ST.
THE WAR AND
THE CHURCH
AND OTHER ADDRESSES
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
(Fifth impression, completing 12,000 copies.)
THE BASIS OF
ANGLICAN FELLOWSHIP
IN FAITH AND ORGANIZATION
An open letter to the Clergy of the Diocese
of Oxford.
SIXPENCE NET.
PATRIOTISM IN THE BIBLE
TWOPENCE NET.
A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. Ltd.,
LONDON AND OXFORD
"THE WAR AND
THE CHURCH
AND OTHER ADDRESSES
Being the Charge delivered at his primary
Visitation^ 1914
BY
CHARLES GORE,
o
BISHOP OF OXFORD
l.73 LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
91800
A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. LTD.
LONDON : 28 Margaret Street, Oxford Circus, W.
OXFORD : 9 High Street
MILWAUKEE, U.S.A. : The Young Churchman Co.
First impression, 1914
New impression, 1915
ir-
PREFACE
The addresses contained in this volume have
just been delivered as a charge on a Visitation
of the Diocese of Oxford and circulated to the
clergy. But in the hope that some part of
them may be of interest to some people beyond
the diocese they are also being published.
I have added to them an essay on the place
of symbolism in religion, reprinted from The
Constructive Quarterly of March, 1914, though
it has no direct connection with the addresses,
because I so frequently read statements which
suggest that if an element of symbolism is ad-
mitted in any of the clauses of the Greed it
must be illogical and unfair to limit its applica-
tion. The purpose of this essay is to show
that the very arguments which justify the
recognition of symbolism in some clauses of
the Greed prevent its legitimate application to
others. And I am re-publishing it here in the
hope that it may obtain, even at such a time
as this, a little attention.
C. OXON :
All Saints' Day, 1914.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. THE WAR AND THE CHURCH - - 1
II. THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRAYER - 21
III. OUR TEACHING OFFICE .... 40
IV. SACRIFICE AND NATIONAL PENI-
TENCE 59
V. CHURCH REFORM 78
VI. CHURCH MEMBERSHIP - - 96
THE PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RE-
LIGION 112
VII
THE
WAR AND THE CHURCH
i
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
A bishop's Visitation is his inquiry into the
efficiency and soundness of his diocese : its
officers, its apparatus, and its methods. I have
had nearly three years to make acquaintance
with this diocese ; I have had the ungrudging
assistance of archdeacons and rural deans ;
I have made careful inquiries on particular
points through the rural deans and directly.
Thus I should have been prepared in the usual
way to review the situation and seek to for-
mulate our policy for the immediate future.
But across my preparation there has fallen a
" visitation " of a different kind. God has
visited the sins of Europe by suffering them to
lead to their natural issue in a tremendous
war. This visitation is so overwhelming, and
preoccupies so inevitably all our thoughts, that
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
2 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
it is at this moment impossible to seek to win
your attention for many matters which would
have interested you in ordinary years. I have
decided to go about my Visitation, and to meet
you at the different centres. But I cannot but
begin from the point on which all our thoughts
are fixed the war.
The call of the war has stricken this nation
into a sense of unity and fellowship, the like
of which neither we nor our forefathers of
many generations have experienced. I may
take it for granted, I dare say, that we are
all of one mind in believing that it was our
duty to engage in this war, and, having engaged
in it, to see it through with all the concen-
tration of forces which we can command.
Thus, apart from our common duty as citizens
in this emergency, there are duties which fall
specially upon the church and the clergy, and
which come home to us without any effort
I mean the duty of organizing the force of
persistent corporate prayer, about which I
shall hope to speak to-morrow ; the duty of
giving the authorities civil, military, and
naval all the support which we can in our
parishes ; the duty of supplying chaplains for
the navy and army ; the duty or should I
not say the privilege ? which falls to the
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 3
parochial clergy of providing services, at what-
ever personal inconvenience, for camps not
fully equipped with chaplains or for the
soldiers billeted in our different parishes.
There is also the duty of acting vigorously,
and in co-operation with the public authori-
ties, so as to afford sufficient and prompt
help for those whom the war plunges into
distress and poverty, whether through the
breadwinners being called away to the ser-
vice of their country, or through scarcity
and unemployment. 1 Next to those actually
fighting, and to those who bear the responsi-
bility of public authority at this anxious
moment, the burdens of this war, as of every
war, will fall most heavily upon those who
have least to say to it, whose thoughts and
interests are always utterly alien to questions
of foreign policy, who feel themselves in
matters of peace and war to be entirely at
the mercy of other people the poor and
generally those whom we must consent to
call the working classes.
Of these and the like duties we are con-
stantly being reminded. We are not likely
1 I hare recently been asked to remind the parish clergy
how much Lord Kitchener requires their help for the wives
and dependents of soldiers in securing for them their separa-
tion allowances (see Diocesan Magazine, October, 1914, p. 148).
4 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
to forget them. But meanwhile there is
another duty much harder to fulfil, a duty
which cannot be postponed, the duty of seek-
ing to interpret the purpose of God at this
tremendous crisis of the world's history, and
of organizing in the nation a common mind
among those who above all things are anxious
to know our Lord's will, and so to prepare
that the issue of the war may serve the pur-
poses of the kingdom of God. It can hardly
be necessary for me to remind you of the
great difficulty of fulfilling this duty. The
thoughts and feelings which patriotism inspires
legitimately fill our minds and imaginations.
But this is not enough. I am sure that if we
simply yield ourselves to these thoughts and
feelings we shall fall disastrously short of
what our Lord would have us think. The
Bible is full of patriotic emotion ; but even
more conspicuously the Bible is full of a great
warning against the sufficiency of patriotism,
against the sufficiency of the thoughts natural
to flesh and blood. Some of the most con-
spicuous figures in the Bible, like Jeremiah,
are called to the truly terrible vocation of
appearing as unpatriotic, as men who "weaken
the hands of the men of war," who "seek
not the welfare of their people, but the
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 5
hurt." 1 And our Lord Himself required His
immediate disciples Simon the Zealot amongst
them to accept so fully the doom upon their
nation as being God's inevitable judgement,
that they could await, without an effort to
avert it, the ruin of their city and temple,
and watch the approach of the day of disaster
with an awful joy: 'Then look up and lift
up your heads, for your redemption draweth
nigh." Personally I can conceive of no trial
greater than, in an intensely patriotic nation,
to be called to play what would be regarded
by the nation as an unpatriotic part. Merci-
fully no such call is on us to-day. We can
wholeheartedly yield ourselves to the stream
of patriotic enthusiasm which is sweeping so
mightily through the nation. But that is not
the whole of our duty. Unless we are alto-
gether to fail to correspond with the divine
purpose, we must be also in a real sense
detached. We must recall the tremendous
rebuke which our Lord addressed to the
religious leaders of His people, "Ye cannot
discern the signs of the times," 2 or "How is
it that ye know not how to interpret this
time?" 3 If we are to catch the voice of
God, there must be detachment and reflection
1 Jer. xxxviii. 4. 2 S. Matt. xvi. 3. 3 S. Luke xii. 56.
6 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
and conference: as when of old "They that
feared the Lord spake often one to another :
and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a
book of remembrance was written before
him, for them that feared the Lord, and that
thought upon his name." 1
Yes, we may depend upon it that we shall
not realize God's purpose and correspond
with it, unless we, professing Christians, are
making a great effort for detachment of mind.
We are praying with passionate desire for
the success of our arms for the defeat, if it
be God's will, of Germany and Austria. But
suppose the end attained, suppose the moment
come when the hearts of the whole com-
munity will burst into the joy of victory-
victory and the spirit of victory do not
commonly put a nation into correspondence
with God. We look back to the time after
Waterloo when we had done so nobly ; when
we felt ourselves to be the saviours of Europe
as well as of our own country. Was England
ever in a worse condition morally and reli-
giously than then ? If, on the other hand,
anxiety and failure in war have, as constantly
happens, a purifying power on a nation, yet
we cannot pray for failure nor desire the
1 Mai. iii. 16.
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 7
lengthening of the tremendous strain. What
I am sure that we need to do without delay
is to look as deeply as we can into the causes
of this tremendous visitation, so as to be
ready not only to fight the war through, but
also to learn the deeper lessons which it is
meant to teach us.
We seem to be face to face to-day with one
of the most startling instances in history of the
insolence which is bred of intense racial pride,
when it is supported by what seems like an
overwhelming strength of military organization.
We seem to see in Germany the spectacle of a
nation dominated by a military caste, indoctrin-
ated by a false philosophy, giving itself over to
be possessed by the spirit of militarism and
making it its religion degrading the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the common,
impartial Father of all men and all races, into
a German War God. We go back in mind to
the old sentiment, which is both Hebrew and
Greek, about insolence in men and nations,
and the divine vengeance which lays it low.
If Germany falls in this war we shall recog-
nize the divine judgement on insolence. But
we shall be indeed short sighted and unspiritual
if we let ourselves think that all we have to
do is to crush Germany, and that the insolence
8 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
and idolatry of Germany are all that the world
is suffering from. 1 No ; what we are suffering
from is something far more widespread than
the German Empire. Is it not the case that
what we are in face of is nothing less than
a breakdown in a certain idea and hope of
civilization, which was associated with the
liberal and industrial movement of the last
century? There was to be an inevitable and
glorious progress of humanity of which science,
commerce, and education were to be the main
instruments, and which was to be crowned
with a universal peace. Older prophets like
Thomas Garlyle expressed their contempt for
the shallowness of this prevailing ideal, and
during this century we have been becoming
more and more doubtful of its value. But we
are now witnessing its downfall. Science,
commerce, and education have done, and can
do, much for us. But they cannot expel the
evil spirit from human nature. What is that?
At bottom love of self, self-interest, selfishness
individual and corporate. 2 As a theory the
1 I should wish to refer to a truly noble and Christian
article called "What are we fighting for?" in the Times
Literary Supplement of September 17th.
2 I make no apology for speaking of corporate selfishness.
What the French call selfishness "a deux ou trois," the
selfishness of a family in pursuit of its own interests, or the
selfishness of a class or of a nation has really, when analysed,
the same moral quality as the selfishness of an individual.
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 9
philosophy of selfishness has been often ex-
posed. But, to an extent that it is difficult to
exaggerate, it has been the motive acknow-
ledged and relied upon without shame or
apology in commerce, in politics, and in
practical life. Our civilization has been based
on selfishness ; our commerce on competition
and the unrestricted love of wealth ; our
education on the motive of self-advancement.
And science and knowledge, made the instru-
ments of selfishness and competition, have
armed man against man, class against class, and
nation against nation with tenfold the power of
destruction which belonged to a less educated
and less highly-organized age. We have been
becoming conscious, as a nation, of the rotten
basis of our civilization, but it has none the
less dominated. Recently it looked as if it
were to lead to a bitter war of classes at home,
a civil war of capital and labour. Instead of
that we have got a war of nations on a scale
such as the world has never hitherto witnessed,
which is devastating Europe and destroying
human lives with a quite unprecedented
destruction.
But what I want you to recognize is that
the temper, the motive which has so largely
dominated our civilization at home, and which
c
10 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
has been organizing class against class for civil
war, is exactly the same temper as, between
nations, has been dominating international
politics, calling itself the " balance of power,"
and arming every nation against every other
till an outbreak of war became only a question
of time and occasion. It is something far
wider and more general than the particular
form of the disease which is horrifying us in
Germany. How far the destruction which is
the fruit of this war is going to proceed we
cannot tell. How many millions of corpses
are going to lie on the battle-fields, how many
Louvains are to perish, how many peaceful
Belgiums to be laid waste will depend on how
long the war lasts. But then the question is
Supposing the war over, supposing that we
and our allies are utterly victorious and two
vast empires are humiliated to the dust, is it
all to begin again? Like France after Sedan,
like Russia after its defeat in the far East, is
the humiliated nation to begin again to build
itself up from the ground on the old principles?
Are other empires to dominate the Continent
of Europe and the world for a while till
insolence betrays one of them again into intoler-
able aggressiveness, and another universal war
ensues ?
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 11
Some of us see the chief security against this
in the progress of democracy the government
of the people really by the people and for the
people. We believe that the old Latin saying
is substantially true "quicquid delirant reges,
plectuntur Achivi." The mass of the workers
who suffer most from wars, though the spirit
of nationalism may enter into them also, and
fill them for a time with enthusiasm for a war,
yet on the whole will always be on the side of
peace ; so that the more really democratic our
governments become, and the more the interests
of labour become international, the greater will
be the security for peace. I am one of those
who believe this and desire to serve towards
the realizing of this end. But the answer does
not satisfy me. I do not know what evils we
might find arising from a world of materialistic
democracies. But I am sure that we shall not
banish the evil spirits which destroy human
lives and nations and civilizations by any mere
change in the methods of government. Nothing
can save civilization except a new spirit in the
nations. It is selfishness, unlimited acquisitive-
ness, competition, which has armed individual
against individual, class against class, nation
against nation. Science, commerce, and edu-
cation all tend naturally to fellowship, to
12 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
binding together men and classes and nations.
But where the spirit of acquisitiveness, selfish-
ness, and competition prevails, they simply
arm this evil spirit with weapons of greater
destructiveness : they do but aggravate a
thousand times over the evils of warfare.
But there is another spirit which, however
imperfectly, has really claimed the allegiance
of mankind : it is the spirit of fellowship
a spirit which teaches us that individuals and
classes and nations are endowed by the creative
love with different gifts, not to hurt and outwit
and overrule one another, but to supplement
and help one another in a beneficent co-
operation. This is the old message of
Christianity. My point is that the con-
spicuous breakdown of a European civilization
which has been in the main based on a false
principle, affords us a fresh opportunity for
preaching the true. Are there not to-day ears
to hear? For instance, at home we seemed,
as I have said, to be on the verge of a tre-
mendous class war, a war of capital and
labour. The great European war, with its
imperious exigencies, has for the moment
healed all labour disputes, and stricken us
into a real unity and national sense of brother-
hood. Cannot we use this opportunity to
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 13
realize that we were making a terrible mistake?
"Sirs, ye are brethren." Is it too much to
hope that when we get time to think again
about our labour conditions, we shall be willing
to ask ourselves not how little need this class
or group or individual yield, or how much
can the other class or group or individual
successfully claim, but what is really just as
among brothers, what is right in a body cor-
porate in which the weakness of any one
member is the weakness of all? I can con-
ceive this changed spirit of brotherhood, the
spirit which is now at work because of the war
between landowners, farmers and labourers,
between employers and employed, surviving
the war and helping us to approach what had
become the terrible menace of a class warfare
on a quite new basis. But I am sure it will
not do this unless we realize how much was
amiss amongst us, and make the most of the
changed spirit which has begun to work. If
this changed spirit can gain a new prevalence
first in one nation and then in another nation,
depend upon it, it will spread beyond national
boundaries, and build European or world peace
upon some infinitely securer and sounder basis
than the balance of power and the mutual
terror of one another's armaments.
14 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
Is this talk about universal human brother-
hood vain talk? I do not believe it. There
are many who have for years past been saying
these things. It is the common spirit among
the best of the working classes ; I do not say
it of all of them, but I am sure that, though
they are not now for the most part attached
to our organized religious bodies, the best of
the working classes are thinking and feeling
along these deeply spiritual lines about God's
fatherhood and human fellowship. I am sure
that this horrible war, when it is ended, will
let loose a vast flood of purifying emotion,
feeling, and thought, and a profound disgust
of war and of the military spirit in nations.
I feel sure that at home the new spirit, the
gospel of brotherhood and peace, will wholly
take possession of the Nonconformists, and it
will fire multitudes of Churchmen in England.
It will gain a vast accession of strength in
America. Who can tell what uprising of revolt
against a military autocracy and the military
spirit may not follow the downfall of the
present regime in Germany? Doubtless, then,
this new spirit will command, in the world at
large, quite new force and importance. But
it will matter enormously what is the temper
and tone of the ancient churches, and whether
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 15
they are preparing themselves for a new de-
parture. What will be the mind of the great
national Church of Russia, which may occupy
in the future a position of far greater influence
than it has ever occupied yet outside its own
boundaries? What will be the mind of the
Roman communion, the Church of France and
Belgium, which has so strong a tradition of the
influence of the church upon the world ? What
will be the mind and policy of Benedict XV ?
And with a special sense of responsibility we
must ask ourselves whether our own national
church will really, in its corporate life, in its
common sentiment, yield itself to the glorious
but tremendous task of proclaiming afresh
the gospel of brotherhood, and rebasing our
civilization on the basis which alone can have
the blessing of Christ.
There are two attitudes possible of the
church towards the world. There is the
attitude of saying that the world, the common
social life, is hopelessly corrupt and deaf to
the voice of God, and we must go out of
it. That is not, I think, the attitude which
has inspired the monastic movement or
the movement of the religious communities
generally ; but no doubt it was a dominant
motive at certain moments of their history.
