 |
(from the Daily Post Newspaper (Birmingham) 26th
November 1880)
Fr Richard Enraght entering Warwick Prison in chains, handing a bag entitled, "Paraphernalia of Ritualism" to his Curate Revd Warwick Elwin (later to become the Vicar of St. Andrew's, Worthing) |
On the 15th
November 1893, The Revd Richard Enraght was invited to the Annual
General Meeting of the Worthing Branch of the English Church Union in
the St Andrew’s Parish Room.
The Vicar of St Andrew’s was the Revd Warwick Elwin who had served as Curate to Fr Enraght at Holy Trinity, Bordesley, Birmingham.
The Vicar of St Andrew’s was the Revd Warwick Elwin who had served as Curate to Fr Enraght at Holy Trinity, Bordesley, Birmingham.
After remarking
that the congregation of St Andrew’s were most fortunate in having
an excellent Vicar as Mr Elwin, the Revd R. W. Enraght said he could
not help it if the subject he was about to bring before them was not
a very exiting one, but it was chosen by their Vicar. To deal fairly
with the subject would require not one but many lectures; for much
had been done in so many different ways during the fifty years from
1837 to 1887. Those eventful fifty years really involved a history of
the Church of England.
He intended to speak of the Home
Church of England exclusively, not Scotland, Ireland, the Colonies,
or the Church in America. Taking a rapid survey of some points in
general, the Lecturer asked his hearers to think of the numbers of
well-known great men – and many unknown, or hardly known, who had
lived in those fifty years, enumerating in the vast army of English
Churchmen, Dr. Mill, Dr. Pusey, Mr. Keble, Bishop Gray, Bishop
Wilberforce, Bishop Selwyn, Dean Church, Canon Liddon, Bishop Stubbs,
Canon Bright, Dean Hook, Bishop Hamilton, Dr. Neale, Bishop
Wordsworth, Canon Woodard, Mr. Gresley, Isaac Williams, Mr. Upton
Richards, Sir William Palmer, and a numerous host of others
Then
consider the Churches built or re-built or restored; the parsonage
houses; schools for the poor and mission rooms; well-worked parishes
all around; theological colleges and training colleges for school
teachers; schools and colleges for the upper and middle classes;
seven new home bishoprics with endowments, and some eighteen
suffragan bishops (a few of them added later than those fifty years);
the revival of Convocation; yearly church congresses.
Diocesan
Synods in some dioceses and Diocesan Conferences in all; the new
Houses of Laymen attached to the Convocations; the religious Society
of St John the Evangelist at Cowley; very numerous active Sisterhoods
in every direction; church clubs and guilds of all kinds; nursing
institutions; convalescent homes; cottage hospitals; penitentiaries,
orphanages; frequent confirmations and numerous parochial missions –
held for ten days and more at a time; retreats for clergy and laity;
sacramental confession becoming more and more common all over the
Church had been quite revolutionised for good.
Public catechising had been revived; the seasons of the Church observed once more; zeal and activity manifest everywhere the full Gospel preached in thousands of parishes; Church government and authority gradually reviving in efficiency and power out of the Paralysis of Erastianism.
Public catechising had been revived; the seasons of the Church observed once more; zeal and activity manifest everywhere the full Gospel preached in thousands of parishes; Church government and authority gradually reviving in efficiency and power out of the Paralysis of Erastianism.
The mention of these priceless and manifold
blessings, which we have inherited, almost took one’s breath away.
Going back some twenty-six years – the time of his own ordination –
the Lecturer said he remembered well how all churches, with hardly an
exception, were shut up from Sunday to Sunday, and then many of them
had but one service.
Altars were
covered with moth-eaten clothes; scarcely the slightest attention was
paid to Church festivals and seasons, except in a few cases; hats
were deposited in fonts; communion tables were used as cupboards, and
worse; and Christmas only observed for social reasons, and eating and
drinking; tumble down churches, with rain coming through the roofs
and grass growing on pavements.
The Church’s doctrines
were publicly and widely denied; numbers of parishes were almost
neglected as regarded even the visitation of the sick; the schools
were untaught by the clergy in religion and the sermons that were
preached were mostly dry and poor. In a word, there were few signs
abroad of those great works and that zeal of which he had just been
speaking.
