Curious Church Customs and Cognate Subjects Part 18

"A most Learned, Conscientious and Devout Exercise or Sermon of Self-Denyal, (Preached or) Held forth the last Lords-day of April, in the year of Freedom the 1st, 1649. At Sir P. T.'s House in Lincolns-Inn-Fields. By Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell, Immediately before his going for Ireland, as it was then faithfully taken in Characters, By Aaron Gueredo. And now published for the Benefit of the New Polonian a.s.sociation, and late Famed Ignoramus furies of this city. Humbly Dedicated to the Worthy Protestant-Hop-Merchants, and the rest of the Ignoramus-Brethren.

London: Printed in the Year of Freedom 43."

The sermons of Tobias Crisp, which gave rise to a long controversy, were printed from "shortwriting," in 1642-43, and also those of Stephen Crisp, the Quaker, in 1694.

The quarrel between the preacher and the reporter was not long in breaking out. Here is the indignant complaint of Dr. Calamy in the preface of one of his discourses.--

"The iniquity of the times hath necessitated the printing of the ensuing Sermon. There is a Fellow, (who he is I know not) who hath for his own private advantage, published it very imperfectly and corruptly. And herein hath not only sinned against the 8th Commandment in taking away another man's goods without his leave, but also against the 9th Commandment, in bearing false witness against his neighbour.

For he makes me to say not only such things which I never said, but which are very absurd and irrational. As for example: That the Body is the worse part of the Soul. That the party deceased had not only dona sanaia, but selutifera. That I should tell a story of one good Pell, a Minister, born without doubt in Utopia, for of such a man I never either read or heard. To make some satisfaction to the living and the dead, here you have the same sermon in a truer edition with some few additions then omitted for want of time. If this unhappy necessity may contribute anything to thy good, or to the perpetuating of the Memory of the Reverend, Learned, and G.o.dly Minister (at whose Funeral it was preached), I shall not much repent for what I have done, though I am a.s.sured, that he that brought me into this necessity, hath cause to repent of this, his irregular and unwarrantable practice. ("The Saint's Transfiguration," a Sermon preached at the Funeral of Dr.

Samuel Bolton, by Edmund Calamy, B.D., October 19, 1654. London, 1655)."

The preacher had of course alluded to Conradus Pellica.n.u.s, the German theologian, whose name the stenographer had but partially caught, and set down as "Pell!" _Hinc illae lachrymae_--of angry indignation.

The stenographers of the last century followed closely in the footsteps of their predecessors. James Weston's "Stenography" of which various editions appeared between 1727 and 1740, has an engraving showing a cathedral, in which a bewigged divine is preaching to a crowd of fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen, many of whom are busy with pen and notebook.

Underneath the picture is the motto,--

"Be perfect in this useful art, and then No word from pulpit can escape your pen."

This idea was conveyed by Aulay Macaulay, whose "Polygraphy" has for a frontispiece a pretty engraving, in which two gentlemen and a lady are seen taking down the words which, from the preacher's gestures, we may suppose to be both impressive and profitable.

In the nineteenth century, as in the seventeenth, the church is much frequented by stenographers, but more it is to be feared for practice in shorthand than for perfection in piety. The first ambition of the boy who is learning shorthand is to "report" a sermon by the preacher whose ministry he attends. Mr. Thomas Allen Reed has given an amusing account of his first exploit in this direction, when he was still struggling with the early difficulties of the system he soon after abandoned for phonography.

He says, "I did not, however, relinquish my practice, and in a few weeks I resolved on making a grand attempt to take down the Sunday sermon. I rose early in the morning with the sense of a weighty responsibility resting upon me. I sharpened my pencil with the gravity of a senator, and folded several sheets of paper together, in the profound conviction that I was undertaking a serious, if not a formidable, duty. I did my best to conceal my emotions, but my heart was beating all the way to the church. As to the preliminary service, I understood as little of it as if it had been read in Cherokee. I stood when I ought to have knelt, and knelt when I should have sat or stood, and demeaned myself like a youth whose religious education had been sadly neglected. At length the clergyman entered the pulpit, and I took my sheets of paper from the Bible in which I had concealed them, and my pencil from my pocket. If I did not feel like Bonaparte's soldiers, that the eyes of posterity were upon me, I devoutly believed that every eye in the church was directed to my note book. The colour mounted my cheeks (as it very often did at that period of my life,) and my whole frame trembled. I had a strong impulse to abandon my project, but I summoned all my energy to the task, and awaited the commencement of the sermon. 'The 12th chapter of Isaiah and the 3rd verse,' said the minister in solemn tones. This presented no great difficulty. I am sorry to say that, stenographically speaking, I burked Isaiah, and contented myself with the long-hand abbreviation, Is., and as to the text itself, I thought the first three words would suffice. And now for the sermon. 'The remarkable words, my brethren, of this important prophecy.' Laboriously I followed the deliberate utterances of the speaker, but when I reached the prophecy I floundered about in a maze of dire confusion. I thought it began with ph, and I accordingly started as I had been instructed, with the stenographic equivalent, f, but, finding that this would not do, I crossed it out. Then I tried p, r, and getting a good deal confused, plunged madly into the alphabet, the result being a combination of characters altogether beyond description. But where was the preacher?