16 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
It is an attitude of mind, let us acknowledge
it, which, especially at certain periods, has
a great deal to say for itself, and to which
I believe even civilization owes more than it
commonly recognizes. But I may take it for
granted it is not our attitude. We want to
mix in the common life. We refuse to give
it up in despair. We want to be the salt of
the earth, which keeps it clean by a pervading
contact. Well and good. But if the salt has
lost its savour ? If the church itself acquiesces
in a worldly ideal in common life and com-
merce and education, if its own religious
membership is made possible for men without
their worldliness and selfishness feeling itself
under continual and sharp rebuke, if it tries
to combine the worship of God and of
mammon, does it not fall under the stern
and tremendous judgement of its Master?
I am sure, sure with a terrible certainty,
that we have been too often walking along
this easy path. What I pray with all my
soul is that, under the enlightenment of this
terrible war, coupled with the warnings of
class warfare which were in our ears before
the war broke out, we may wake up to
the fact that we have been acquiescing in
belonging to a civilization which rested on
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 17
a fundamentally anti-Christian basis, without
any adequate consciousness of antagonism or
adequate protest. What I pray is that we may
hear afresh the call of Christ, and, with an
energetic repentance, begin to co-operate with
that great movement within the church, but
also in great measure alas ! outside it, which
is seeking, and will be seeking with a new
vigour and determination, to rebuild our
modern society on the basis of brotherhood
and not of selfishness. It is not possible for
us to deny that on that basis alone is it possible
for a nation or a civilization to be built which
in any sense can claim the name of Christian.
Fifteen hundred years ago, when the bar-
barians were battering on the gates of Rome
and the cities of the empire ; when the hearts
of Christians were failing them for fear, all
over the Roman world, as they watched the
crumbling of the mighty empire of which they
had come to believe themselves to be the
protectors, S. Augustine amidst all the turmoil
set himself to think ; and he was ready with his
message before he died. It is at bottom the
message about the two civilizations which
I have been trying to reproduce. There had
always been, so he reflected, a civilization,
a city of this world, built upon a false basis,
18 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
on the basis, that is, of self-love, and exhibiting
itself in refusal of God, in insolence and mutual
hostility among men. Of such a civilization
the world, S. Augustine felt, was now witness-
ing a downfall. But there was also in the
world another kind of society, the city of God,
which we shall never see perfectly realized in
this world, but which the Catholic Church
exists at least to embody and represent. This
civilization is based on the true regard for God
and man, and is a community of all nations
and classes and individuals. It is the Civitas
Dei. S. Augustine, I say, had his message
ready and published before he died, and it
was enormously influential. It is not too
much to say that it was the source of what
was best in the ideals of the Middle Age, as
well as of some of its mistakes. Under the
influence of our unhappy divisions we seem to
have lost the whole sense of a Christendom
and a catholic church a great fellowship with
a common mind, inspiring and restraining
nations as well as individuals. And is it not
exactly this sense that we must set ourselves
to recover? We recall Mozley's great and
famous sermon on War. It is a profound and
solemn utterance. But is there not one thing
which we ask for in vain in it the lack of
THE WAR AND THE CHURCH 19
which makes a great difference ? I mean the
sense that, within the area of Christendom,
and even the wider area within which the
Christian gospel has influence, the church of
Christ is meant so to embody the spirit and
principle of Christ as to act as an effective
witness against the spirit of selfishness and
selfish competition, whether in individuals,
classes, or nations, unmasking, rebuking, re-
straining, and correcting with a felt authority.
And if the Christian church had been anything
like what it ought to have been, would there
not have been I do not say a common govern-
ment over nations, but a common sense in
nations, taking effect in councils and con-
ferences, and bearing constant witness to
a unity wider than the nation?
Will the church to-day have its message for
a new moment in history ready when it is
needed? Depend upon it we shall have a
unique opportunity of proclaiming again the
tidings of the kingdom of God, as a present
power in this world, as well as a hope of
another world, as soon as the war is drawing
to an end and the world is asking "What
next ? " We have before our eyes in Germany
to-day an even startling spectacle of a nation
possessed with an idea. That idea we believe
20 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
to be false, even devilish. But the antidote to
false ideas is true ideas. Can we to-day in
England and our English Christianity so labour
that a true idea can take possession of our
minds with a compelling force, and through
us really and effectively minister to the coming
of the kingdom of God ?
II
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRAYER
No one can accept the witness of our Lord
without believing that there is no human
faculty more productive of real results than
prayer. The great intention of God is the
bringing in of the divine kingdom ; and it is
in response to prayer that the kingdom is to
be brought near and to come. And in subor-
dination to this great end there are multitudes
of things which God knows that we need,
and which He would fain give us, but which
He cannot give us unless, with the persistency
which belongs to all real work, we ask for
them as sons of our Father, who when we
ask for bread will not give us a stone. At
this moment we are filled with an anxiety
the like of which has not for generations
absorbed and concentrated the heart of the
nation. We desire passionately to help our
country, to win victory for the allies, to
redeem the bloodstained world, to bring back
the blessings of peace, to bring about such a
spirit as shall prevent the recurrence of the
21
22 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
scourge of war, to strengthen the cause of
justice and right for which we confidently
hope that we are fighting, to weave a web of
divine protection around our soldiers and
sailors, to comfort and help the sick and
wounded and those whom the war reduces
to poverty and need. All these things can
be accomplished by prayer as well as by
visible means: nor need we hesitate to follow
the souls of those who die in battle or on
their beds into the unseen world, and plead
there for mercy and peace for the departed
as the Christian church has ever done. This
is then the first conviction for us to have
vividly in our minds, and to use all our
endeavours to impart to others I can do
work by my prayers ; I can help as effec-
tively as soldiers and sailors who are fighting,
or statesmen who are planning.
But there is a second lesson, perhaps a more
difficult lesson, which we have to learn. Our
Lord, in His teaching about prayer, seems
to have had two objects: first, to encourage
in His disciples a boundless belief in the
efficacy of prayer to obtain real results; and,
secondly, to lead them to feel that the efficacy
of their prayers would depend upon their
learning to pray aright that is (as He ex-
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 23
presses it in different places) to pray the
prayer of " faith in God" as He really is; 1
or to pray as only one can pray who abides
in Christ and has His words, His teaching,
abiding in him ; 2 or who prays after the
"manner" of the Lord's Prayer, that is,
entering into its meaning and observing its
order; 3 or who prays "in Christ's name." 4
I suppose we do not need to be reminded
that we cannot cause a prayer to be in Christ's
name by merely adding at the end of it the
words "through Jesus Christ our Lord." We
interpret best the phrase "in the name of
Christ " if we think of an ambassador speak-
ing "in the name" of his country, or of a
commercial traveller speaking "in the name"
of his firm. We mean in each case that the
representative, who speaks in the name of
another, expresses not his own plans and
wishes, but the mind of the greater person or
body whom he represents. He prays in
Christ's name who has learnt to make Christ's
mind his own.
This is, doubtless, a very difficult lesson
for us to learn. We feel the meaning of what
our Lord says to His disciples, "Hitherto
1 S. Mark xi. 22. 2 S. John xv. 7.
3 S. Matt. vi. 9. * S. John xvi. 23, 24.
24 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
have ye asked nothing in my name" so
many things in their own names ; so many
things which were the expression of their own
personal and national desires, but " nothing
in my name." We know what the prayers
are which it comes natural to us to pray
to-day. We know how earnestly we pray
for the preservation of our soldiers and
sailors ; we know how passionately we pray
for victory. And, believing that our cause
is just, we can pray for victory, "if it be
thy will." Loving our friends, we can pray
for their protection. But we can never allow
ourselves to forget that there are many things
which we desire rightly, which may not yet
be according to God's will. When our Lord
said, "The very hairs of your head are all
numbered" the words follow immediately on
the intimation, "They shall deliver you up,
. . . some of you they shall cause to be put
to death." 1 Our friends may be protected by
God, even if they have to suffer and die.
The real efficacy of our prayers depends upon
our learning really to desire what our Lord
desires : to pray first for those things which He
certainly means to give. This, as I say, is
an extraordinarily difficult lesson to learn,
1 S. Luke xxi. 16-19.
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PR A YER 25
that of praying after the manner of the Lord's
Prayer : really subordinating our natural and
national longings to those divine ends which
may come about in ways most repugnant to
flesh and blood ; really desiring, above all
things, the coming of the kingdom of God.
God, "whose never-failing providence order-
eth all things both in heaven and earth,"
has a purpose through this war a purpose
which, no doubt, will be difficult for us to
learn ; and the end of our prayer should be,
above all else, to generate that spiritual
atmosphere in which the minds of men may
once again, in true and deep repentance, be
ready to learn the purpose of His love.
"Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done, As in heaven so on earth " ;
and only then, "Give us this day our bread
for the coming day." The object of praying
is not to persuade God to alter His mind ; x
it is rather to liberate the hand of God to
do, through us, that which He wills to do,
to give us the blessings which He wills to
give, but cannot do, cannot give, until our
hearts are ready to desire and our minds to
receive and our wills to correspond.
1 " Our prayer," says S. Thomas Aquinas, "is not directed
to change the divine intention ; but that what God intends
may be obtained by our prayers." S. Th. 2a. 2ae., 83, 2.
26 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
For the moment our habitual individualism
is overcome by a great unifying need. That
is a great help to prayer, for it is concordant
united prayer, the prayer of many minds in-
spired by one spirit, which has the greatest
power. At all times it is our greatest help
in prayer to remember that we are not alone.
The intercession of Christ, our great High
Priest, and the intercession of the Holy Spirit,
binding up with Him His whole body in one
fellowship of supplication, is always going on.
There is one great prayer the prayer of
Christ and the prayer of all His people, the
glorious saints and all the blessed dead, and
all the company of the living joined together
in Him, that is always being prayed. When-
ever we fall to prayer we should remember
this : that we are not isolated individuals
crying in the dark of the vast and unin-
telligible universe; nor arrogant individuals
trying to impose our ignorant desires upon
the Allwise ; but that we are joining in the
expression of one great will and desire the
will and desire of Christ which is one day
to become absolutely and universally effec-
tive. Filling up all the gaps in our inter-
mittent prayers, and supplying all the defects
of our wandering thoughts and worldly or
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 27
selfish blindness, that great prayer the prayer
of Christ and His saints united in His spirit-
is around us and about us to avail against our
weakness, to correct our blindness and to
perfect our imperfection.
This war, then, plunging us into a profound
sense of our need, binding us, as nothing has
for many years availed to bind us, into a
realized fellowship, constitutes, as we all feel,
a quite new and special call to prayer, united
prayer in the name of Christ for the accom-
plishment of His will. It gives to every
pastor a new opportunity for leading his
people in prayer and teaching them about
prayer. And it gives me an opportunity of
saying what I had in any case to say about
our churches as " houses of prayer " on a new
basis.
I would say, then, to the clergy and laity
alike let us set to work afresh in this time
of deep national and human need to read
some one of the many books about prayer ; '
let us study afresh the wonderful wealth of
teaching about prayer which is to be found
1 I would name Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of
Prayer (Nisbet), a book which I have found specially useful,
though of course it is not written from the point of view of
a Churchman ; also Worlledge's Prayer (Longman's Oxford
Library), and my own little book, Prayer and the Lord's Prayer
(Wells Gardner).
28 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
in the Bible and in those models of spiritual
worship, the great Catholic liturgies ; so that
we all may pray better, and that we who are
teachers may equip ourselves afresh to be
teachers of prayer, teachers as they can only
be who are themselves advancing learners.
I would say also : Let our churches all
stand open. The special dangers, which led
to so many churches being closed recently,
are over now, thank God ; and there is a
quite fresh opportunity for getting people to
feel it a natural thing, when they can get a
little leisure, to go and pray in the church.
There are so many people in town and
country who have not the advantage of quiet
homes. I hope, moreover, you are all adopt-
ing the suggestion of having the church bell
rung with solemn strokes at the hour of noon
as a reminder of the call to prayer.
We have been supplied by authority with
special prayers for use during the war which
seem to me on the whole excellent 1 both for
1 The only criticism I am disposed to make is upon the
second special collect for use in the Order of Holy Com-
munion, " O God, who hast taught us." It is a good prayer,
but not very like a collect. At celebrations specially in-
tended to be " in time of war" I sanction in this diocese the
use of the following collect translated (or adapted) from the
Sarum Missal :
O God, the ruler of all kings and peoples, who dost both
by smiting heal, and by forgiving preserve us ; extend unto
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 29
the regular services and for prayer meetings
of different kinds. I hope we may seize the
opportunity to get rid of some of the stiffness
and formalism which has beset our church,
and to learn something of the blessing of
prayer meetings. In the regular services, I
hope you will use frequently the biddings to
prayer which are provided for use in the
Eucharist at the Offertory, and also the
special clauses in the Litany. In connection
with Matins and Evensong and in prayer
meetings I think there is no way so good of
commending special needs to the prayers of
our people as the method of naming them
from the pulpit, using the freedom we are
allowed in bidding to prayer, then leaving
a space for silent prayer, using a few collects,
and summing up the petitions in the Lord's
Prayer. This method is far more profitable,
I am sure, than that of introducing collects
into the course of the service. And in this
way we can always commend special needs
to our people without waiting for directions
from authority. But also I would earnestly
beg you not to lose the present opportunity
us Thy mercy at this present time, that peace being restored
by Thy power may be used for our amendment ; through Jesus
Christ Thy Son our Lord.
30 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
of advancing the cause of the daily recitation
of Morning and Evening Prayer. "All
priests and deacons are to say daily the
Morning and Evening Prayer either privately
or openly, not being let by sickness, or some
other urgent cause. And the curate that
ministereth in every parish church or chapel,
being at home, and not being otherwise
reasonably hindered, shall say the same in
the parish church or chapel where he minis-
tereth, and shall cause a bell to be tolled a
convenient time before he begin, that the
people may come to hear God's word, and
to pray with him." I ask you : has not your
experience since the war began been such that
you would not willingly have lost even one of
the daily services? Have you ever felt the
daily psalms and lessons and the litany to con-
tain greater comfort and strength for your soul ?
And if you feel this, cannot you make a fresh
attempt to get your people to feel it ?
Some of us, and I am one, desire the revision
of our services. I think the proposals of our
Convocation, the Upper and the Lower House,
to be, not without exception but on the whole,
good, and I desire their enactment (as optional
at first) with whatever adjustment is found
necessary of the proposals of one house to those
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 31
of the other. But meanwhile let us make the
best of the Prayer Book as it stands.
If I may mention a detail, I earnestly hope
that we may speedily abolish our excessive use
of monotone. Let us, as often as we can or
find desirable, sing or chant the part of the
service that is meant to be sung. But let us
make an end of monotoning what lies outside
the liturgical forms, as for instance, any prayers
we may say in the pulpit or in the vestry ; let
us say in a natural speaking voice the pre-
paratory portion of Morning and Evening
Prayer (from the beginning down to the end
of the first Lord's Prayer) unless it be in very
large churches as its nature suggests and our
liturgical teachers have advised us ; let us say
in the same way the concluding prayers after
the third collect ; let us teach our choirs to
follow the lead of the clergy, and not to sing
the Amen or the response when the priest says
and does not sing the prayer or the versicle ;
and in sung celebrations of the Holy Eucharist
let us follow the use (for example) of the
church of the Gowley Fathers, and leave great
parts of the service to be said in a natural
voice. Such rules are in accordance with
liturgical precedent and are, I am sure, more
edifying than the constant monotoning.
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
32 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
I would make two other suggestions with
regard to what is sung. (1) I have been in
small country parishes where the psalms are
beautifully sung, but it is not always so. It
is difficult to sing the psalms intelligently and
intelligibly. Would it not tend to edification if
in a good many parishes, especially country
parishes, we were to revert to the old fashion
and to say the psalms and sing the Glorias?
I cannot but think that that would be more
edifying in many places. (2) My other sug-
gestion is this. Is it not really excessive to
have as many as five hymns in connection with
Morning or Evening Prayer ? Surely three are
sufficient at an ordinary Evensong, and four
when there is also a procession.
Now I come to the Eucharist. I am sure
that we may congratulate ourselves on the
revival which has been going on, and still
continues, of the sense that this is "the Lord's
own service" for the Lord's Day. We ought
to be familiar, and make our people familiar,
with the origins of Christian worship. There
is nothing that moves me more than the
accounts we get from East and West of the
Sunday worship of the ancient church ; how,
Sunday by Sunday, the Christian body came
together for their united service of praise, of
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 33
instruction by the reading and explanation of
Holy Scriptures, of intercession, of communion
with God and with one another in Christ and
by His Spirit ; and how the instrument and
centre of this great weekly renewal of their
spiritual life was the oblation of the elements
of earthly nourishment the bread and wine
and their consecration to be to the church the
body and blood of Christ, the effective repre-
sentation thus made of the great sacrifice, and
the Holy Communion in the divine gifts. I
want Churchmen of all kinds to be animated
by a strong determination that we will repent
of the great mistake which we have made in
letting anything else than the Holy Communion
be regarded by our people as the chief or
normal service of the Sunday morning. Do
you say that tradition is strong the other way,
and that our people are conservative ? I know
it, and I would not offend them. But I think
we forget how much tradition has changed
within less than a hundred years. The Evan-
gelical, and still more the Tractarian, move-
ments effected immense changes in what was
popularly accepted as the proper order and
kind and manner of Sunday services changes
some of which we may wish could be recon-
sidered. Any way, the changes have been
34 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
very great, and changes as great may be made
in the future by careful guidance and careful
teaching. The service of Holy Communion
is the great service of Christian fellowship
with God and with man, with the living and
with the dead. And the intense feeling of
fellowship which animates us at this moment
will, I am persuaded, if rightly used, draw
men to the altar.
