave to the poor the water of life, they might depend upon it they would spill half of it, and not do much good with the other half. (Applause.)
Instead of this, they must take the words of the Book of Revelations, appeal to Englishmen, and say, “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the Water of life freely.” (Loud applause.)
The Ven. Archdeacon EMERY seconded the resolution, and expressed his opinion that the authoritative remarks which had fallen from the Lord Bishop of the Diocese would lead a large number of the clergy who have hitherto looked with suspicion upon the movement to give it that careful attention and thought which it deserves. He quite agreed with his lordship’s ruling as to the common law, but there could be no doubt that this common law had been in various cases modified by what he should call a very evil ruling; and therefore, the Society, in coming forward and trying to bring back the public mind to that which is the essential principle of the common law, was not to be answered by saying and pointing out to them that in this case or in that case there have been readings of Acts of Parliament which seem to go against the general principle. (Hear, hear.)
The Society said that, by the common law of England, the area of the parish church belongs to all the parishioners alike, and it maintained that this was agreeable to the spirit of the Gospel, and according to the law and life and practice of Christ. (Applause.)
If the Bible held that there should be no favouritism in courts of justice, it could not be maintained that there should be a distinction in the house of God. (Hear, hear.)
At least, in the house of God, we should have as great freedom as we had in our courts of justice. (Applause.)
He supposed they acknowledged that the Redeemer came and offered the Gospel to the poor; and they were told that in His day “the common people heard Him gladly.” But, account for it as they might, they were not now able to reach the poor, the hard-handed working-man, the bone and sinew of the country, with the Gospel (hear, hear);
but it was the appropriation of sittings which placed such a barrier in the way of the attendance of the working classes. Such free seats as there are in churches are too often placed in the worst parts of the building, where but little could be seen and less heard. By evil custom this had come to be the case; and it was thought that the time had now arrived when what was considered an abuse of the common law should cease, and that there should be an attempt to carry out the law as just laid down by the Lord Bishop. (Applause.)
The argument that he had constantly heard used, namely, that free and open churches were not well attended, he thought was not true; but he was not going to say that by making a church free and open it would be immediately filled, - there was something needed beyond this: an efficient ministry. (Applause.)
But what he maintained was that by first making their churches free and unappropriated, they helped the way towards an efficient ministry, a better service, and such an arrangement of services and such a number of them as would suit all the various classes. (Applause.)
He could give many examples as showing that where the change had been made from an appropriated system to that of the free and open church, the attendance had been much improved and increased. He pointed as an instance to the diocese of Ely; and maintained that the free and open system tended to a freedom and so to an efficiency and variety of services, which might ultimately and gradually break down that hollow worship now prevalent amongst a large portion of the community. (Applause.)
He gave an instance from his own experience. In their own “Our Lady” chapel, which was the parish church at Ely, and which had lately been restored, the pews had been done away with, and a free and open service introduced, and, whereas the attendance at two services on the Sunday had previously been scant, now a third service was so crowded that they had been obliged to lend the cathedral to the congregation. He combated the argument that, let them do what they would, the working classes would not come and sit side by side with the rich, and, so called, respectable: he did not believe in the existence of this objection; but he did believe that, at the present time, the working-man had got the feeling that he had no right there, and that no provision was made for him. (Applause.)
It was the fashion to consider the lower classes as irreligious. But in his heart he believed they were still really the most religious class. It was all very well for persons in comfortable pews to say to the lower classes:- “Look at us. We go to church. Why do you not come to church and be religious, as we are?” The lower classes might fairly look upon this sort of talk as sadly flavoured with hypocrisy; and he feared it was. They were turned out of the churches by these people in comfortable seats. That was the fact. Again, it was argued, that by freeing the churches they would be turning out those who were ready and anxious to come in and worship; but he did not desire to turn out the so-called respectable classes, and he did not believe that they would do so. (Hear, hear.)
A friend of his, who had made the change, had reaped the benefits in an increased congregation, more free will offerings, and quite as much income as he got before. (Applause.)