Away in the distance, almost out of sight and hearing. I was fairly beaten, but not quite disheartened. When another sentence was begun I made a fresh start, this time I was pulled up by the word 'synonymous,' I knew there were some n's and m's in it, but not how many. I must have written three or four of each, and while I was jerking out these segments of circles (their forms were the same as in Phonography,) the clergyman was remorselessly pursuing the intricacies of a long sentence, which I was compelled wholly to abandon. I made several other efforts with the like result. At length I secured an entire sentence of about twenty words, and felt very proud of the achievement. Some half-dozen such sentences rewarded my labour during the sermon. How I racked my brain in the afternoon in poring over these fragments! My memory (not then a bad one) was utterly useless. I had not the slightest conception of the drift of the sermon, but I was determined to make some kind of a transcript, and it was made. I presented it to my mother as my first attempt, and I believe she kept it carefully locked up in a drawer among her treasures. It was fortunate for my reputation that it never afterwards saw the light."

(Leaves from the Notebook of Thomas Allen Reed, vol. 1, p. 12; vol. 2, p.

24).

The professional reporting of sermons is now an important department of the stenographer's work. The late Mr. Spurgeon's sermons were thus reported by Mr. Reed. Dr. c.u.mming had his own reporter, as had Beecher, and as Talmage and others have. Dr. Joseph Parker's discourses were "specially reported" by his wife. It is to the phonographic skill of a lady that we owe the preservation of many of the lectures, sermons, and prayers of the late George Dawson. The sermons of the Rev. Thomas T. Lynch were also reported by Mr. Reed. Yet the preacher had a strong dislike to his discourses being reported and printed, "especially without his revision." There, no doubt, is the rub. Dr. Morley Punshon had a strong dislike to be reported, and some letters that pa.s.sed between him and Mr.

Reed are given in the _Phonetic Journal_, July 30th, 1881. His objections were that the reporter was sometimes inaccurate, and that the preacher alone had a right to decide whether he would or would not address the larger congregation to be reached by the press. And he urged very strongly that the arguments used by Macaulay as to the unauthorised publication of his speeches were equally applicable to the case of sermons. It is still a rather doubtful point whether sermons are covered by the law of copyright, and many single sermons and even volumes have been published without the sanction, and sometimes against the wishes, of the preachers. But as it has been held by the law courts that a professor's lectures cannot be legally published without his consent, it is possible that some day a preacher may arise who will test the question and ask the judges to say if the pulpit is as much protected as the teacher's desk. The late Bishop Fraser is said to have jocularly declared that there was no heresy that had not been attributed to him by the slips of note-takers and condensers.

Shorthand has been extensively used for the MS. of preachers, as by Dr.

Chalmers, Job Orton, and a host of other preachers,--so many, indeed, that to deal with stenography in the pulpit would need a larger s.p.a.ce than is here available.

Perhaps the most original use of shorthand in church was that due to the conscientiousness and business instincts of the late Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith.

Ecclesiastical patronage he felt to be a great responsibility. When there was a minister to be appointed he sought the best information as to those who were recommended to him as suitable. Sometimes he corresponded with friends likely to know; "at other times he used to send his confidential shorthand writer to attend the services of clergymen who might be suitable for the vacancy, and bring him verbatim reports of the sermons, with confidential memoranda of their appearance, views, abilities, and other details. It was only after carefully examining this information that he would proceed to make the appointment."

Those clergymen who owed their promotion to the testimonials thus obtained might say with Job Orton's pious fervour, "Blessed be G.o.d for shorthand."

Reminiscences of our Village Church.

BY THE REV. CANON BENHAM, B.D., F.S.A.

I propose in the following notes to write my recollections of a village church. They extend over nearly sixty years, and will, no doubt, describe a growth and change which might have been observed in a thousand English churches.