I realize that we must try different experi-
ments as to the hours at which, and the manner
in which, the Holy Communion is to be cele-
brated on Sundays. There is no reason why
the chief service should be at eleven o'clock.
I have my own ideas as to what is most
desirable, but I do not propose to trouble you
with them at the moment. Only I beg you
to make a renewed effort, according to the
wisdom given to you, to make the service of
Holy Communion understood by your people
generally to be the chief and normal service
of the Sunday morning, the great act of
Christian loyalty, Christian worship, and
Christian fellowship.
There are, I find, still some parishes in which
there is not a celebration of the Lord's Service
on every Lord's Day, a good many where it is
not celebrated on every Saint's Day, and a few
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 35
where it is still not celebrated on Ascension
Day. I beg you to use the opportunity of
the present awful time of need, with its deep
and wide desire to approach the throne of
grace in the most acceptable manner, so that
every one of our parishes may have its service
of the Holy Communion on every Sunday
and Saint's Day. Even in the smallest parishes
there will surely, at such a time, be com-
municants.
But I will take the opportunity of saying
a word about the second and third rubrics after
the Communion service, taken in conjunction
with the first rubric before the Communion
service. No doubt these rubrics require the
communicants to give notice of their intention
to communicate on each occasion, and would
have the clergy not proceed in the service
unless, even in the smallest parishes, there be
four, or three at the least, to communicate with
the priest. The intention was that we should
have nothing but general communions. That
intention has been found impossible of exe-
cution. I would not allow the principle of
the communicant giving notice to fall altogether
into disuse. I should like notice to be required
each Easter. And more certainly I would
require every person who comes newly to
36 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
reside in a parish or frequent a church to give
notice of his or her intention to be a com-
municant. I should hope that some day we
may require that that preliminary notice should
be accompanied by a certificate from the former
parish that, if it has been so, the newcomer has
been a communicant there. Meanwhile the
requirement of the rubric has been long ignored,
and, that being so, I think it is not necessary
nor quite fair for the curate to refrain from
celebrating on a Sunday or Holy Day if the
numbers of proposing communicants unhappily
fall short of the required minimum. As things
stand at present, if a priest gives notice of
Communion on a Sunday and does not require
the intending communicants to give notice of
their coming, I think he may celebrate without
counting the number of communicants. But I
hope we shall adhere steadfastly in will and
judgement, as well as in fact, to the principle
that in every church the multiplication of
Communions must depend upon the supply
of persons who present themselves for Com-
munion. I cannot countenance the continuance
of a celebration of the Holy Communion on
a day or at an hour when normally, or on the
average, there are not a sufficient number of
communicants beside the priest.
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 37
As to Communions on ordinary days of the
week, there are one or two things I should
like to say. I would have every parish priest
be known by his people to be more than willing
to celebrate on any day when any group of his
parishioners wishes for a celebration. If it can
be foreseen, let them be encouraged to mention
their wish on the previous Saturday, so that
notice of the celebration can be given on the
Sunday in the ordinary course. Again I am
persuaded that in many parishes we might more
often try the experiment at present almost
confined to Ascension Day of a very early
Communion at five o'clock. There is an
appreciable number of people who can come
to Communion if they are able to come quite
before the day's work begins ; and I think that
for some people there is no time when they
are more likely to make a well-prepared
Communion than early on a Monday morning
when they have had the Sunday leisure to
prepare. We are too wooden and conventional
in our arrangements. We ought to try
experiments.
My brethren of the clergy, I do from my
heart desire and pray that we should take the
opportunity of the present urgency of national
need, and the stirring of men's hearts and
38 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
feelings by the war, to make every parish
church a school of prayer, and the centre and
home of all the best aspirations which are
finding admittance into our minds and hearts ;
and what is learned and practised in a time
of emergency may become part of the cus-
tomary heritage* and practice of the faithful.
It was a great encouragement to me, and
I wish to hand it on to you, to learn that one
of the wounded in our Oxford hospital had
reported that he heard more than one officer
reminding his men, when under a hot fire,
that " people in England are praying for us."
And, finally, let me recall to your minds
the fact, that whatever uncertainty may attach
to the question of our Lord's attitude towards
war, at any rate He gave us the definite com-
mandment to pray for our enemies. And I
hope that we shall not let ourselves forget to
pray for the Germans, even while we pray for
victory over them that God's best blessings
may, in His own way, come upon that great
people. *
1 The following prayer (see next page), with others, may
be obtained from Miss Lucy Gardner, The Collegium House,
92 S. George's Square, London, S.W. I think others, beside
myself, may find it suggestive.
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PRA YER 39
A PRAYER FOR GERMANY
Give Thy blessing, O Father, to the people of that great
and fair land, with whose rulers we are at war. Strengthen
the hands of the wise and just, who follow charity, and look
for justice and freedom, among them as among us. Drive
away the evil passions of hatred, suspicion, and the fever
of war, among them as among us. Relieve and comfort the
anxious, the bereaved, the sick and tormented, and all the
pale host of sufferers, among them as among us. Reward
the patience, industry, loving-kindness, and simplicity of
the common people, and all the men of honest and good
heart, among them as among us. Forgive the cruelty, the
ambition, the foolish pride, the heartless schemes, of which
the world's rulers have been guilty. Teach us everywhere
to repent and to amend. Help us so to use our present
afflictions which come from us and not from Thee, that we
may build on the ruins of our evil past a firm and lasting
peace. Grant that, united in a good understanding with
those who are now become our enemies, though they are
our brethren in Christ, they and we may establish a new
order, wherein the nations may live together in trust and
fellowship, in the emulation of great achievements and
the rivalry of good deeds, truthful, honest, and just in our
dealings one with another, and following in all things the
standard of the Son of Man, whom we have denied, and
put to shame, and crucified afresh upon the Calvary of our
battle ground.
Among the apochryphal "sayings of Jesus" (Grenfell and
Hunt) is this, "And pray for your enemies. . . . He that
to-day is afar off shall to-morrow be near you."
Ill
OUR TEACHING OFFICE
There can be no question that at the period
of the Reformation the intention of the leaders
of the Church of England, which they shared
with the leaders of the Reformation generally,
was to bring the teaching office of the ministry
the preaching of the word into the first line
of importance. It was felt that in the mediaeval
idea of the ministry the sacerdotal functions
had been exaggerated and distorted. Among us
these sacerdotal functions were not repudiated,
but retained. But the prophetic or teaching
office was to be brought into high relief. This
was quite legitimate. It was restoring the
balance as Scripture and antiquity had set it.
There have been in the Church of Rome great
teachers, like Estius the commentator, who
would have redressed the balance of emphasis
on the functions of the ministry in the same
sense. * The chief function of the bishop or
of any shepherd of souls," says Estius, " is the
preaching of the word of God." x
1 Estius (Van Est, died 1613) Commentarii on 1 Tim. iii. 13.
I have quoted the whole of the remarkable passage in Orders
and Unity, p. 156.
40
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 41
But the lamentable thing is that, in spite of
all the stress laid in the Prayer Book on the
teaching office, we have in our part of the
church been so unsuccessful in fulfilling it.
Of recent years we have been spending much
pains on the teaching of children, and on
preparation for confirmation. About that part
of our work I shall be speaking directly. But
if we think of our young men and women of
all classes growing up and going out into the
world ; if we think of our emigrants going
out to make new nations, in Canada or some
other of our dominions; if we think of the
fathers and mothers of families confronted with
the duty of teaching and helping their children ;
if we think of the mass of readers, of all classes,
who listen eagerly in novels or journals to the
prophets of the day, we cannot feel with any
degree of satisfaction that their minds have
been really furnished with a reasonable know-
ledge of the meaning of the Christian faith, or
that they are now looking to our pulpits hope-
fully as a source of enlightenment and guidance.
There are exceptions, of course. But I think
if you were to talk to those who have to do
with the student movement they would tell you
that the young and ardent spirits with whom
they have to deal, if they attend our churches,
42 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
feel very much like sheep that are not fed in
the majority of cases ; and there is a widespread
feeling of disappointment among fairly thought-
ful people of all classes. They feel that they do
not get the help for their minds and lives that
they ought to be getting from our sermons.
Doubtless it-is for us preachers a difficult time.
It is a time of widespread mental unsettlement
a time when the old faith has to be reinter-
preted in terms of new needs and startlingly
fresh inquiries and possibilities. And I am
speaking about this matter to-day because I
am sure that this great war will intensify the
perplexity of men's minds and deepen and
broaden the need for help. The old question
how, if God be Almighty Love, the world
can be what it is to-day, in the slum and on
the battlefield, in the ways of vice and selfish-
ness, and in the council chambers of nations
and churches this is a question which will
press upon the conscience and mind of every
thoughtful person with increasing force. No
doubt the strain is felt in some places more
than in others ; but in all places, in the smallest
country places, there are some doubtful and
anxious hearts and minds.
I venture to think we clergy need, every
one of us, the courage to explore the depths
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 43
of doubt and anxious questioning. We need to
be much better listeners than we are listeners,
either directly by being men of such sort as
that people can speak easily to us about what
they really feel, or listeners indirectly by
reading the popular prophets, the men and
women writers who have a vogue, mostly not
because of the solutions which they offer to
the problems of life, but because they put into
words the difficulties and repugnances to what
is understood to be orthodoxy which people
commonly feel. I think that a great many of
us clergy give people the impression of a lack
of intellectual courage. We seem to be men
who take refuge in the traditional phraseology
because we have not made the venture of
thinking freely. But there are books in the
Bible, like Job and Ecclesiastes, which en-
courage us to think very freely : which would
assure us that the road to faith is by freely
thinking, and not by refusing to think. We
have no chance of helping people, unless we
let them feel that we really know what they
are thinking about and talking about amongst
themselves. There is no likelihood of our
stirring doubts : the popular literature does
that. What we have to do is to show that we
have felt and thought, and that we have found
44 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
in the Christian faith light for the intellect as
well as strength for the heart.
Moreover, it is not enough to broach the
questions in our mind : to read some suggestive
book or article about the character of God,
or the trustworthiness of the Gospels, or the
question of miracles, or the elements of truth
in religions other than our own. The question
must be thoroughly faced, and we must with
all the faculties of our being seek to arrive at
an honest decision not in a day or a week
but (shall I say ?) in a year. May I give one
instance? I fancy there are a great many of
us whose preaching about the Old Testament
is paralysed and rendered meaningless, because
we never make up our minds whether we
really and sincerely think that the old position
of Wordsworth and Liddon and Pusey still
holds, or whether we are convinced that the
modern critics have, on the whole, proved their
case. Let us decide in whichever sense, at
each point, our honest judgement finally inclines.
Only let us recognize that we must come out
on one side or the other, if we are to have
any power as teachers or preachers. Intel-
lectual decision after due consideration is a
great moral duty and a considerable element
in the Christian character.
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 45
You know that in an "open letter" which I
addressed to you at the beginning of the year
and which I should wish to be considered as
part of my present charge, I urged strongly
that there are certain intellectual decisions, at
which if a man's mind forces him to arrive,
he cannot any longer with due regard to public
sincerity continue to exercise his ministry. But
conscientiously and reverently we must run the
risk. We must not retain orthodoxy by either
refusing to think or by shrinking from decision.
If we are to preach the faith so as to help
people, we must preach it as men only can
who have felt the difficulties, and whose faith
is the faith of the church because they have
found in that faith the best solution of all the
needs of our complex intellectual as well as
moral being because personally they believe
it to be true.
Of course, I know that to most Englishmen
intellectual labour the labour of thinking is
the most irksome of all tasks. We prefer any
" business " to study. But when we read the
service of our ordination we recognize that we
are, by Him who called us, pledged to life-long
study. We can only be teachers if we give
both young and old the impression that we are
ourselves always learners. We may not like
46 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
reading we may not enjoy facing intellectual
problems but we must do it to the utmost of
our power, or be judged with the man of one
talent who could not face the risks or take the
trouble of using it.
There is another thing which I would say
about the matter of our sermons. Let us see
to it that each sermon conveys a definite
message. Sermons may be of different kinds.
They may be expository explanations of a
passage or text of Scripture. I am sure,
indeed, that there is no way in which we can
help people more than by carefully and sym-
pathetically explaining the Bible, whether going
systematically through some portion or book,
or by explaining the lections of the day or
some particular text. Or they may be sermons
on subjects : in which case we need carefully
to mark the limits of our subject and to show
that we understand the objections to the view
we are going to enforce, and can state them
candidly and sympathetically ; before we seek
to refute them or to substitute a better view.
But the great point is that our sermons should
be about something in particular, and produce
some definite impression. I think nothing can
be more useful than a sermon, or a series of
sermons, on the Holy Communion, as sacrifice,
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 47
as communion, as fellowship : but surely nothing
is more futile than to drag into almost every
sermon at the end an allusion to Holy Com-
munion and the duty of coming to it. Let
the real human and divine meaning of the
sacrament be brought home to men's hearts
and minds and imaginations, not only by the
spectacle of worship, but also by careful
teaching: then we can entertain a just hope
that they will desire to be communicants, and
regular communicants ; but the constantly
reiterated brief admonition to come to the
communion introduced at the end of a sermon
almost as a matter of course is, I am persuaded,
absolutely ineffectual.
I think our chief privilege and opportunity as
preachers to-day is to refound the convictions
of those we teach on the central verities of the
Greed and the New Testament. The question
at the root of most modern controversies is not
whether there is a God, but what He is. The
paradox of Christianity is that God is love.
No one will ever really believe this doctrine
till he feels what a paradox it is. It has been
a popular idea that the belief that God is love
may be taken for granted, and that, inasmuch
as this is what chiefly matters, the dogmas of
the church are superfluous encumbrances upon
48 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
the simplicity of this religious conviction. But
I think nowadays people who think at all feel
that here is the heart of the religious question.
Is it true that the tremendous force which
made and pervades the universe, this awful
and mysterious energy, is really Love, pure
unadulterated Love, really our Father and my
Father ? I think there is a supreme need and
opportunity for teaching people how distinctive
and unique is the Christian idea of God, how
it came into men's minds through the prophets
of Israel, how it reached its consummation in
Jesus Christ. We need to let them feel how,
beyond all reasonable question, Jesus Christ
claimed authority to teach men infallibly the
truth about God : how He commended a
doctrine which seems in itself so improbable,
in view of all the pain and confusion of the
world, by Himself entering into all that pain
and confusion, by being Himself the Man of
sorrows, enduring in mind and body every-
thing that has ever seemed to men an argument
against God's love, with an unflinching con-
fidence of trust: how not only did He teach
about God, but led His first disciples and,
through them, all the world, to believe in
Himself as manifesting God, as being truly (so
they came at last to hold) God incarnate ;
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 49
translating the remote and unintelligible God
into the intelligible lineaments of a human
nature : how when this dawning faith of His
first disciples suffered and quailed under the
shock of His seeming failure and under the
terror of His cross, it was reconstructed upon
a basis of everlasting security by the evidence
of His resurrection : how this miracle, just
because it is a physical miracle, is (as Westcott
emphasized) essential to the faith, because it
proves that the power which made and rules
the physical world is, in spite of all seem-
ing failure, on the side of Christ ; that love
and power are at bottom one and the same
thing. So men are led to see that the dogmas
of the Greed, the dogmas about Christ's
person and His miracles, are not a cumber-
some decoration upon an otherwise self-
subsistent building, but are in truth the sub-
structure on which alone the faith of mankind
in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
has been effectively reared and can per-
manently subsist.
It is upon this distinctively Christian idea
of God, the Creator and the Father, that the
whole sequence of Christian ideas and doctrines
depends. The articles of the Christian creed
cohere with one another, and depend upon the
LIBRARY SL MARY'S COL'
50 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
doctrine of God. 1 I am sure that by careful
preaching we can help people to feel this,
not in learned language, but in language which
appeals to common people's hearts and minds.
And I can hardly imagine a time when we had
a better opportunity than we have now for
bringing home to men's minds the meaning of
half-forgotten Christian verities.
Do not the sights which are under our eyes
to-day, at home and abroad, inspire us to teach
men afresh the meaning and horror of sin ? Is
not the powerlessness of Christendom to-day
to bear any collective witness a good occasion
for teaching men again that a Catholic Church,
binding nations and classes into a real fellow-
ship, was the intention of Christ ? Is not
the widespread yearning after fellowship an
opportunity for teaching men again the real
meaning of the church as the body of Christ,
and the real meaning of the sacraments?