This he held to be a fair answer to the statement that free and open churches did not answer. Of course when they had produced a certain feeling of alienation upon the public mind they could not expect that any remedy would at once take effect. When they had any severe disease, it was not the first dose of medicine that put them right again. There must be a course and continuation of doses. Very often, indeed, the first dose or two made them extremely uncomfortable. (Laughter and applause.)
In this matter the free and open system had made a great many occupiers of appropriated sittings uncomfortable. (Renewed laughter.)
They might not succeed in the first instance; but if they went on in faith, if the ministry is efficient, and if the minister goes to the sick bed and visits the poor in their homes, they might be sure of ultimate success. (Applause.)
It was, he said, strange to find those who opposed this Free and Open movement going in for free services at theatres and music halls. He (the Archdeacon) did not oppose them; but, he would ask, if they had their free services there, why they should not have them in Parish Churches, where the Common Law said the services should be free? (Applause.)
Here was the parish church – it belonged to them all, - they were all one – come then, come freely, and hear the Gospel. In time they would have an efficient ministry, there would be no lack of services, and with a minister determined to bring the people to God, he would, by God’s grace, compel them to come in, and in time the free and unappropriated churches would be filled. (Cheers.)
The resolution was then put and carried unanimously.
The Rev. W. DAWSON next moved: “That the weekly offertory collected at the time and in the manner prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer (but so that the amount given by each worshipper may not be discoverable) having been found by ten years’ experience to yield a more ample and steady revenue then pew rents; in the opinion of this meeting the general adoption of this scriptural plan, in lieu of the system of payments for seats, would both go far to supply the deficiency of endowment and to promote the Church’s influence with the people, and the success of her mission in the world.” He observed, parodying the words of our Education Minister, - “If we restore to the people the people’s Churches, and leave them to be carried on by the people, we shall not fail of success.” The system of the weekly offertory was the most Biblical, the most Liturgical, and the most practical way of carrying out the Apostolic injunction to “lay by upon the first day of the week according as God had prospered them.” He felt that the resolution would commend itself to them all not only as being in accordance with the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, but as being in accord with the dictates of common sense in every way. (Applause.)
The collecting of the Offertory was not like going round with a subscription list; there was no temptation to ostentation, and anything like moral compulsion was avoided. Nobody was obliged to give to the Offertory, though all had the privilege of doing so if they chose. (Applause.)
Let the alienated thousands understand that if they come into the church they will be heartily welcome to as good a place as has ever been accorded to the most privileged, and then they would gladly give what they could; it might be only a sixpence or a penny, but that multiplied by hundreds and by thousands, would exceed the guineas and the £5-notes of the rich. (Loud applause.)
The
case of St. John’s, Clerkenwell, was a case in point. Perhaps no
parish was more unfavourably circumstanced for the success of the
Offertory. He found on his appointment, just a year ago, a dingy,
high-pewed church almost empty. The church expenses were defrayed by
subscriptions from private friends of the late Incumbent, who
naturally withdrew their subscriptions at the Incumbent’s death. He
found that these subscriptions had generally left a deficiency each
year of £40.
Instead of forming a new subscription list he started
last February a weekly Offertory. The congregation is at present
very small; the mass of the population having long ceased, or not yet
learned, to respond to religious influences; it is also extremely
poor, and when the Offertory was
started last February he calculated that it would average 10s a
Sunday, and with this, for the first year, he should have felt
satisfied. It had, however, averaged much more than this: it had so
far paid the current expenses of the year as to promise a deficit,
not of £40, but of £10 only, which, without doubt, when the church
was made open (it was already free) and lightened up, would become at
least as large a surplus. (Cheers.)
The Rev. W. S. LEWIS, of St. George’s, Worthing, seconded, and gave some amusing incidents as to how, in a place almost within sight of Brighton, he had, during the last three years, under considerable difficulty, introduced and persevered in the system of free and open worship. The situation of his church was like that of Goldsmith’s traveller, “Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.” All one side of the parish was away from it; and the immediate neighbourhood consisted of two farmhouses, six cottages, three mills, and a turnpike gate. (Laughter.)