But first, let me say a few words of this church before my recollection of it; not long before, for I am indebted to my mother's reminiscences for the few trifles with which I open. It was a heavy looking edifice, not attractive to the eye as compared with the "storied windows, richly dight," which mark the churches of the beautiful Gothic revival of our own times. This was a plain building, flint, with queer old stone facings, a heavy tower, "churchwarden" windows with diamond panes, with not an atom of beautiful tracery from one end to the other.

And yet that church, if you had been taught how to look for it, contained features of the deepest interest to an antiquary. Within, were heavy Norman pillars between nave and aisles, and a round-headed flattened chancel arch, unmistakably Saxon. For that church was built by S. Wilfred of York in the 8th century, and built so substantially, that there it was in the 19th century, st.u.r.dy and strong, though successive generations had bepewed it and begalleried it, and put in square ugly windows, and a three-decker, in fact, had used their utmost endeavours to disfigure it.

They could not destroy the simple Norman capitals, but they had whitewashed them, and had written up, with the best intentions, texts on the walls, in which my youthful eyes discovered two or three blunders in spelling. It is no wonder that the old Rector, who liked to see everything graceful and artistic, but who had never learned the principles of Architecture scientifically, failed to appreciate S. Wilfred's ancient work, and yearned to see something more graceful in its place. But of that presently. Let me go back for eighty years. The inc.u.mbent in those days was an old foxhunter, very fat and of enormous appet.i.te. One day he came in from a long run across country. "Wilthon," said he (he used to lisp) "What ith there for my dinner?" "A goose, sir," said Wilson. "Bring him up, Wilthon, I'll goothe him." And he finished the goose and picked every bone clean. A well-known politician, who died only recently, was born in the village, and the old rector was called on to baptize him. "Name thith child," said he, and the answer was duly given, "James Edwin Thorold." The rector stared, for such exuberance of nomenclature was very uncommon in those days. "What?" he said in amazement. The name was repeated. "Bleth my thoul, what a lot of nameth," said he, "thay it onthe more." The name was said a third time, and the baby was duly christened. A lady who witnessed this, and who still lives, told me of this. She was twelve years old. My grandfather, in those days, was leader of the choir. They sat in a gallery, and had a fiddler and a trombone to accompany them. The trial of Queen Caroline, in 1820, raised the pa.s.sions of the whole country to fever heat, and the rustics, for the most part, took the queen's side. When the news came down, that Government had abandoned the "bill of pains and penalties" for depriving her of the t.i.tle of queen, there were processions through the street, and every window that did not display a candle, by way of illumination, got a stone through it. On the following Sunday my grandfather gave out the Psalm, which of course was Tate and Brady's, "35th Psalm, 11th and three following verses, _False witnesses with forged complaints_." It was sung with tremendous energy, and the old rector was furious, not unreasonably, and sent the whole choir to Coventry for some time. He used to put on his surplice in the chancel, before the people, and exchange it in the reading desk for the black gown, and used to preach one sermon on Sundays. He died about 1826, and was succeeded by one who was a brilliant scholar, a canon of a northern Cathedral, and a man who according to his lights was zealous for the decencies of worship. Thus he built a vestry, put the clerk into a black gown, and started a verger with a long coat and red collar, knee breeches, and a long staff of office, who always preceded him to the reading desk. I am now come within the sphere of my own recollections. This old rector lived until 1844, and my early ideas of the proprieties of the church service were all drawn from him.

For he had a reason for everything, and expressed it pleasantly, and he was very kind to me personally. Is it any wonder that for many a year I tried all questions of ritual--I am not sure that I have ceased even now--with "What would Doctor B. have thought about this?" He never preached one sermon in the church during his whole inc.u.mbency. I understood that it was the danger of a sudden failure of voice, to which he was subject, that prevented him. Anyhow that was the fact. But he established afternoon sermons, and his curate always preached them. He himself used regularly to say the Prayers, and never since his day have I ever heard anybody read the lessons so well as he did. I never hear the first chapter of the Hebrews without recalling the magnificent roll of his voice, as he brought out of it the points of the opening argument. He was keen upon chanting, and vocal music, and we always sang the Canticles, and the metrical Psalms--as I think very well--and a few Sanctuses. The only case of chanting the Prayer Book Psalms was certainly curious. He had heard in Westminster Abbey, the 137th Psalm, "By the waters of Babylon,"

sung to a chant which much delighted him, and on the 28th day of the month, when that Psalm occurs, we chanted it to the music referred to. All the other Psalms were read.