Now I must proceed to speak of that very
important part of the teaching office with
regard to which I have made special inquiries
of the clergy the teaching of children. If we
1 I have tried to develop the idea of the separate meaning
and mutual coherence of Christian doctrines in a tract, The
Solidarity of the Faith (Longmans, 6</.)
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 51
confine our attention to the period of the school
age, the results of my inquiries are on the
whole satisfactory. As regards the religious
teaching in the church day schools, it is possible
that we may improve our syllabus, and of course
there is division of opinion as to the desirability
of inspecting the religious teaching of a school
by means of examination. I am not proposing
to deal with either of these questions at the
present moment. Nor am I going to discuss
the merits and drawbacks of the religious
teaching in Council schools. My present point
is this only : if we confine our attention to the
school age, I cannot doubt that we have very
great occasion for satisfaction with the result
of the religious instruction in the church day
schools on the whole. I am not sure that I am
satisfied with the part played in this religious
instruction by us clergy. Many of us frankly
say that we do not teach ourselves because the
lay teachers teach better. But the inspectors
and the parochial clergy in their returns to me
bear witness to the zeal and efficiency of the
lay teachers and to the high level which is
attained in the results.
As regards the Sunday teaching, there is,
I have no doubt, advance being made in
catechizing in church, not, indeed, as the
52 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
Prayer Book desires, before the general con-
gregation, but in a special children's service in
the afternoon, whether or no the method be
the method of S. Sulpice or some adaptation
of it. I have no doubt also that progress is
being made in our Sunday school teaching and
in using the .Sunday school to lead up to the
catechism. That appears to be the best plan
in most parishes ; to make the most of the
Sunday school in the morning to lead up to
the catechism in church in the afternoon.
I have no doubt that we owe a great debt of
gratitude to our Sunday School Association, to
the Sunday School Teachers' Training Week,
which has been held at different centres, and
to the Clergy Training Week, which has been
held at Twyford now for four years, for which,
and for all that he has done for our Sunday
teaching work, we owe so great a debt of
gratitude to the Vicar of Twyford, Mr.
Acworth.
I have had in my life lamentably little to
do with the teaching of children. And, as
a consequence, I think other people are much
more likely than I am to speak with authority
on the subject. I confine myself to saying that
when I study carefully the reports before me
of our teaching of children, I get an impression
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 53
of advance being made both in weekday and
Sunday teaching, and I should feel full of
hopefulness about the future if we could
confine our inquiry within the limits of the
school age. But this is what we cannot do,
and when I proceed to ask the most important
question how far does the teaching given in
church day schools, Sunday schools, and cate-
chism in church really lay hold of the growing
souls of the children so as permanently to
influence their adult lives? the answer which
I receive is not on the whole very encouraging.
Some of the best of us feel something like
despair. 1
In great measure we are hindered in our
judgement by our inability to follow up our
pupils. In our country villages the girls and
the boys in most cases go away from home.
They leave school, they are confirmed, and
they go. If I ask a careful clergyman how
many of those confirmed in the last ten years
1 Almost all the clergy report to me that in districts where
there is only a church school, there is among Nonconformists
" no demand " for separate teaching for their children. I often
hear that "the bishop's prize" has been won by a Noncon-
formist child. In certain districts Protestant parents send
their children quite willingly to Roman schools where they
are handy. This implies, I think, not so much that the parents
are really willing that their children should absorb the teaching
in question as that they do not think they will absorb it, but
only " learn " it and forget it.
54 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
in his parish have remained communicants, he
can mostly give me no trustworthy answer,
because so large a proportion in country and
town have vanished out of his ken very soon
after being confirmed. But so far as we
can judge, the impression not the uniform
impression (for there are very bright ex-
ceptions), but the general impression is
discouraging. The lads and young women
who seemed so promising when they were
at school, and when they were being prepared
for confirmation, are absorbed by their homes
and by their class into the old traditional
level : and all our efforts seem to be swallowed
up. The tradition of the homes and the
tradition of the class have swallowed them up.
This is the common complaint as regards
not only the religious instruction but the
whole instruction and influence of day school
and Sunday school alike. We have been
accustomed on innumerable platforms, when
we have emphasized the importance of the
religious education of children, to quote
a saying of some Roman Catholic bishop,
"Give me the children to teach, and you
may do what you like with the adults." We
must cease to quote that saying. It has been
proved to be a fallacy. To a degree hard to
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 55
exaggerate, the mental disturbance of the
period of puberty, coupled with the change
of environment involved in emancipation from
school and going out to work, obliterates the
influence of school. The influence of the home
and of the " mates " conquers, and our labour
seems to be in vain.
This is a very great problem. Continuation
schools, when they are accepted into the sphere
of our elementary education, and Bible classes
and other classes corresponding to continuation
schools, will doubtless supply part of the
answer to the problem. But not, I think, the
main part of the answer.
The main part of the answer will be found
in a truer idea of education, both secular and
religious. The memory of a child appears to
be the most easily developed and the most
superficial of his faculties. He can learn and
forget with marvellous ease. That which
sticks is that which has stimulated the reaction
of his heart and will : that on which he has
learned to act for himself: that which, out of
school, has become part of his individuality.
Every one knows how hard it is, especially
in villages, to develop and maintain individu-
ality. But it is worth any labour to do this.
After all, there are differences between the
56 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
children : there are boys and girls with re-
markable characters and tastes. When such
appear, we ought to think no pains wasted
upon them. The labour world will be in-
fluenced through their natural leaders among
themselves. If you get to know the best of
the workers,- you are disappointed to find how
few of them are Churchmen. But many of
them were children of the church. Probably
they were rather remarkable boys and girls.
Only they seemed to feel that their aspirations
and ambitions were not sympathized with or
encouraged, and they went off to where they
thought they could find more sympathy. It is
a common story. I cannot help feeling that
we want to spend a great deal more pains
on cultivating individuality and giving it all
encouragement : bearing with the crudeness
and conceit of youth, and striving to encourage
and help more than to instruct or repress. If
there is to be progress, especially in our villages,
we must set ourselves with all our might to
develop individuality.
And now for my last point. The development
of individual capacity is hindered by social
conditions which, in town and country alike,
depress the young man and woman with an
almost overwhelming force of pressure into
OUR TEACHING OFFICE 57
the old ruts. This is especially apparent when
you take the young man at the age when he
wants or ought to want to be married. His
conditions crush him back. Putting the matter
conversely, and having regard for the moment
to the country only, I would express a confident
hope, that if we had a sufficient supply of
adequate houses in the country and better
wages and freer access to land, and security
of tenure for land and house, and the freer
and more hopeful outlook upon life which
would go with these things, we should have
a far richer development of character. The
present conditions depress character and in-
dividuality. Grace, it is true, may triumph
over circumstances, but we have no kind of
right to maintain the manifold hindrances to
the purpose of God which our present system
involves. And we have no ground for saying
that conditions could not be improved. It is
selfishness and indifference and lack of courage
which have brought them about and which
maintain them.
This, then, is what I wish to have impressed
upon the minds of Churchmen and of the clergy.
All our labour upon education, secular and
religious, will fail to produce any general fruit
unless we set ourselves courageously, in com-
58 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
bination with all men of goodwill, to secure
social reforms on behalf of the workers in
town and country, in accordance, as far as
possible, with the workers' own wishes, so
that they may be trained not to act under
orders, but with freer opportunity to take
the management of their own life. And I
pray, almost more fervently than I pray any
other prayer, that, before it is too late, we,
the clergy of the Church of England, may
wake up, in far larger numbers than at present,
to our duty of taking a side courageously and
intelligently with the movement of social re-
form, treading the road on which in Ireland,
in Germany, in Belgium, and in France the
clergy of the Roman Catholic Church have
already shown us an encouraging example. 1
1 May I invite the clergy to read The Priest and Social
Action, by Father Plater, S. J. (Longmans), 3*. 6d. ? I have
no doubt that the picture painted by Father Plater is somewhat
too rosy. I think I could introduce some darker shades into
it. But I think the Roman clergy have acted corporately in
some countries more courageously and effectively than we
have done.
IV
SACRIFICE AND NATIONAL
PENITENCE
Among the emotions which we are sharing
to-day, stirred in us by the experience of the
war, there is none deeper than the enthusiasm
which we feel as we witness on a vast scale
the reality of sacrifice self-sacrifice for the
country. We have watched the troops of
lads going from our villages, and the recruits
from the towns, and the young men whom
we have complained of as too fond of pleasure,
the product of our Public Schools and Uni-
versities ; they have gone to the war and to
the prospect of wounds and death with such
light-hearted readiness. I could not put into
words what we feel as we watch them go.
And we know what their mothers have
thought and said. And we know that among
their sisters nurses and helpers there is the
same eagerness for sacrifice. "O God, my
heart is ready ; my heart is ready." There
is a splendour of sacrifice being shown for the
59
60 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
honour and safety of England which is lifting
the whole country to a higher spiritual level,
and which gives us who stay at home, who
perhaps have not even brothers or sons and
daughters to give up, a good deal to think
about.
The kind of self-sacrifice in the cause of
one's country that we are witnessing is not
indeed distinctively Christian. We have seen
it burning with a splendid flame among the
Japanese, and we recall the glorious examples
of it among Greeks and Romans. But if it is
not confined to Christianity, it reminds us
that Christianity takes this capacity for sacri-
fice for granted, and has made sacrifice of a
most distinctive type and on most distinctive
motives the normal type of Christian life.
The enthusiasm for the war which we all
feel has led in a few of the clergy to what is,
I think, a mistaken form of sacrifice. It has
led to some of the clergy volunteering, or
desiring to volunteer, as soldiers. On this
subject I read the archbishop's letter with
great thankfulness. " By every line of thought
which I have pursued," he wrote, " I am led
to the conclusion that I have been right in
maintaining from the first that the position of
an actual combatant in our army (or navy) is
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 61
incompatible with the position of one who has
sought and received holy orders. The whole
idea which underlies and surrounds ordina-
tion implies this." On this subject the judge-
ment of the Christian church has been almost
unanimous that it is not lawful for the clergy
voluntarily to fight. Of course, it is a differ-
ent matter where, as in France, the law of
their country regards the clergy as reservists
and compels them on emergencies to come
back into the ranks. To this compulsion the
Christian church has submitted ; but this does
not touch the point that the church universal
has forbidden the clergy serving of their own
will as soldiers. 1 And the prohibition means,
I think, a good deal. Military enthusiasm in
times of national danger is overwhelming. It
is like the enthusiasm of religion in a whole
nation at certain specially susceptible epochs
of history. It pervades the whole atmos-
phere. It carries all before it. It inspires
to great sacrifices, but also it has shown in
all history a strange power to blind the
eyes and harden the heart. Thus, even at
periods of great national necessity it needs
counterpoise.
1 See S. Thomas Aquinas, Surnma TheoL 2a. 2ae., qu. 40,
art. 2, where the prohibition is presented and defended.
62 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
Our Lord, we may say with Mozley, in his
famous sermon on War, takes patriotism for
granted. But He presses upon men some-
thing which is different from patriotism and
must control and regulate it an ideal of the
divine kingdom based upon methods and
maxims as far removed as possible from the
ordinary methods and maxims of war ; and
His doctrine of God, the common Father of
all, no longer admits of any one nation or
empire regarding itself as a chosen people in
the midst of " lesser breeds " or less important
races.
Before our God, and in the fellowship of
His Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek,
Barbarian nor Scythian. God's care is for all
nations equally according to the diversities of
their gifts. There is to be a fellowship of all
nations on an equal basis in a Catholic Church.
This is what the Christian church has always
seen when it has been true to its Master.
But, as we were recently reminded in an
admirable and most Christian article in the
Times, 1 this is an extraordinarily difficult
doctrine to keep in remembrance in an
atmosphere of war. Thus the war spirit,
1 Times Literary Supplement, September 17th, "What are
we fighting for ? "
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 63
even at the best, needs counterpoise. It is
the special function of the clergy, occupied in
their proper ministry, to maintain this. Even
at such a moment as this we must say, "We
will give ourselves to prayer and to the
ministry of the word." We will seek to live,
with special alertness of mind, at the feet of
Him who said to the first of His apostles in
an hour when He was the subject of the
grossest physical violence, "Put up the sword
into the sheath." It is our privilege in every
way to support our soldiers and sailors in a
just war, and to encourage recruiting, and to
bless the recruits, and to pray for God's
blessing on our arms, bringing to bear upon
the war the whole power of organized prayer,
public and private. But it is our duty also
to remember the perils of military enthusi-
asm, and to keep our minds full of the ideals
and laws of the Lamb of God, Jesus of
Nazareth, so that there may be a steady
and quiet and constant counterpoise to the
emotions of war.
I have spoken of the clergy. A more
difficult question has been raised about the
duty of candidates for holy orders. Ought
the man whose vocation is for the ministry
and whose mind is steadily set to fulfil it, to
64 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
turn aside and postpone his ordination in
order to offer himself for the service of his
country as a soldier? Here again the mind
of the church has been steadily against his
doing so, voluntarily. 1 It has had so pro-
found a sense of the incompatibility of shed-
ding blood- with holy orders that, in its
ancient canons, it has declared that even
those who in the execution of their public
duties as soldiers or even as magistrates have
taken human life or condemned men to death
are to be forbidden to go on to ordination. 2
It has pointed to the popular soldier saint,
Martin, who, after his baptism, though he
remained by request in the army for two
years, yet, when the occasion for fighting
came, refused to fight and withdrew. 3 The
Roman Church to-day has elaborate " dispen-
sations from irregularity" and regulations for
1 See Thomassin Vet et nova eccl. disc., index, under the
words, " milites et militia."
2 Thomassin, op. cit., pars ii, lib. i, cap. 66, sect. 10:
** Usque adeo abhorret ecclesia a fundendo sanguine, reorum
etiam quos leges ipsae addicunt, ut ne eos quidem qui justitiae
huic scelerum ultrici linguas manusque commodaverunt, in
ministris haberi velit incruentae suae et caelistis vietimae."
("The church has such a horror of shedding blood, even
in the case of criminals condemned by the law, that it has
refused to have men who have given their hands and tongues
to this avenging justice among the ministers of its bloodless
and heavenly victim.")
3 Sulpicius Severus Vita, 3, 4, P.L. xx, 162.
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 65
those who are candidates for orders and are
compelled by state laws to serve in the army. 1
I suppose that such a formal rule has been
subjected to many exceptions ; and it is in
itself open to so many objections, that I
would not by any means have it brought
back into force as a rule amongst us. But
I think it has represented a deep and right
instinct in the church. I could not myself
put any pressure upon the conscience of a
young man who feels himself, candidate for
holy orders though he be, overmastered by
the sense that he must serve his country's
need in arms I would let him go with a
blessing. Nor should I have any hesitation in
letting him resume his studies when he came
back nor in ordaining him, when he is pre-
pared ; but, on the other hand, I would give
all the encouragement I can to our candidates,
especially those who are already at theological
colleges or just going thither, to abide by
their realized call and to pursue their pre-
paration, even if they have to bear the
accusation of cowardice. I think they will in
this manner show the truest and highest
courage, and that there is no better way in
which they can serve their country than by
1 Gasparri de sacra ordinatione 540 if.
K
66 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
preparing themselves for the ministry of the
gospel. 1
I have felt bound to turn aside to this subject
of the relation of the clergy and candidates
for holy orders to military service, but now
I want to bring your thoughts back to the
moving spectacle of self-sacrifice unselfcon-
scious, unostentatious, but deliberate, volun-
tary, and unflinching which our youth to-day
are exhibiting. I am quite sure that it ought
to produce in us clergy and laity, who for
various reasons cannot go as soldiers, the sort
of holy rivalry which shall in the years to
come make a great difference in the life and
witness of the church. You know that many
besides Macaulay have reproached our English
Church for lack of self-sacrifice, and have
1 The tendency to go for a soldier which has been so appar-
ent among candidates for orders has appeared equally among
medical students. The Times of October 26th quotes " alarm-
ing figures " from Cambridge 64 entries this year instead of
116 last year. The writer adds, "Those of us who have the
duty of advising our young men have done everything in our
power to keep medical students to their studies." Of those
who have remained he says, *' It has been very hard for
these young men to curb their natural desire to do what their
companions are doing. They have been subjected to much
ignorant comment. They feel that people are saying to
themselves, ' That man ought to be at the front,' but they
are doing their duty, and among the heroic things this war
has produced, not the least heroic is the action of those
students who have had the courage to sacrifice their ambi-
tions and to stick to their course, for the sake of our poor
suffering humanity."
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 67
contrasted it with the Church of Rome, in
which they have seen altogether more of the
same heroic spirit which belongs to soldiers.
They have not denied to us the glory of kind-
ness and goodness and faithfulness and all the
circle of domestic virtues. Only they have
not seen in us the school of the heroic spirit
the school of sacrifice.