When he first went to the Church he used to speak of his “open air services;” for the roof not only admitted the cold air, but was like a sieve, and sent the water down upon them. Very much against the wishes of his friends, he determined on adopting a free service; he had the church restored, the pews thrown open, and the offertory introduced. And with what result? On more than six occasions nearly £10 was subscribed on a Sunday; at other six times more than £20 was given; once there was between £40 and £50; and on one special occasion between £50 and £60. (Applause.)
He felt it was not derogatory to himself to say that this special occasion was for the support of the Minister. (Applause.)
From his own experience, he could cordially recommend others to follow his example. (Applause.)
He was not of opinion that the minister should be considered first. But he was firmly assured that if all, both ministers and people, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, all other things will be added unto them. (Loud applause.)
This resolution was also carried unanimously.
F. BARCHARD, Esq., then moved “That a branch of the National Association for Freedom of Worship be now formed, for the purpose of aiding it the circulation of papers, the collection of funds, and in otherwise promoting the objects of the Association in the town of Brighton.” The resolution, he said, was essentially of a business character, and came in appropriately after what they had heard and what they had just resolved on. They had heard from able lips that by the divine law the church was open to all; and, further, that by the common law of this country the parish church should be free and open to all. The resolution which he submitted placed it in their own hands to do what they could to make our parish churches what they should be, - the parish churches of the people – free and open to all. (Applause.)
He might state that the Lord Bishop of the Diocese was President of the Chichester Diocesan Association attached to this society. They knew that in Brighton – and he was almost a Brighton man himself, - there was a great, a noble, scheme before them. He was not, however, going to enter into this now. They knew it as well as he knew it. They had it in their own hands; and by supporting the resolution they would support that which he could call nothing less than a noble scheme. (Applause.)
The Rev. W. W. LA BARTE seconded the resolution. He said he had been much taken by the announcement of a Free and Open Church meeting. (Hear, hear.)
He liked everything free and open; he liked the man that was free and open, and the church that was free and open no less. (Applause.)
He cordially supported the resolution. Let them do honour to Brighton and have a Free and Open Church Association for this great town. God grant that it might be the means of freeing and opening the churches that were in it. (Loud applause.)
The resolution was carried unanimously.
The Rev. the VICAR of BRIGHTON, on rising to move a vote of thanks to the Lord Bishop for presiding, was greeted with hearty and prolonged cheers. He thanked his lordship for the masterly, as well as authoritative speech with which he had opened the proceedings. Their cordial thanks were due to his lordship, and also to the deputation who had favoured them with their presence that night. (Loud applause.)
The deputation came at no request of his; yet he was most heartily thankful they had come. (Applause.)
Perhaps two words more would exhaust what he had to say – one to the working men, and the other to the rich. To the former he would say the parish church of Brighton is their church – it is absolutely free and open from the beginning to the end. If there was a single thing upon which his mind rested with gratitude amid many trials and difficulties, it was that in that happy church, - a model in its way, - the poorest of the parishioners could find a place for worship so far as the building would accommodate them. (Applause.)
The other point to which he would refer related to those who were more favoured amongst us with this world’s goods: - he meant that it was most humanising and an advantage in every way that the rich man should find his poor brother worshipping by his side. (Loud applause.)
The Rev. C. H. CAMPION seconded the resolution, and it was carried with acclamation.
The Lord BISHOP, in acknowledgement, expressed a hope that the impression which had been produced would not be merely fugitive, but would tend to the enlightenment of public opinion in this great and important community.
His Lordship then closed the meeting with the Benediction; and the large assembly broke up.
E.
Lewis, Printer, “Observer”
Office, Brighton.
*******
Transcribed from the original National Association for Promoting Freedom of Worship (1871) pamphlet by David & Norma Sharp in 2020.
*******
See the Revd Richard Enraght Biography