Fierce
opposition and riots were raised around any unhappy priest who tried
to revive better things. The Church was comparatively dead and the
ignorant, unhappy people, led by blind guiders, were content to leave
it so. He need not proceed with so painful an enumeration. Thank God,
through very hard and persistent work and through severe suffering of
many kinds, sanctified by Devine grace, the whole aspect of matters
was changed for the better. All was not perfect by any means, but
surely these were not the days for Disestablishment.
Among a
mass of statistics, Mr Enraght mentioned that the voluntary
expenditure of the Church in the twenty-five years prior to 1885 was
much more than eighty-one millions for theological schools and
colleges, building and restoration of churches and parsonages,
endowment of livings and extensions of burial grounds, home and
foreign missions, elementary education and general charities.
In this
calculation he had omitted sums for certain distinctive Church
societies, institutions and charities – all contributions devoted
to parochial purposes, such as the maintenance of assistant clergy,
the relief of the sick and such objects. If these were added it would
amount to an immense sum. He had also omitted sums given to the
founding and maintenance of middle-class schools and to societies
outside the Church of England, such as the Bible Society, the
Religious Tract Society, etc.
From 1840
to 1886, a period of forty-six years, not far short of £50,000,000
were spent in one department alone of church building and cathedral
and church restoration. Between 1875 and 1884, a period of nine
years, 825 new churches were built and 2,176 were restored and 2,468
missions chapels and buildings were erected. No fewer than 9,000
churches have been built or restored during the present century in
England and all these, with small exceptions, by voluntary offerings.
Having
spoken of the vast sums spent on National Schools and the prosperous
Woodard Schools, the Lecturer referred to the revival of Convocation,
saying it would doubtless gradually regain its legitimate authority.
Dealing with the increase of the Episcopate, Mr. Enraght said that
fifty years ago there were only twenty-two home and eight Colonial
Bishops; now there were about fifty-five home Bishops and upwards of
eighty Colonial Bishops.
As to
Brotherhoods, he was sorry they had not flourished; men he thought,
were more selfish than women. The Cowley Brotherhood had done, and
was doing, the very best work, not only in England, but in India. We
certainly wanted the revival of more brotherhoods, and he hoped the
Lord would stir up men’s hearts to give us more of these glorious
institutions.
As to the Sisterhoods, they were different.
There were twenty-two principal ones and a large number of smaller
ones; they were doing good work, and one hardly ever heard a word
against them.
Then he
asked them to think of the work of the English Church Union, which
now numbered upwards of 32,000 communicants (24 Bishops, 3,972 clergy
and 128,154 lay communicants). Untold influences for good were
exercised by such a Society as this.
A religious
census was taken in London on October 24th, 1886, got up
by Dissenters. It was taken in the metropolitan area, at some 1,800
or 2,000 churches and conventicles. The numbers were: Church –
morning, 265,577; evening, 264,752, All other denominations –
morning, 214,154; evening 231,809. So the Church attendances in the
morning out-numbered those of all other denominations by 51,423, and
in the evening by 32,943.
If the
country were taken through the disproportion would be far greater to
the advantage of the Church. Having spoken of the extraordinary
revival of Church influence in Wales, the Lecturer referred to the
facts that out of 192,929 British soldiers, 125,522 were members of
the Church of England; that fifty years ago all churches were bepewed
away from the mass of people, but were now widely free and open; and
that prejudice and strife were decreasing everywhere. There had been
much hard work and much suffering, and no figures and statistics
could give an adequate idea of the progress made during the fifty
years (applause).
In moving a
vote of thanks to the Lecturer, the Revd Warwick Elwin recalled the
stirring incidents at Birmingham connected with Mr Enraght’s arrest
and imprisonment. The procession from Mr Enraght’s house to the
station was, he said, more like a triumphal procession than anything
he had ever seen. On such memorable occasions one saw the force of
the people; Mr Enraght’s zeal and firmness on behalf of the Church
could not have won the victory which he and others had obtained
unless there had been at the back of it all the strength of the
people.
Mt Tudor seconded the proposed vote of thanks, and the Chairman supported it – Mr Enraght spoke briefly in reply, and the proceedings then closed with the singing of the hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation”, accompaniment being played by Mrs Crowther-Beynon.
Mt Tudor seconded the proposed vote of thanks, and the Chairman supported it – Mr Enraght spoke briefly in reply, and the proceedings then closed with the singing of the hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation”, accompaniment being played by Mrs Crowther-Beynon.
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Newspaper transcription by D. Sharp (2025)
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See the Revd Richard Enraght Biography