Now, in part, these reproaches belong to an
older day. Where, it was asked, is to be found
in the Church of England the splendid sacrifice
of the religious orders the life of voluntary
poverty and celibacy and obedience ? Well,
since Macaulay's days these and the like re-
proaches have been in part removed. The
sacrifice of the religious orders has been
revived among us nowhere so abundantly as
in this diocese, where we have six or seven
religious communities of men and women
which have produced a profound impression
on the life and the ideals of the Church of
England. And in a measure we may thank-
fully claim that, beyond the area of this special
vocation, religion and sacrifice are again associ-
ated in our minds in such a way as would
make it impossible now for any one to write
about the Church of England as Macaulay
wrote. Moreover, we are a very "unshowy"
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
68 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
people. We desire, the best of us desire, to
be rather than to seem. Behind the show of
comfort there is a vast deal of very real
self-sacrifice ; and in innumerable country
vicarages the married priest with his family
(and how much of what is best and noblest in
our records does England owe to the families
of the clergy !) living in the straitest circum-
stances, with uncomplaining dutifulness, offers
to God, I am persuaded, as noble and glorious
a sacrifice in His sight as any monastic cell can
show.
Nevertheless there is truth in the reproach
aimed at us ; and just at this season we do
well to heed it. For instance, the Roman
Church has been magnificently helped in the
maintenance of religious education on its own
lines because it has been able to draw upon
a vast store of voluntary sacrifice. Men have
been found in multitudes who felt that they had
the vocation to be teachers for Christ's sake
and His little ones, and who, without hope or
prospect but their work and their faith, have
given themselves for teachers, wanting nothing
for it but their barest living. There is hardly
anything in modern Christendom nobler, or
more successful in attaining its end, than the
institution of the Christian Brothers ; and the
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 69
women's Teaching Orders do not fall behind
them. Why have we never struck anything
like this store of deliberate and joyful sacrifice,
with all our talk about the supreme importance
of religious education ? There has been some-
thing lacking. Again, how do matters stand
to-day in the field of missionary endeavour?
The inquiries that I have made for my
Visitation convince me that, though there are
still some parishes where almost nothing is
done for the work of the church overseas, yet
there has been an immense advance in our
response to the missionary claim. There is
a far more widespread interest : far more in-
telligence given to the propagation of the
universal gospel : far less stupid scoffing at
the missionary cause : far more, and more
systematic, prayer : and a far greater readi-
ness to contribute money and to recognize such
contributions as a regular part of the normal
duty of a Christian man and a Christian parish.
We owe, in fact, an immense debt of gratitude
to the "Forward Movement" for overseas
work, the initiation of which is our chief claim
to distinction among dioceses in recent years.
Yet in spite of all this that is satisfactory we
must acknowledge that, with all the increase
of need and of knowledge, the number of men
70 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
and women, laymen and priests, who are
offering themselves for work abroad, I do not
say specially from this diocese, but from the
church as a whole, is yet sadly inadequate.
And knowing what we know of the circum-
stances of the church overseas, we cannot
regard it as fair or reasonable that we should
have in this diocese of 690,000 inhabitants
about a thousand clergy. 1 Now what I pray,
what I from my heart desire you to pray, is
that the glorious spirit of sacrifice which has
animated the volunteers for this war and lifted
to a higher plane the whole level of our common
life, may not fail to produce in the church a
blessed rivalry : and that along all the different
paths of vocation we may be witnesses in the
years to come of deeper and broader streams
of sacrifice than we have ever witnessed before.
Truly as we read and meditate on the
Gospels we see our Lord standing over every
human soul that is a candidate for discipleship,
expecting, eliciting, and then welcoming and
blessing sacrifice. Truly He did intend that
sacrifice should be one special and arresting
characteristic of His religion. Truly no society
1 Population 690,137. Clergy beneficed 636, assistant
curates 179, other licensed clergy 153, resident with permis-
sions 39, total 1,007.
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 71
of men which claims to be part of the church
of Christ can be content to be less than brilliant
in sacrifice.
Sacrifice, real and also visible, makes a deep
appeal to the imagination of men. There is
nothing which wins men's hearts more than
the spectacle of a priesthood which visibly em-
bodies the spirit of sacrifice. Besides the
reality there must be its visible expression. As
I move about the diocese, I see frequently the
large vicarage or rectory standing in a beautiful
garden, which speaks of the ideal of a clerical
country gentleman. The idea of sixty years
ago was that it was essential to have a resident
clergyman in every village, however small ;
and that if there was only a good parsonage
house, a man would always be found to "take
the living" without regard to the smallness of
the income. Now we have come to doubt the
ideal, and to know that the anticipation has
proved less and less true. We feel that it
would be better for ourselves and for our
people, on the whole, if our parishes were
larger, and if each incumbent had a living
wage. Thus I know that to the present-day
incumbent of many a parish the large house
is a mere burden upon his straitened means.
It embodies and represents an ideal now anti-
72 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
quated by new conditions, and also an ideal
which never was easy to reconcile with the
divine pattern of ministry. I wish from my
heart that we could get rid of many of these
expensive rectories, and house our clergy in
a manner which would represent to the im-
agination a truer picture of the Christian ideal,
and of the actual facts of the incomes of our
clergy.
But, most of all, I feel that a change is needed
with regard to our bishops. We have, I dare
say, all read the tract which was called The
Fatal Opulence of Bishops. You know well
enough that a bishop's life in these days cannot
well be an easy life. He has every inducement
to a life of sacrifice. Still the great house and
the income of 5,000 makes a disastrous im-
pression upon the imagination of people,
especially of the working class. It is a most
real stumbling block. I believe it ought to be
removed. May I explain briefly what I would
do? The plea for these large incomes of
bishops is that so much is required of them.
Yes : but why should that be paid out of their
private incomes ? Let some suitable sum, say
2,000 of what is now the bishop's income,
become a diocesan fund in the hand of lay
trustees. Let them be required to pay the
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 73
necessary expenses of the bishop's office, such
as the salaries of his officers, his travelling
expenses, his legal expenses, the expenses of
the ordinations and other diocesan gatherings :
and let them also put at the bishop's disposal
a very considerable sum for charitable ad-
ministration of which he should give account.
This fund would be then neither in appearance
nor in reality any part of the bishop's own
income.
Then as to the great house. I think every
diocese should have its great house, which
might or might not be the present bishop's
palace, a great house which should be avail-
able for gatherings of all kinds for diocesan
purposes and for retreats for laity and clergy.
The bishop could use this in various ways,
and the Diocesan Fund would keep it up.
In it the bishop could have his own apart-
ments and his chapel. Then the bishop's
income might be really a very modest sum,
like the income of most bishops in the church
outside the Established Church in England ;
and a really great cause of scandal and mis-
understanding would be removed. I have in
my own mind considered this particular cause
of stumbling and the way to remove it some-
what in detail. But I will not trouble you with
74 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
the details now. My desire is that we should,
as a church, set ourselves to disembarrass the
clergy of those outward marks which to the
imagination of men, and especially to the great
mass of the workers in town and country,
associate our ministerial office with the symbols
of wealth and ease.
There is one other point on which I desire to
speak to you to-day.
The anxieties of this great war have truly
thrown us upon God. We are feeling very
widely the value of prayer. Moreover, the
circumstances out of which the war arose
have caused us to feel, and I think rightly to
feel, that we are fighting for justice and the
rights of weaker nations and the cause of liberty
against a monstrous spirit of aggressive and
selfish and cruel militarism which has for the
time possessed the soul of Germany. There is
all the greater need therefore that we should
not be Pharisaical, that we should not be
saying, "We thank God that we are not as
those Germans." Are there not with us, even
with us, sins against God ? The prophets of
Israel make a tremendous claim upon the
worshippers of God that they should bethink
them whether, God being what He is, they are
fit to approach God and inquire of Him. For
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 75
He will not be "inquired of" by the wilfully
disobedient. To all this body of prophetic
teaching there is serious reason that we should
give heed to-day. This is as great a moment
for corporate penitence as for corporate prayer.
You know what our national sins are. You
know, for instance, how slowly we are making
way in combating sweating or the underpaying
of our workers in our industrial life ; and how
stern are the warnings of Holy Scripture that
" to grind the faces of the poor " disqualifies
any nation and we are all responsible, if we
are indifferent or acquiescent from approach-
ing God. Again, you know how from time to
time some anxious question of an employe in
a place of business reveals to us a widespread
commercial dishonesty, or how some public
scandal discloses a distressing prevalence of
illicit commissions. Again you know how
terrible is the hold which drink still has upon
us and how awful its ravages. The Czar's
decree, abolishing the retail sale of vodka
throughout his dominions, at a vast initial
sacrifice of revenue, has overwhelmed us with
shame. For in the days of the war we have
learned that drinking has been increasing
terribly among women, owing apparently in
great part to the wives of our soldiers, who
76 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
receive their allowances and, while they have
the money, have nowhere but the public houses
in which to satisfy their excited feelings and
craving for news. And we know that it is not
without cause that Lord Kitchener has appealed
to our patriotism not to tempt our soldiers to
drink. And in such a distressing emergency
we feel how little we, as a democratically
governed country, can do or have done to
counteract so serious an evil. Once more, you
know the terrible prevalence of sexual sin the
vast number of girls, mere children, who are
corrupted ; and, I must add, the vast number
of cases in which girls or women are rather the
tempters than the tempted to sexual sin. You
know how both without and within married
life the artificial prevention of conception is
becoming nothing less than a national habit,
descending from class to class in the social
scale. Surely on these and many other grounds
there is the gravest need for national penitence.
We clergy ought to know before we speak :
we ought to know what it is that is actually
going on among our people. We ought to
choose carefully the right occasion for speaking.
But we ought not to be content with vague
talk about sin. With much self-preparation and
prayer we ought to strive to unmask the forms
SACRIFICE & NATIONAL PENITENCE 77
of evil, and so to awaken the consciences of
men and women as that they should feel that
if they want God to protect them and their
cause, truly they must cleanse their lives and
hearts so that the hands which they lift up in
prayer may be really " holy hands."
V
CHURCH REFORM
We have been, and are, living in a period of
profound social change. It has been of late
years unusually rapid. If we are to judge from
previous experience, we should conjecture that
the vast war of nations in which we are at
present engaged will lead to social changes in
European society even deeper and more rapid
than those to which we had been accustoming
ourselves. Now a society which, like the
church, claims to be continuous and to carry
down the ages a continuous and constant
religion, turning "the heart of the fathers to
the children, and the heart of the children to
their fathers," must be prepared especially in
an age of change, while it clings to what is
unchanging in its faith and system, to adjust
itself, to reform its methods, to remove scandals
and abuses, and to interpret the old faith to
the wants of a new age. This is what is meant
by the familiar demand for church reform.
There are particular reforms which we should,
I dare say, be unanimous in demanding : for
78
CHURCH REFORM 79
instance, we should, perhaps, most of us be
agreed that the power which still remains with
private patrons of "livings " to sell the ad vow-
son, that is to sell, as an ordinary piece of
property, the power of presenting in perpetuity
to a cure of souls, is intolerable and ought to
be altered. No one would tolerate the con-
tinuance of such a power, if what were con-
cerned were a professorship at a University
or a head-mastership of a school. Again, we
are all agreed that there is still an excessive
difficulty in dispossessing of his benefice a
clergyman who, by the confession of all good
men, has shown himself unfit to hold a cure
of souls. Again, we are all agreed that the
so-called representation of the clergy in the
Lower House of Convocation is profoundly
unsatisfactory and unfair. For example, from
the area of this diocese there sit in the Lower
House the Deans of Christ Church and
Windsor, and a representative of each of their
two Chapters, and the three archdeacons ;
while the whole body of incumbents (636) are
represented by only two proctors ; and the
unbeneficed clergy are not represented at all.
Again, we are agreed that the representation
of the laity does not interest the mass of our
people, and in particular does not interest the
80 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
working classes, who feel that they have no
real share in the management of affairs. Once
more, it is an admitted scandal that, when the
liberality of church people has provided the
means of dividing an overgrown diocese, there
should be so great a difficulty in procuring the
necessary Parliamentary sanction. These are
examples of commonly admitted abuses.
And those who have thought most deeply on
these things have come to the conclusion that
the best method of reform is not to attack
each abuse in turn and seek to pass through
Parliament a Bill to amend it. The root of the
mischief is that the church has lost the power
effectively to express its mind on these and
all subjects which concern its common life,
and to reform itself. There can be no doubt
that the church from the beginning believed
itself to be, by the will of its Founder, a society
with the power of "binding" and "loosing,"
that is legislating to prohibit or allow, with
a divine sanction: "What things soever ye
shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven :
and what things soever ye shall loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven " : * and also a society
with the power of applying its laws in dis-
ciplinary action upon its members that is, of
1 S. Matt, xviii. 18.
CHURCH REFORM 81
absolving and retaining sins also with a divine
sanction : " Whose soever sins ye forgive, they
are forgiven unto them ; whose soever sins ye
retain, they are retained." 1 This legislative
and disciplinary power has been lost, or largely
lost, in our church, because there are so many
things which it cannot do without Parliamen-
tary sanction, and the process of obtaining
Parliamentary sanction is an exceedingly cum-
brous and ineffective process.
If we seek further to examine the conditions
of this difficulty, we find that the explanation
is certain. We inherit from the Middle Ages
the tradition, quite alien to the first age of
Christianity, of a single society which is both
church and state, or, to put it otherwise, in
which church membership is the necessary
condition of political privilege. When at the
Reformation we in England threw off the Papal
authority and claimed to reorganize our church
on more independent national lines, no change
whatever was made in this fundamental idea.
The church and the nation of England were to
be the same society, and if the church was to
be, in a new sense, subject to the king and
restrained by the Parliament, on the other
hand, Parliament no less than king was to be
1 S. John xx. 23.
M
82 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
an organ of the church. Political privileges
and liberties were to belong only to members
of the church. The one society was still to be,
in different aspects, nation and church.
This condition of things has now wholly
passed away. Changes in political and religious
opinion ; the* universal acceptance of the prin-
ciple of religious toleration these and the like
movements have wholly antiquated the state of
things in which a man must be a Churchman
in order to exercise the privileges of a citizen.
As a consequence it is now absurd, in the
highest degree to talk about Parliament as
representative of the laity, or as the Lay Synod
of the Church of England. In Parliament or
out of it the church is only one of a great
variety of religious bodies. If the governing
authorities of the country to-day want any
religious or educational work done, they have
to appeal not to the church only, or the clergy
of the church, but to all the religious bodies
with all their different ministries. And
Parliament, consisting of members of all
religions or none, cannot pretend to be, and
(to do it justice) does not pretend to be, a
body suitable for legislation in matters affecting
the church in particular.
In view of such a changed condition it is
CHURCH REFORM 83
concluded that the church, as it cannot con-
tinue in a healthy state without government,
must resume its inherent power of self-
government. There are those who would
say : well, in that case, it must be disestab-
lished ; it must cease to be or be called the
National Church. This position I am not
going to discuss. There are a great many
Churchmen who feel passionately the advan-
tages of such a national recognition of religion
as is secured by an established church, who
yet declare that they would sooner have dis-
establishment than that the church should
remain in its present bondage. But they doubt
the necessity for disestablishment; and they
point to what is certainly the fact, that the
demand for disestablishment is weakening
rather than strengthening in the country as a
whole. And they dispute altogether the
position that the restoration of self-government
to the church, under the supremacy of the
Crown, need carry with it disestablishment.
What has happened and what is happening in
Scotland seems to them to vindicate the possi-
bility and the reasonableness of an established
church retaining or regaining its proper spiritual
liberties. Those who feel in this way have
procured the appointment by the archbishops
84 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
of a very important committee on the relations
of church and state, to consider how the church,
consistently with establishment, could recover
real legislative and judicial freedom under the
control of the Grown and with due regard to
the proper functions of Parliament. On this
committee, of which Lord Selborne is the chair-
man, this diocese is very amply represented.
It contained the honoured name of Sir William
Anson, whose services in this world, alas ! are
no longer ours. It contains your bishop, the
Dean of Christ Church, Lord Parmoor, one of
the members for the University (Lord Hugh
Cecil), and Mr. A. L. Smith. It is a thoroughly
representative body of men, and it is working
hard in the preparation of its report. I suppose
that the chief business of such a committee will
be the establishment of a great Church Council,
or the provision of the scheme for its establish-
ment a Church Council such as can really
claim to be the Church of England by repre-
sentation that is, a body really representative
of those members of the nation who deliberately
are and intend to be members of the Church
of England. Granted such a body, the claim of
which to be what it professes to be could not
be reasonably disputed, many of us are full of
a great hope that such a body could effectively
CHURCH REFORM 85
claim and obtain the legislative freedom neces-
sary to inaugurate and carry particular reforms.
But it is felt on all sides that no such claim can
be effectively made unless there is real and
adequate representation of the laity ; and, I
must add, unless the representation of the laity
can be so arranged as that it should not appear
to be the representation of a class, but as fully
and really the representation of the workers as
of the wealthy.