We used to be told at school that on Sundays we got a taste of Heaven, for we went to church and sang G.o.d's praises. I do not quarrel with the teaching even now, I think there is something in it. But I used to think, in those tender pinafore years, that in Heaven there would be one improvement, namely, that we should not stand on cold damp stones and feel half perished. There were forms running up the centre of the church, the whole length of it, on the cold bricks, no arrangement at all for kneeling, and on these forms we sat during lessons, prayers, sermon; and many a cold in the head did I catch. The best singers among the boys, of whom I was not one, went into the gallery. The old Rector established a school in the village, and we learned the Tonic Sol-Fah, and the singing was said to be the best for miles round. I think it was in 1842, two years before his death, that the fiddles and clarionettes were disestablished, and the music was entirely vocal.

There was one feature of his inc.u.mbency which I must not forget, I mean his church catechising. It had always been a favourite doctrine of his, that catechising in church should be a feature of church work, and every Sunday afternoon in Lent, the boys were marshalled round the reading desk and catechised. Perhaps rather unfortunately, he had a keen sense of fun, and occasionally a bit of humour in his questions, or his comments, set the congregation in a t.i.tter. But there was no question that those who listened picked up a great amount of Biblical and ecclesiastical knowledge.

One mistake as I know now, the dear old rector made. He did not know of the archaeological interest of the church, disfigured as it had been by country carpenters and painters and white-washers, and he built a new one, designed by Sir G. Gilbert Scott, then a very young man. And so S.

Wilfred's Church was pulled down, and a modern building, handsome enough, has taken its place. But before it was finished the old rector died. So now my recollections pa.s.s on to another building and another idea of service.

The new church was certainly more comfortable for the schoolboys, and the singing still continued good. But the new rector made some alterations in matters on which his predecessors had been strong. He was a very p.r.o.nounced Puritan, and forbade the school children to turn eastward for the Creeds. He forbade such simple anthems as "Lord of all power and might," and Cecil's "I will arise." But he had his very good points. He was young and active, and visited his people a.s.siduously, established a monthly Communion, and worked up a regular branch of the Church Missionary Society, which n.o.body in the village had ever heard of before. I grew up to manhood during his inc.u.mbency, and though I regarded his Puritan practices, and listened to his Calvinistic sermons and tirades against Popery with extreme dislike, I see now that he was a man who was most faithful to his convictions, and no man could be more earnest for the spiritual welfare of his people. He was no scholar, I doubt whether he could have read a page of the Greek Testament in his later days. But he was the kind friend of the sick and the aged, and looked after the young people of his flock, and when they went forth into the world gave them loving and sensible counsels. His wife was as sweet and saintly a character as ever I knew, and their large family have all proved the wisdom of their training. One son has earned himself a name as respected as it is widely known.

His successor was a man of like views, better read, and a kindly-hearted man. But he was less in his parish. Though he kept no curate, he was constantly absent as a "missionary deputation," and his congregation, who had never been instructed in church principles, fell away. He died, and his successor, who was only there for a year or two, was, I am told, a failure, greatly owing to weak health; and so we come down to present times. An organ has been given to the church, thanks to a generous layman; the choir march in procession to their places in the chancel, they do a respectable choral service, and of course turn eastward for their Creed.

The parson looks thoroughly well after them, and loves them. There are regular week-day services, and a fair attendance on holy days, and the Sunday congregation is steadily increasing. It had gone down terribly.

Such is an impartial review of the church life in an out-of-the-way country village. My own special old Rector (for I owe more to him than I could ever tell), the builder of the church, was one of the original movers in the celebrated movement of 1833, was in fact one of the persons present at the meeting at Hadleigh Rectory, under the presidency of Hugh James Rose, which led to the starting of the _Tracts for the Times_.

His name appears both in Palmer's Narrative, and in Newman's Correspondence. He was a great friend of John Keble. But as the Tract Movement declined visibly towards Rome he regarded it with increasing dislike, and in his last years expressed that dislike with emphasis. I have sometimes wondered what position he would take up if he lived in our own day, and am inclined to think that the present Archbishop of Canterbury would be regarded by him as best expressing his own views.

Peace to them every one, everlasting Light and Rest.

Ye Ende

Index

Abbatial staff, 196

Abbots Bromley, horns at, 13

Advent ringing, 46

Agnus Bell, 43

Ale, baptized in, 80

Ales, Church, 19, 151-152

Altars in churches, 161-166

Andrews, William, F.R.H.S., Inscriptions on Bells, 49-63; Laws of the Belfry, 64-73; Bells cast in churchyards, 154-156.

Anglo-Saxon burials, 127

Anglo-Saxon marriage, 100