Of course, all who care for church reform
recognize that our representative system, as it
exists at present, is profoundly hindered by
the feeling that our church assemblies par-
ochial, diocesan, provincial, and national-
have no real power ; and people will not take
pains to attend bodies which they feel to be
in the main nothing better than debating
societies. I have no doubt that it is the
sense that they have important business to
do, and the powers necessary for doing it
effectively, which accounts for the fact that,
in the case of the Wesleyan and other Non-
conformist bodies, the attendance at church
assemblies of their lay members puts us to
shame. I went this summer to Leeds to
speak on the co-operation of all Christian
bodies in social work at an open meeting in
86 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
connection with the Wesleyan Conference,
and when I was there I was assured that
the attendance of the laymen from all parts
of the country, throughout a whole week of
exacting meetings, had been constant and as
full as that of the ministers, though the lay
representatives were largely men prominent
and active in business or politics in their
own districts, who could only with difficulty
arrange for a whole week's absence from
their ordinary affairs. I dare say quite as
good a record in lay attendances could be
shown by non-established churches of our
own communion. This serious ground of
weakness the absence of real power is
what we seek to remove.
But meanwhile our existing system of repre-
sentative church assemblies is preparing the
way for better things, and it is upon our
existing Convocation and House of Laymen
and Representative Church Council, and
Diocesan Conferences and Synods, and
Ruridecanal Chapters and Conferences, and
Parochial Church Councils, duly reformed
and reorganized, that we must seek to build.
And, in particular, we must lay the basis of
a representative system in a proper suf-
frage. Now, since the Representative Church
CHURCH REFORM 87
Council was established, ten years ago, we have
had such a suffrage. The "qualified persons"
who alone were to vote for the parochial
representatives, and indirectly to elect to the
Diocesan Conference and the House of Lay-
men, were to be those in each parish who
were either actual communicants or had the
status of a communicant ; that is, who were
baptized and confirmed, and did not belong
to any religious body which is not in com-
munion with the Church of England, and
who were not otherwise debarred from
communion, and who also had signed a paper
to say that they were in this sense qualified
persons. Great stress was laid in the Church
Council, when this suffrage was initiated, both
on the possession of a distinct qualification
and on the readiness to profess the qualifica-
tion by signing the paper. The body of
persons signing in each parish was intended
to correspond to the body of people who
were really and deliberately Churchmen,
leaving out for the moment the question of
the women. I have made for my Visitation
careful inquiry about the number of persons
signing in each of our parishes, and I admit
that it has been to me something like a shock
to discover in how many parishes we have
88 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
practically not yet made a beginning in bring-
ing this church suffrage into effect. There
are 656 separate parishes in the diocese. Of
these, in only 182 parishes (28 per cent.) has
the declaration been signed at all. The total
number of male communicants who are
returned as having signed is 1,396. To this
total should be added some persons from
twenty-two parishes in which " very few" are
said to have signed. The total must be some-
thing considerably under 2 per cent, of the
whole body of our Easter communicants. In
the great majority of parishes the system has
not been put into effect at all. " No interest
is taken in it," I am told ; or M Those few
who attended the meeting to elect ruridecanal
representatives were well known and there
was no need for them to sign " ; or " There
is the greatest objection to signing any paper."
As we stand to-day there is no doubt that our
representatives in the House of Laymen are
not validly elected at all, for the basis of
election has been generally ignored.
Now, as you know, this year the whole
scheme of election has been reconsidered
and amended by the Representative Church
Council. Three important changes all in my
judgement, great improvements have been
CHURCH REFORM 89
made. (1) Non-resident attendants at any
church can enroll themselves to vote with
the parishioners, if accepted by the parish
authority. (2) It has been left open for the
diocesan conference in any diocese to deter-
mine that the lay members of the diocesan
conference shall be elected directly by the
parish, so that each parish shall have at least
one representative. (I fear that our diocese
is too large to admit of our taking advantage
of this opportunity.) (3) All women (and not
merely ratepaying women) have been admitted
to vote on the same terms as men. This
change seems to me to be required by justice.
I am sometimes conscious when I am reading
expositions of the aims of the " Women's
Movement " that some day I may be brought
into collision with it. For I believe that
there is an essential headship of man over
woman which neither physiology nor Scrip-
ture will allow us to ignore. There are,
therefore, certain aspirations after the equality
of the sexes to which I cannot assent. But I
see no reason why women should not have,
and the strongest reasons of justice why they
should have, the vote. I am not here con-
cerned with the political vote, but the vote
in ecclesiastical matters in which they have
N
90 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
always shown a zeal and interest which puts
men to shame.
Other changes were made at this year's
Church Council of minor importance. I have
mentioned the three most important. The
council deliberately reaffirmed the require-
ment that "qualified persons" should not
only possess the qualifications, but should
sign the paper to say that they possess them.
Now I proceed to express a very strong desire.
I earnestly desire that every incumbent next
spring, when new elections are to be made,
shall diligently put the present system of
election into force and work it to the very
utmost of his power. I beg every incumbent,
by due notice and after giving the fullest
explanations to the parishioners generally and
to individuals, to summon the meeting of
qualified persons, men and women, at the
proper time and to cause them 1 to sign the
paper which affirms their qualification ; and
then to form from the papers so signed a
roll of qualified persons, male and female, for
his parish, which can be open at any time to
inspection ; and then, in the future, constantly
to correct it and keep it up to date. I would
have every clergyman study the rules care-
1 Either at the meeting or previously.
CHURCH REFORM 91
fully in good time before the meeting and
make a determined effort to carry them out.
They will doubtless be supplied to all in-
cumbents, and they shall be also published
in the Diocesan Magazine for January. I will
give any assistance in my power, if doubt is
felt as to their meaning. I want you all to
realize, both clergy and laity, that we are
really seeking to form a roll of those through-
out the country who are full church members.
And all our future action in reorganizing the
church will be based upon this roll. I am
well aware that there are objections felt to
signing anything. You will do well to form
a body of people willing and able to explain
to every one in the parish of every class,
who is qualified, the importance of signing,
and to overcome objections.
I know that the process of signing on, and
the interest in all church assemblies, will be
much stimulated when we gain real powers
of legislation and action. Meanwhile, I hope
that the new method of diocesan finance will
impart some fresh interest to ruridecanal and
diocesan conferences.
But I feel sure that the root of interest for
most laymen will be in the affairs of the
parish. I hope that at no distant date we
92 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
shall have Parochial Church Councils with
real authority. I am glad to observe that the
new movement in financial administration is
already bringing more such Councils into
existence. At present about 10 per cent, of
our parishes appear to have Church Councils
of some sort. I believe, in spite of difficulties
and hindrances, that a Parish Church Council,
with gradually growing powers, is a valuable
asset. I will give any help I can in formu-
lating rules for it till such rules are provided
for the whole church. Meanwhile I hope to
see a steady extension in the number of these
Councils, and, whether you have one at pre-
sent or no, I beg you to set to work to make
the roll of church voters an effective reality
in your parish, and as complete a roll as
possible of church members.
I would also remind you that women are
not only admitted now to vote equally with
men, but also to sit, without restriction of
numbers, on Parochial Church Councils,
though not upon the councils of the rural
deanery, the diocese, or the province.
Of course, I am well aware that there exists
a body of religious opinion amongst us which
views with anxiety the admission of lay repre-
sentatives into our church assemblies. The
CHURCH REFORM 93
sacred synods of the church, diocesan and
provincial, have, it is urged, always been
synods of the clergy. In this diocese we
remember how strenuously Dr. Pusey con-
tended for this principle. Well, I would say,
let our synods, strictly so called, so remain.
Let us have in each diocese a synod of the
clergy which can sit apart. I formed such a
synod in my former diocese ; and it is only
the unwieldy size of this diocese which has
prevented me from summoning one here also.
Then let each diocese have also a house of
laymen which can sit apart. And let the
clerical and lay houses sit together for most
diocesan purposes as a diocesan conference
or governing body. Let the same principle
continue in provincial affairs. Let us have
the convocation of the clergy and the house
of laymen for the province ; and let both
bodies from both provinces, with the bishops,
constitute the Representative Church Council
for the National Church.
I would also ask you to remember that the
special responsibility and authority of the
clergy and the episcopate in matters of
doctrine is safeguarded in the existing con-
stitution of the Representative Church Coun-
cil. " Nothing in this constitution," it is
94 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
there written, "nor in any proceeding of the
council, shall interfere with the exercise by
the episcopate of the powers and functions
inherent in them, or with the several powers
and functions of the Houses of Convocation
of the two provinces. It does not belong to
the functions of the council to issue any
statement purporting to declare the doctrine
of the church on any question of theology ;
and no such statement shall be issued by the
council. Subject to the provisions of the last
two preceding clauses, questions touching
doctrine and discipline may be discussed,
and resolutions relating thereto may be
passed by the council in like manner as in
the case of other questions: provided that
any projected legislative measure touching
doctrinal formulae or the services or cere-
monies of the church, or the administration
of the sacraments and sacred rites of the
church, shall be initiated in the house of
bishops and shall be discussed by each house
sitting separately ; and the council shall either
accept or reject the measure in the terms in
which it is finally proposed by the house of
bishops after that house has received and
considered the reports of such separate dis-
cussions."
CHURCH REFORM 95
These articles of the constitution of the
council seem to me sufficiently to safeguard
the principles of the general tradition of the
church. What we have now to do is so to
reform our procedure as that the laity shall
again be brought into the position which the
principles of S. Paul and S. Cyprian allow
us, or even require us, to give them, a
position in which they shall really feel that
alike in the parish, the diocese, the province,
and the national church, they are taking an
effective part in the management of church
affairs.
VI
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
" Political privileges are the correlative of
political duties done." That is the saying of
one who was truly a prophet of modern demo-
cracy, Joseph Mazzini. It is a lesson much
needed by democracies but also by other forms
of society. It embodies a principle which lies
deep in the heart of the system of the church.
No one would question the fact that the first
Christians were taught to believe that, while
they owed their new standing ground in Christ
simply to the unmerited grace of God and not
to anything that they had done, yet that admis-
sion to membership in Christ was admission to
a condition of responsibility and obligation.
It was admission to membership in His body,
the visible human society, the church ; and that
membership meant much. It meant loyalty and
service and subordination to the community.
Thus the glorious freedom of a Christian was
not freedom to dispense himself from obligations
to the beloved community, but was the privilege
96
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 97
of a membership heartily accepted. That is the
condition of every healthy society, state or
church. In this moment of national peril and
national awakening, what is it we are learning
afresh ? It is the lesson that the maintenance
of our freedom as individuals that freedom
that we value so much depends upon em-
phasizing and not neglecting the obligations
involved in membership in the nation. For
those who have eyes to see, the church as
well as the nation is passing through a period
of peril. And we have to learn afresh the same
lesson in the sphere of the church. If the
Church of England to-day is to show itself
capable of the sacrifices required of it, and
capable also of adjusting itself to new con-
ditions, we can depend upon it that its
membership must be understood again to
mean subordination to the reasonable authority
of the community and cheerful service. A
church which asks little or nothing of its
members, and from which no slackness or
disobedience cuts men off, is a church which
carries so much dead weight that it cannot
move.
Earlier in the year I wrote to you an "open
letter" which was mainly concerned with the
obligations of the clergy. It is now of the
98 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
obligations of lay-membership that, in the first
instance, I wish to speak.
We criticize the Prayer Book, but more often
we need to criticize ourselves for ignoring
the Prayer Book. Certainly in this matter
of church membership and its obligations, the
Prayer Book sets us a high ideal. According
to the Prayer Book, baptism is our personal
regeneration : our new birth into spiritual
privileges. But it is this, because it is also
our incorporation into membership member-
ship and its obligations. Before the age of
the Prayer Book that principle had been made
emphatic in the ancient Orders of Baptism :
and it was not abandoned. Baptism, according
to the Prayer Book, is to be no hole and corner
ceremony, no merely domestic function : and if,
owing to sickness, it has to be this, the defect
is to be supplied by a public reception into the
church. Apart from necessity, baptism itself
" should not be administered but upon Sundays,
and other Holy Days, when the most number
of people come together," and that in order
"that the congregation there present may
testify the receiving of them that be newly
baptized into the number of Christ's church."
In the case of adults no other time for baptism
than after the second lesson at Morning or
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 99
Evening Prayer, on the Sunday or Holy Day
when the people are assembled, is even con-
templated as possible. And sponsors are to
present the person, or infant, to be baptized,
who in the case of the adult are to keep him
up to his duties, and in the case of the infant
are to guarantee his being brought up to
understand the meaning of his baptism, and
his being instructed in his religion. Then, as
soon as he is of sufficient age, he is to be
instructed and examined in the Church Cate-
chism, and that again openly in the full
congregation. Then before his confirmation (at
which, again, he is to have a godfather as a
witness) he is to make a public renewal of the
vows of his baptism. Only those so confirmed
after a public renewal of their vows (or those
who are ready and desirous to be so confirmed)
are to be admitted to the Holy Communion,
and then again the privilege of communion
is to be guarded by a public discipline.
Here the church of this land in the sixteenth
century made a great change. The discipline
of auricular or private confession to the priest
was no longer required of any man. It was
left optional for those who felt that they needed
it. But the significance of this change is not
rightly appreciated, unless due stress is laid
LIBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
100 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
upon the fact that, as was widely the case
among the Reformers, there was a strong
determination to revive the practice of public
discipline for such sins as were matter of
common knowledge outside the man's own
conscience. Thus evil livers, and those living
in malice and hatred, are to be restrained
from communion till satisfaction is made ; or
if no satisfaction is made, things are to proceed
to excommunication by the bishop ; and ex-
communications are to be publicly read at
the time of the offertory ; and excommunicate
persons are to be " avoided" until they be
openly reconciled by penance, and received
back into the church. And doubtless in part
for purposes of discipline those who desire
to communicate are " to signify their names
to the curate at least some time the day before " ;
and the communion is to be a corporate act of
the general congregation, large or small ; and
at Eastertide the communicant is to acknow-
ledge his financial obligations, the paying of
the "ecclesiastical duties."
Then, again, those who are to be coupled
together in matrimony are subject to public
law and obligation. Those only can be married
with the rite of the church whose marriage is
not excluded by the Table of Kindred and
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 101
Affinity, and the canon prohibits the re-marriage
of those who have been divorced. Again, when
men are sick they are to be examined as to
their hold upon the common faith the Apostles'
Creed and to make reparation for their offences
against their neighbours. And, finally, the
Burial Service is not to be read over those who
" die unbaptized or excommunicate, or have
laid violent hands upon themselves."
All this is doubtless very familiar, but I have
put together these familiar rubrics and rules
because they represent clearly a high ideal of
obligation attaching to membership. I know
that it seems to some people simply an anti-
quated ideal which has no relation to modern
church life. I recognize that it has, in fact,
fallen at almost every point more or less into
desuetude, and that it is not, perhaps, at every
point recoverable in its original shape. But let
us make no mistake about it. The intentions
of the Prayer Book not only represent the
original idea of the church, but also an idea
that must be recovered in practice if the
church is to live and do its work. Member-
ship in any vigorous and progressive religious
society must involve recognized obligations,
and the refusal of obligation must at last
involve loss of membership.
102 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
Let us, then, return to consider these rules
of the Prayer Book point by point. And let
us begin with the sacrament of initiation.
A sacrament is not a charm, and there is truly
no justification for administering baptism to
an unconscious infant, not in danger of death,
unless the principle is guarded that the society
guarantees its education to understand the
meaning of its baptism. A canon was made
and published by the Convocation of our
Province in 1865 to allow of parents being
also godparents. This has been criticized, and
the canon has never been confirmed by the
Grown. But it has the authority of the Province,
and we may act upon it. Moreover, what I am
chiefly anxious for is that we should go behind
the details of the rule and consider its meaning.
Wherever an infant is to be baptized, in health,
responsible members of the church are to
respond for it and to guarantee its proper
training. I do not think, I know, that by taking
pains we can really, if only gradually and not
yet perfectly, revive the acceptance of both
the principle and practice of sponsors. You
are authorized by the Prayer Book to require
notice of a baptism " overnight or in the
morning." You cannot require more, if the
proper sponsors are provided. But, though it
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 103
cannot be made a matter of obligation, you
will find it of great value to use the forms
for giving notice of baptism which are being
prepared for this diocese and will be procurable
from S.P.G.K. next year. Similar forms are
already in use in some of our parishes. The
intention in using them is to bring back
into common knowledge the obligation of
sponsorship and its meaning.
There are two points I would add. In towns
especially, the incumbent of a parish should
not baptize the children of those who do not
belong to his parish or to his congregation
without an attempt to get them to apply to their
proper pastor. A great deal of good comes of
observance of this rule. Also I would say, that
where parents are conscientious Nonconfor-
mists, and intend their children to be brought
up as Nonconformists, I conceive that it is far
better that they should be baptized by those
who are to have the responsibility for their
training.
I know the great difficulty there is in bringing
back the administration of Holy Baptism into
that public place in the ordinary services
intended for it in the Prayer Book. But I
would have no incumbent fail at least occa-
sionally, and specially in the case of adults, to
104 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
administer the sacrament in the presence of the
full congregation, and to make it the occasion,
perhaps on the previous Sunday, for explaining
the service. I am sure that we need to preach
about Holy Baptism and its meaning a great
deal more than we do.
In my "open letter," 1 which I should wish
to be taken as a part of my charge, I explained
why I cannot connive at relaxation in any
direction of our rule requiring Confirmation
of those desirous to be communicants, and
I will not here revert to the subject.
As to the Confirmations in the diocese,
I have to report to you that no perceptible
change appears to be taking place in the
proportion to the population of those con-
firmed. During the last seven years it has
varied between 1*34 per cent, of the population
in 1911 to TIG per cent, in 1912. But I have no
doubt that we are making steady progress in
realizing the meaning of Confirmation ; and
I must tell you that I hardly ever go to
a Confirmation Service without feeling with
a profound thankfulness that, in the case of
most parishes, there has been a real and sifting
preparation for the reception of the Holy
Spirit by the laying-on of hands. The attention
1 The Basis of A nglican Fellowship, pp. 39-40. Mowbray. 6d.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 105
and reverence also of those who come to be
confirmed is excellent. I hardly ever leave
a Confirmation without feeling that it wit-
nesses to a spiritual capacity in our people
which we are very far at present from making
the most of in their lives as a whole. I hope
that what is done in many parishes will be done
in every parish, and that a roll of those con-
firmed year after year will be compiled and
kept to be handed on from incumbent to
incumbent.
With regard to marriage, I believe that you
know I have given serious thought to the
responsibility which belongs to the incumbent
and ultimately to the bishop. In securing notice
from those who desire the proclamation of
banns, I advise you to use the forms, which are
to be obtained from the S.P.G.K., authorized
by me, on my own responsibility, for use in this
diocese. I advise, but I cannot do more. The
recent law allowing marriage with a deceased
wife's sister, and the law admitting re-marriage
after divorce are confessedly contrary to the
law of our church. I will not discuss the
question now whether our church law ought
to be altered, but I do seriously deprecate the
policy of those who acquiesce in our church
law remaining as it is, without any effort to
106 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
alter it, and at the same time would have us
accept the change in statute law as dispensing
us from its observance. I think this involves
nothing less than treason to the principle that
the church has a law and standard of marriage,
distinguishable from the law and standard of
the state, received from Christ Himself; and
that the " binding" and " loosing" authority in
respect of this law and standard must remain
with the church. And where the binding and
loosing power has been exercised publicly and
for a whole province or national church, as is
the case with us, it cannot be rightly reversed
or altered by any individual bishop, but only by
similarly public and responsible action.
I cannot accept the expedient by which it is
becoming customary to bridge over the contra-
diction between church law and state law, viz.,
that those who are resolved to be married
contrary to our church law must be married
elsewhere than in the church, but may subse-
quently be admitted to Communion at our
altars. Our church has pronounced against
such marriages, rightly or wrongly not irre-
versibly perhaps, but deliberately on most
serious grounds. And those who deliberately
set the ruling of the church aside cannot
expect to retain the privilege of membership.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 107
Moreover, I have no doubt that the privilege
of Communion is the highest and most com-
prehensive privilege of Churchmen, and covers
all minor privileges of church membership,
such as that of being married in church ; so
that no principle can justify us in admitting
to Communion the greater privilege while
we refuse the celebration of matrimony the
lesser privilege a privilege which, for social
reasons, has always been kept as widely open
as possible.
In any case of difficulty as to the acceptance
of banns for marriage in church, or as to
admission to Communion, I am prepared to
advise or give instructions, and to take as far
as possible all responsibility, but I would beg
that, where my counsel or instruction is to be
sought, I may be consulted by the incumbent
before he has done anything to hamper the
freedom of the decision.
As regards the number of our Easter com-
municants, I do not think that any noticeable
change is going on. Within the last seven years
the proportion of communicants to the whole
population has varied between 11'99 per cent,
in 1907 to 12'58 in 1912. But it sank again
(perhaps owing to an early Easter and a wet
Easter) to 12'05 per cent., that is by 3,700, in
108 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
1913. From these figures you cannot deduce
any conclusion of growth or decline.
I said that in the Prayer Book a certain
financial obligation attaches to the members
of the church the paying of dues to the
curate and this obligation we are trying to
renew in a different form and for a different
class of objects. As you know, the diocese,
through its diocesan conference, now accepts
the responsibility of collecting for all our
diocesan purposes. The board elected by the
conference fixes a certain sum to be collected
from the diocese year by year for diocesan
needs, and it is allocated to the various rural
deaneries and by the rural deaneries to the
various parishes. The intention is not that
this allocated sum should be paid by the few
who have more or less wealth. We desire
that they should subscribe independently to
the diocesan fund. The allocation we hope
will be paid by the mass of the people, so
that it should again come to be recognized
that church membership carries with it for
every one a certain financial obligation
according to his means. We desire that every
Christian should regard it as his duty to set
apart a definite proportion of his earnings or
income for the purposes of the kingdom of
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 109
God : that part of this should go to his parish,
part to such public objects as hospitals, part
to the work of the church overseas, and part
also to the diocese for the diocese is the unit
of the organization of the church, and every
church member, rich and poor, should feel
that it has a claim upon him.
Now I have passed in review, in the light
of our present day circumstances, most of the
points at which the Prayer Book emphasizes
the obligation of church membership. Those
which I have not mentioned are those which
require no fresh application, but which remain
to-day as they were when the Prayer Book
was compiled permanent conditions of healthy
membership, which we simply need to-day to
recognize and accept.
But I may say one word about the con-
ditions attached in the Prayer Book to burial
with the Order for the Burial of the Dead.
It is not to be used for those who die unbap-
tized or excommunicate, or who have laid
violent hands upon themselves. In the Special
Service Book for this diocese an office is pro-
vided of a more penitential character, which
may be used for those for whom the Burial
Service of the Prayer Book may not be read.
I am ready to take the responsibility of deciding
110 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
on such cases where I am asked. But I may
say that I think that a verdict of " suicide
while in a state of unsound mind " is so often
returned without any evidence of mental un-
soundness, that, without unreality, we cannot
always accept it. I think that the Prayer Book
does not intend its service to be used over a
suicide, where there is no evidence of un-
soundness of mind other than the fact of
suicide. And in such cases we had better use
the alternative service, which can be used
without unreality, and without attempting to
judge of what we cannot know the real state
of a soul before God.
The purpose of all that I have been trying
to say is that we are bound, if we would
restore the life of the church, to pay careful
heed to the conditions and obligations which
the Prayer Book attaches to membership from
its initiation in baptism till it closes for this
world at the grave. I would have you believe
that these conditions and obligations simply
express a fundamental principle of healthy
membership in any society, secular or religious
the principle that privileges of membership
are correlative to duties loyally accepted and
performed. And it cannot be said that the
requirements which in the Prayer Book the
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 111
church makes upon its members are either
inquisitorial or such as involve any infringe-
ment of reasonable personal liberty. I am
very well aware that by adherence to these
requirements we shall sacrifice a certain kind
of popularity I do not say for ourselves but
for the church. But it is a popularity un-
profitable alike to those who avail themselves
of our laxity, and to the church itself.
THE PLAGE OF SYMBOLISM IN
RELIGION I
One purpose of The Constructive Quarterly is
to give representatives of the different religious
communities of Christendom an opportunity
of expressing as clearly as possible what they
stand for ; in part that they may learn to
understand themselves and one another ; in
part also that those who desire to serve the
cause of union may take note of the real
obstacles in their path and study them care-
fully, so as to get upon the lines of least
resistance in furthering the cause of unity,
or at least be made fully aware at what
points the deepest difficulties are certain to
arise.
In the September number the Rev. F. J.
Hall states "the Anglican position construc-
tively." With his statement I find myself in
cordial agreement. But among his "affirma-
tions" I find the following: "The Catholic
Faith is to be maintained in its purity and
1 Reprinted from the Constructive Quarterly, see Preface.
112
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 113
integrity, as contained in the Scriptures,
summed up in the Greeds, and affirmed by
the undisputed General Councils.' 1 Now of
course there are those among us Anglicans
who would oppose such an affirmation, but
it is not with them I am concerned. I am
concerned rather with the type of mind which
is called Modernist ; which is conscious how
the practical and devotional life of the church
is bound up with its Greed, and how the
different "articles" of Catholic belief are
connected together as links of a vital whole
which accordingly desires to retain in its
integrity the Catholic tradition, but at the
same time insists that it should not be pressed
upon the intellect with " a crude literalism."
In particular it is conscious of the intellectual
opposition which exists among educated men
to-day to belief in such physical miracles as
are recorded in the Gospels and are affirmed
in the Greed in connection with our Lord's
person " I believe in Jesus Christ, who was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the
Virgin Mary . . . and the third day He rose
again from the dead, ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God." The
Modernist does not ask for an alteration in
the phraseology of these clauses. He acqui-
Q
114 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
esces in the plain statements of fact being
taught as the church's message, but he would
plead that in the sphere of the scientific or
critical intellect they should not be pressed
in their literal meaning. They are, in his
view, symbolic statements : that is, statements
which have certain spiritual values. They
represent the spiritual truth that a divine
providence and purpose accompanied the
human birth of our Lord and that a divine
assurance was given of His survival of death
and His spiritual pre-eminence ; but they are
not to be insisted upon as literal statements
of historical fact. Doubtless the mass of men
will so take them. But the critical intellect
finds in such statements literally understood
an insuperable difficulty, and it is enough
that they should be accepted as symbolical
statements true in respect of their spiritual
values.
This Modernist attitude of mind towards
the physical miracles is sufficiently widespread
to make it very well worth while to examine
it especially in The Constructive Quarterly, be-
cause no such statement as Mr. Hall's
"affirmation" just quoted can pass to-day
without the consciousness that the Modernist
interpretation will be put upon it fairly widely
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 115
in intellectualist circles, and Christians of all
religious communions must be deeply inter-
ested to know how far the Modernist
interpretation can be taken as an accepted
interpretation of the narrative in the Gospels
and the clauses in the Greed.
The question of miracles can be considered
from various points of view : from the point
of view of philosophy or science, or from the
point of view of evidence. But I am proposing
to consider it from another point of view
I am proposing to confine myself to this
question of symbolism. I propose to ask, not
whether the principle of symbolism has any
application to religion for I agree that it has
but whether the particular application of
it here suggested is legitimate or tolerable.
I begin then with the general question, and
I agree that symbolism must be admitted to
apply to the language of religion in general
and of the Christian religion in particular-
meaning by symbolism the use of material
images, images couched in the language of
human experience, which are not to be under-
stood literally by the trained intelligence, but
only as the best available expression of trans-
cendent spiritual realities. The great classical
example of these symbolic statements in non-
116 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
Christian thought is to be found in Plato's
beautiful " myths" stories which are to be
taught as simple narratives, but which any
one endowed with some measure of intellec-
tual discernment will see to be valuable only
because they are the vehicles of certain ideas.
This method was admitted to have its place
in the interpretation of the Jewish Bible by
Alexandrian Jews like Philo and by many
Christian theologians besides Origen. Even
a Spinoza could see in such a method a bridge
between what he thought to be intellectually
true and what he saw to be morally edifying
and spiritually necessary for the mass of men.
Men like Renan and Matthew Arnold, who
wanted to retain and make the best use of
a religion which in the strict sense they did
not believe to be true, have popularized it
in modern literary circles. It has become the
accepted device of the reconcilists who find
themselves unable to believe in the actual
occurrence of the physical miracles but want
to retain the religious tradition.
The principle of symbolism, I say, must be
admitted to have legitimate application to some
of the statements or doctrines of the Bible and
the Christian religion. S. Paul certainly admits
this when he says of our present Christian
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 117
"knowledge" that it is a seeing "through a
glass darkly" that is, a blurred reflection of
reality "in a mirror," or truth conveyed "in
a riddle/' This must be so, for, to begin with,
human language is inadequate to thought. As
Victor Hugo says in VHomme qui Rit\ "II
est presque impossible d'exprimer dans leur
limites exactes les Evolutions abstruses qui se
font dans le cerveau. L J inconv6nient des mots,
c'est d'avoir plus de contour que les id6es.
Toutes les id6es se melent par les bords ; les
mots, non. Un certain cote diffus de Tame
leur 6chappe toujours. L'expression a des
frontieres, la pensde n'en a pas." I think that
this is an illuminating account of the way in
which our best thought about the highest and
deepest subjects deteriorates in the attempt
to express it with precision. This is why not
merely a deep feeling but a great idea seems
sometimes so much more convincingly con-
veyed even to ordinary people in music than
in words. And in regard to things eternal it
is not only human language but human thought
which is at fault. Certainly in this region our
"science" is but seeing "through a glass
darkly." Let us then try to grapple with
the question at closer quarters and more in
detail ; and let us begin by analysing the
118 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
certainly legitimate applications to our re-
ligious language of the principle of symbolism.
1. The theologians have always applied the
principle of symbolism to the words and
phrases used by the church in speaking about
God, not only to the earlier and cruder anthro-
pomorphisms of the Old Testament, in which
God is spoken of as " walking" and "coming
down to see" and riding upon clouds, but
also to the expression of His attributes of
mercy and justice, compassion and wrath,
which are and must be, for human purposes,
spoken of as distinct from one another and
overriding one another, while in reality they
cannot be so, to the idea of His "foreknow-
ledge," His "descent from heaven" in the
Incarnation, and to the mystery of His triune
being. On all these and the like subjects the
theologians have always been at pains to
emphasize that our human language and our
theological definitions are utterly inadequate
to the divine realities, and that this is the
chief sphere to which S. Paul's words have
their application that our present "know-
ledge" of God is "in part," that we are but
seeing "through a glass darkly," and that when
we see " face to face " in another state of being,
our present knowledge will be "done away."
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 119
But in admitting the principle thus fully,
we must guard it against misconception. We
can feel and hold a quite definite idea of God
practically, even if we cannot define it or
express it with exactness. The Christian idea
of God, the Creator and the Father, the idea of
His attributes of justice and love, the idea that
God is Himself love, and that Christ's char-
acter is God's character, the character of the
only Creator and sustainer of the world, the
idea of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as three
Persons in one Godhead, are quite real ideas
of God, which we Christians believe to have
been through prophets and the Son divinely
revealed to us, though in part even the ideas
themselves as we conceive them (and much
more the expressions of them in words) are
inadequate, and only symbolically true. How-
ever inadequate the ideas are, they are the
truest ideas we can have in our present state
of being, and the phrases which are best to
express them are the phrases which secure
the ideas. Thus it is quite inadmissible to
use the symbolic principle in order to evacuate
or weaken the ideas. There have been other
ideas of God current for instance the philo-
sophic idea of the immanent Reason and
Energy. This idea of God Christianity can
120 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
assimilate, but the Christian idea of the
Creator or Father is far greater than it, and
distinct from it. And while we are admitting
that the Christian ideas or phrases are inade-
quate, we must insist that they are distinct
and vivid ideas which tend to produce a
special type of character in those who hold
them and worship in accordance with them ;
that the truth of Christianity means the truth
(within the limits of human capacity) of these
revealed ideas and not of any other ideas ;
and that the phrases best express the truths
which most securely guard and most vividly
express these ideas.
2. The same principle of symbolic language
must be applied to all that lies outside our
present human experience. The Bible begins
with an account of creation and ends with
an anticipation of the end of the world-
things which lie outside our possibilities of
present experience. Thus it begins and ends
in pictures and symbolical narratives. I do
not see that any Christian either can reason-
ably deny this or has any interest in doing
so. As regards the beginning of the world,
the object of divine revelation is certainly not
to satisfy human curiosity on matters which
lie outside the possibilities of human observa-
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 121
tion ; but to give, in terms intelligible to men
at every stage of civilization, and to men of
all kinds of education, such ideas of the origin
of the world, of human nature, of human sin
and divine providence, as suffice for practical
guidance. Thus the Bible begins with what
S. Gregory of Nyssa calls "ideas in the form
of a story," symbolic narratives which are
not to be taken for literal history. So the
Bible begins and so it ends. It anticipates
the "end of the world": that is, it provides
for men the sort of outlook on the ultimate
future which is morally necessary for them,
both to encourage them to feel that it is worth
while doing their best without regard to the
shortness of life and the seeming futility of
human efforts after the highest ends, and
also to prepare them for desperate struggle
with the forces of evil within and without.
But it is no purpose of God's Spirit to write
history for us beforehand. (We must on the
whole discard Butler's rather unfortunate
definition of prophecy.) Thus the Biblical
descriptions of "the day of the Lord" both
in the Old Testament and in the New are
highly figurative. They project into the end
of the vista of history a scene which in most
graphic and arresting forms symbolizes what
122 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
lies and must at present lie outside of our
capacity to realize in literal form. Here
again, then, in the region of what lies outside
possible human experience in the past and
the future we are dependent for practical
spiritual knowledge on symbols. We see
through a glass darkly.
But here, again, while we recognize the
symbolic character of the phrases in which
we are taught about the creation and end of
the world, we must be careful not to suffer
ourselves by this recognition to lose hold of
the special idea which they enshrine and to
substitute another. The New Testament
language about the end of the world gives
us a picture of a universal catastrophe, of a
judgement coming on the whole world in its
alienation from God or forgetfulness of God,
a judgement like that which came in turn on
the " giant forms of empire " of old, it tells
us of the awful figure of the Christ coming
in the clouds of heaven as the judge of the
world, of the gathering of all mankind before
His throne, of the final overthrow of all the
enemies of God, and their condign and
terrible punishment, of a reconstitution of
the whole material world to serve henceforth
only the purpose of divine righteousness
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 123
a new heaven and a new earth "wherein
dwelleth righteousness " and of the fulfilment
of the divine destiny for man in the New
Jerusalem. It is quite one thing to recognize
that all this is symbolic language and is not
to be taken literally. It is quite another thing
to evacuate the pictures of their moral and
practical meanings and substitute a really
fundamentally different idea. For instance,
the idea of a development of the world which
shall proceed on the whole from better to
better, till it finally issues in the perfection
of man, and which leaves out the whole
element of catastrophe, and of final judge-
ment on a rebellious world and on individual
rebel spirits, and the purging of creation and
its reconstitution such an idea of gradual
development towards universal perfection is
a different idea from the Biblical idea and
will produce quite different moral effects
upon the mind. We must recognize that the
Biblical language is symbolic, but we must
recognize, if we would be Christian believers,
that what the symbolism teaches is true. Or
again, with regard to the Bible language about
angels and devils, it is one thing to recognize
that the language about the devil "going
about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may
124 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
devour," or about the " unclean spirit going
through dry places seeking rest and finding
none," and then returning to the empty
chamber of the human heart, or about the
angels of little children beholding the face
of God in heaven is symbolical language,
but it is quite another thing to dismiss from
our minds the whole idea of good and bad
spirits and their relation to us and influence
on us. Language may be symbolic and also
true. And it undoubtedly makes a great
practical difference whether we believe in
spirits good or evil other than human spirits,
and in their actual relations to us.
Again, as in the case of our phraseology
about God, so in the case of the language
of the Bible about the creation and the end
of the world, it should be noticed that to
recognize its symbolical character is no merely
modern device. Certainly in the first Chris-
tian centuries the symbolical view of the early
chapters of Genesis was dominant and not
only within the range of Alexandrian influ-
ence. It is recorded by a late writer that
the somewhat literally-minded Irenaeus also
argued that the narrative of Eden and the
fall must be regarded not "historically" or
"literally" but "spiritually" if we are to
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 125
give its language any satisfactory interpreta-
tion. 1 How far this interpretation of what
is narrated as a fact is to carry us will be
matter for further consideration. But the
principle was in fact thoroughly familiar in
the period when Christianity came out into
the world both in Jewish and heathen litera-
ture and was generally applied to the opening
narratives of Scripture. Then, as regards the
end of the world, the freedom with which
the Apocalyptic writers, including the seer
of the New Testament apocalypse, rehandled
the traditional scenery of "the day of the
Lord " shows that they were thoroughly
familiar with its symbolical character.
3. Again, the same principle applies to the
revelation of what is "above" and "below"
our present sphere of experience to heaven
and hell. It is easy to see that if this world
is not all if God is above and beyond we
must have both an idea and a word for this
extra-mundane sphere of the divine presence.
We must say and feel that " God is in heaven."
But also Christians from the first held as a
most certain conviction, on which all was
staked, that the life of a man did not end with
the grave, that the spirits of the dead were
1 See Stieren's Irenaeus, fragm. 14.
126 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
alive in the beyond, and in some sense were
now receiving and in a further sense would
receive, at the time of the end, the due
rewards of their deeds. I say "In one sense
were now receiving and in another sense
would receive at the end " ; for at present
they must be thought of as bare spirits, wait-
ing for the time of the resurrection, when
they shall receive their spiritual bodies by
the resurrection from the dead. So far as
they have taken in the meaning of S. Paul
and later of Origen, Christians have recog-
nized that the resurrection body would not
be built up again of the materials of corrup-
tion : but in any case they believed in future
life in a sphere of waiting, an intermediate
state of disembodied spirits, in the resurrection
of the dead, and in heaven and hell : and
later, without warrant of Scripture yet under
the pressure of what seems a strong demand
of the practical reason, they added to the
necessary scenery of the world beyond the
idea of purgatory. With this exception,
Scripture had already presented not only
convictions and ideas but terms and phrases
which provided for the imagination a sort of
vague spiritual scenery of the other world.
In part these terms had a very old history
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 127
and were derived from days of very crude
imagination, as that God sat just above the
clouds in this sense in heaven, or at a higher
place more remote, the seventh heaven : and
that the ghosts of the dead were in a hollow
place under the earth.
As I have said, it was very easy for early
Christian thinkers to recognize the symbolical
character of these local and special ideas, for
such symbolism was everywhere in the air. I
do not feel the least doubt that S. Paul and
the author of the fourth gospel did not think
they could get to God's house by going up high
enough, as in a balloon, or that they would
find hell if they could dig deep enough. In fact
the way in which S. Paul speaks of us as
already in "the heavenly places" (or "the
heavenlies ") shows that his idea of heaven
was more than local. We need have no scruple
at all then in recognizing the large element of
symbolism in all that affects the life beyond
our present sphere of possible experience,
though here again it must be emphasized that
the ideas in part symbolized in the phrases
"paradise," "heaven," "hell," and in the
concrete images of the resurrection of the dead
from their tombs, are distinct ideas which are
of the essence of the Christian religion ; and
128 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
that the phrases which express them pre-
sumably take us nearer the realities than any
other phrases we can devise ; or if we think
we can invent for any particular idea a better
phrase than the traditional one, we must
take the greatest care that the phrase protects
and expresses the distinctive idea, and is not
really in the long run calculated to substitute
another and a different idea, that is to say,
to alter the character of the religion.
4. Once more, we must recognize in the
region of the sacraments a proper application
of the symbolical principle. The sacraments
are acted symbols : but symbols in the sense
that the outward act or visible thing really
is or involves its spiritual counterpart. 1 The
object of the symbolic act is to present to the
senses some spiritual transaction which is
really effected in correspondence with the
outward rite. But the symbolic act being so
given, it supplies and is intended to supply
the language in which we must talk about
the spiritual reality. Thus we talk about
"washing away our sins" and "eating" and
"drinking" the flesh and blood of Christ
1 See Harnack Lehrbuch der dogn:eng. I, p. 360 (Eng. trans.
II, p. 144 in this case not quite accurate) on the early idea
of symbolism.
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 129
because the reality of spiritual cleansing or
spiritual assimilation lies concealed behind the
physical action of washing with water or
eating in common. In this sense the principle
of symbolism must be applied and has been
universally applied to sacramental language.
Now I think I may claim that in all these
four regions of Christian conception and lan-
guage that is to say the being of God, the
beginning and end of the world, heaven and
hell, and the sacraments the application of
the principle of symbolism was generally
recognized by the Christian Fathers and
would be generally recognized to-day. Its
assertion may shock a believer who has not
thought much about the matter, at first hear-
ing, but further reflection will convince him
that the principle is sound.
And the principle thus recognized, affects,
and always has affected, the sense in which
Christians say certain articles of the Creed,
especially " He came down from heaven,"
"He descended into hell," "He ascended in-
to heaven and sitteth on the right hand of
God." About the spiritual metaphor of the
first phrase we need say nothing more: but
what do we mean, what has the church
always meant, when it has said that our Lord
130 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
"descended into hades"? We need not con-
cern ourselves with the question when the
clause got into the Greed, for I think there
is overwhelming evidence going back to the
first epistle of S. Peter to a passage obscure
in a certain sense but, so far as we are now
concerned with it, quite distinct in meaning
that the Christians believed that when Christ
died and His body was buried, a really dead
man's body in the sepulchre, He, the man
Christ Jesus considered as a human spirit,
was no more dead than Abraham or Moses.
In His spirit He went where human spirits
go, and was indeed active amongst them. I
do not think it can be fairly pleaded that the
phrase "He descended into hades" did mean
or was intended to mean anything more than
this. It is symbolic because it uses the lan-
guage of physical descent which is derived
ultimately from the idea that the ghosts of the
dead are under the earth in a pit. But, as I
have said, the symbolic interpretation of such
language is older than Christianity. It was
an accepted principle among the Fathers of
the early period. I have no doubt that there
was then, as in the Middle Ages, a great
deal of misplaced literalism, but no one to-
day need hesitate to recognize symbolism in
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 131
the language which confesses Christ to have
" descended into hades."
Now we come to the clause " He ascended
into heaven and sitteth on the right hand."
So far as the first part of this clause is con-
cerned it must be understood to refer to an
historical incident, viz., that the body of Jesus
Christ, forty days after His resurrection, rose
before His disciples eyes upwards from the
earth and vanished. This fact, which we accept
as a fact, if we believe that S. Luke grounded
his narrative on good testimony, is quite of
a piece with other recorded appearances, and
must be interpreted to be, like other appear-
ances after the resurrection, in a special sense
a symbolic action. By this I mean that our
Lord was not raised to the old conditions
of His mortal life. The risen body is repre-
sented in the Gospel narratives probably as
passing out of the grave clothes, leaving them
intact, and out of the sepulchre, before the
stone was rolled away to show that He was
gone certainly as becoming suddenly present
within closed rooms, as appearing in different
forms to different people, as no longer living
here or there, or passing by walking from
Jerusalem to Galilee or Galilee to Jerusalem.
He is represented indeed as walking as a
132 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
pilgrim to Emmaus even as eating with His
disciples, as showing them His wounds ; but
we gather that all His appearances were of
the nature of manifestations made out of a
higher state, and simply expressive of a
spiritual purpose. This I say is the impres-
sion made by the narrative when carefully
examined. Its data correspond to the idea
which S. Paul conveys effectively but vaguely
by speaking of a spiritual body. We are led
to think of a state in which matter has be-
come simply the instrument of spiritual pur-
pose. Thus it seems to me that when Christ
"ascended into the heavens" physically and
actually, He was expressing in visible form a
certain spiritual idea, namely, His exaltation
to the Father's throne.
We of to-day know that heaven is not really
a locality above our heads, more clearly no
doubt than the first disciples who were wit-
nesses of the event knew it ; but still for us
and always, the idea of moral glory or moral
failure must be expressed in local phrases, by
the words "up" or "down," "higher" or
" lower." I do not see what other action
could, even for us to-day, express, as the
"ascension" expressed it, the majestic truth.
In the act and in the phrase expressing it we
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 133
acknowledge the element of symbolism which
is involved whenever we talk of heaven as
"above." When we speak of Christ "sitting
in the heavenly places" or "at the right hand
of God " we are carrying the metaphor further.
But here at least Christians have always
known that they were using metaphors, and
have said so very explicitly, especially about
the phrase "sitting at God's right hand."
My point is, then, that in many spheres of
Christian language and in certain articles of
the Creed, the symbolical principle must be
admitted : the language is true symbolically
and not literally. And the reason for this
admission is in each case the same, because
the language applies to what lies outside our
possible or actual human experience ; it con-
cerns the transcendent God, or regions of
existence which lie in "the beyond"; and
inasmuch as human language is the counter-
part of human experience, and we have no
other language to use, and inasmuch as even
human thought or conception is limited and
confined by present experience inasmuch as
we have no celestial language we can only
speak of what lies in the beyond by symbols,
which we must recognize as symbols, even
while we also recognize that they are the
134 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
best instruments we have for holding and
speaking of realities.
5. But and here I come to what I have
specially in view in this essay we are now
urged by our Modernist friends to extend the
application of this principle so as to recognize
that ;the phrases in our Greed ' He was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the
Virgin Mary " and " He rose again the third
day from the dead " are symbolical phrases.
It is conceded that the phrases were origin-
ally intended to represent literal events which
actually happened, but now that we have
ceased to find such physical miracles credible
any longer, we can, it is contended, still use
the phrases with sincerity of feeling as express-
ing symbolically realities which for us have
an equivalent spiritual value. Thus "He
was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of
the Virgin Mary " would be a symbol of the
truth that a special divine providence and
purpose attended the birth of Christ : and
"He rose again the third day from the dead"
would be a symbol of the truth that, though
the body of Christ did in fact see corruption
in the ordinary course of nature, yet He did
really survive death and make His survival
known. But such a proposed extension of
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 135
the principle of symbolism really violates the
principle. We must use symbolic language in
the region which lies outside physical experi-
ence. But the distinguishing principle of the
religion of the Incarnation is that God has
also manifested Himself in the body and in
physical events, and such events beyond all
question we can describe in human language
literally. That is exactly the purpose of human
language to describe with sufficient exactness
what happens in human experience.
Thus though we do not know wholly how
a natural birth of a child occurs, we can
describe it in sufficiently accurate language.
And though we do not wholly know how the
birth of a child from a virgin mother would
take place, we can describe the event with
the same definiteness. So of a physical resur-
rection and the subsequent manifestations.
It cannot with any show of reason be denied
that the point of Christianity was that these
things and the like miracles had actually
happened : and that provision had been most
carefully made that they should be proclaimed
by competent witnesses. The insistence upon
actual occurrence and competent witness in
the New Testament is unmistakable.
The whole pretension of Christianity centres
136 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
upon the real occurrence of an event, the
resurrection, and in a secondary sense upon
a whole series of events, the special value of
which lies in their extraordinary character,
their being unaccountable except as direct acts
of God calling attention to His moral purpose
in the redemption of the world. Of course
you may say of such supposed events either
that they are, or that they are not, supported
by adequate evidence ; you may say that
they manifest the glory of God, or that they
degrade our idea of Him ; you may say that
they enlarge our conception of nature or that
they only confuse it and throw it into dis-
order. What you cannot say with any show
of reason is that their occurrence makes no
difference to our conception of God or of
nature : or that Christianity would have taken
its place, all the same, whether they were
believed to occur or not : or that it makes
no difference to the validity of Christianity
whether the belief was justified or no : or that
the precise assertion of their occurrence can
symbolize a course of events in which they
did not occur. To introduce the idea of
symbolism in this manner is to obliterate the
difference between happening and not happen-
ing, and is to throw all language and thought
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 137
into confusion. Symbolism is a necessary
principle so far as we are dealing with beings
or states or events which lie outside the
region of possible human experience in this
world, for inasmuch as human language is
the transcript of human experience under
present conditions we have no adequate lan-
guage to use about such events or states or
beings. We have no " other-worldly " lan-
guage : we must use the best terrestrial words
we can, recognizing their symbolic character.
But for events in the terrestrial sphere we
have a language and are bound so to use it
so as to describe faithfully what occurred.
And false language is not symbolic. We
could express quite well in human language
how Christ was born and died and came to
be believed to have conquered death, which-
ever way these things actually happened. Or
we can say that they were at the time be-
lieved to have happened one way, but did in
fact happen another. But we cannot obliterate
the difference or the importance of the differ-
ence. No description of an event which pro-
fesses to be historical can be symbolic of a
different kind of occurrence. The word sym-
bolic is out of place in such a connection, and
nothing can be more certain than that S. Paul
s
138 THE WAR AND THE CHURCH
knew the difference between the function of
human language to express the historical
events "that Christ died and was buried,
and that He rose again the third day " and
the function of human language in speaking
of the being of God " dwelling in the light
unapproachable" or the " mystery" of the
spiritual body or the "seventh heaven."
I do not profess to have contributed anything
in this argument to the discussion of the
question whether the grounds of belief in the
miraculous events affirmed in the Greed are
adequate or no. But I do profess to have
made it evident that the Modernist claim to
repeat the affirmations and to interpret them
in a " symbolical " sense, because such sym-
bolical sense attaches to other clauses of the
Creed, is a claim which completely fails to
justify itself. Symbolism is in place where
we are dealing with what we cannot express
in terms of human experience ; it is quite out
of place where the affirmation concerns what
passed within the limits of present human
experience, and to confuse this issue is to
confuse the issues between happening or not
happening and between truth or falsehood.
PS. Since this essay was written I have
PLACE OF SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION 139
been asked the question whether I do not
admit that there is such a thing as symbolical
history, as (to take an extreme instance)
when in legends of the saints of the least
valuable sort miracles are inserted, without
any regard to evidence, just like the halo in
art round the saint's head, simply as meaning
that -such and such a man or woman was a
saint and must therefore be presumed to have
worked the appropriate miracles ; and I am
further asked whether I do not admit that
this sort of symbolical history is found to a
greater or less extent in the Bible. To this
question I should answer that I have read
the Pere Delehaye on Les legendes hagiogra-
phiques, and I admit the existence of the sort of
"history" described, and, in a measure, its
existence in the Bible, though I should prefer
the term "legend" to describe it rather than
"symbolical history." But there is also such
a thing as history properly so called, that is
a record, not infallible in all details but suf-
ficiently accurate, of events as they actually
occurred, and the value of such history
depends on its being a true record, and the
Gospel narratives unmistakably claim to be
history of this kind, of which the value
depends upon its truth to fact.
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