The London Pulpit Part 1

The London Pulpit.

by J. Ewing Ritchie.

Dedication

TO JOHN R. ROBINSON, ESQ.

DEAR ROBINSON,

In dedicating to you this edition of a Work, the contents of which originally appeared under your editorial sanction, I avail myself of one of the few pleasures of authorship. Of the defects of this little Volume none can be more sensible than myself: you will, however, receive it as a trifling acknowledgment on my part of the generous friendship you have ever exhibited for an occasional colleague and

Yours faithfully, J. EWING RITCHIE.

FINCHLEY COMMON, _Nov._ 7, 1857.

THE RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS OF LONDON.

'h.o.m.o sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,' said Terence, and the sentence has been a motto for man these many years. To the human what deep interest attaches! A splendid landscape soon palls unless it has its hero. We tire of the monotonous prairie till we learn that man, with his hopes and fears, has been there; and the barrenest country becomes dear to us if it come to us with the record of manly struggle and womanly love. This is as it should be, for

'The proper study of mankind is man.'

In pursuance with this axiom, we have devoted some little time to the study of one section of modern men deservedly worthy of serious regard.

There is no subject on which men feel more intensely than they do on the subject of religion. There are no influences more permanent or powerful in their effects on the national character than religious influences. We propose, then, to consider the pulpit power of London. There are in our midst, men devoted to a sacred calling-men who, though in the world, are not of it-who profess more than others to realise the splendours and the terrors of the world to come-to whom Deity has mysteriously made known his will. Society accepts their pretensions, for, after all, man is a religious animal, and, with Bacon, would rather believe all the fables in the Koran than that this universe were without a G.o.d. For good or bad these men have a tremendous power. The orator from the pulpit has always an advantage over the orator who merely speaks from the public platform.

Glorious Queen Bess understood this, and accordingly 'tuned her pulpit,'

as she termed it, when she sought to win over the popular mind. We deem ourselves on a level with the platform orator. He is but one of us-flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. The preacher is in a different category: he in his study, we in the rude bustle of the world; he communing with the Invisible and Eternal, we flushed and fevered by the pa.s.sing tumult of the day; he on the mount, we in the valley, where we stifle for want of purer air, crying in our agony,

'The world is too much with us; late or soon, Getting or spending, we lay waste our powers.'

We feel the disparity-that there ought to be an advantage on the preacher's side-that there must be fearful blame somewhere, if his life be no better than that of other men.

Before we begin our subject, we will get hold of a few facts and figures.

According to the very valuable Report of Horace Mann on Religious Worship, it appears that there are, in England and Wales, 10,398,013 persons able to be present at one time in buildings for religious worship, and that, for the accommodation of such, 34,467 places of worship have been erected, leaving an additional supply of 1,644,734 sittings necessary, if all who could attend places of worship were disposed to do so, the actual accommodation being 8,753,279 sittings. In reality, however, the supply more than keeps pace with the demand.

'Returning,' says Mr. Mann, 'to the total of England and Wales, and comparing the number of actual attendants with the number of persons _able_ to attend, we find that, of 10,398,013 (58 per cent. of the whole population) who would be at liberty to worship at one period of the day, there were actually worshipping but 4,647,482 in the morning, 3,184,135 in the afternoon, and 3,064,449 in the evening. So that, taking any one service of the day, there were actually attending public worship less than half the number who, as far as physical impediments prevented, _might_ have been attending. In the _morning_ there were absent, without physical hindrance, 5,750,531; in the _afternoon_, 7,213,878; in the _evening_, 7,333,564. There exist no data for determining how many persons attended twice, and how many three times, on the Sunday, nor, consequently, for deciding how many attended altogether on _some_ service of the day; but if we suppose that half of those attending service in the afternoon had not been present in the morning, and that a third of those attending service in the evening had not been present at either of the previous services, we should obtain a total of 7,261,032 separate persons, who attended service either once or oftener upon the Census Sunday. But as the number who would be able to attend at _some_ time of the day is more than 58 per cent. (which is the estimated number able to be present _at one and the same time_), probably reaching 70 per cent.-it is with this latter number (12,549,326) that this 7,261,032 must be compared; and the result of such comparisons would lead to the conclusion that, upon the Census Sunday, 5,288,294 able to attend religious worship once at least, neglected to do so.'

The non-attendance appears to be greater in towns than in our rural populations; and in this respect London is not unlike other places. It is difficult to cla.s.sify its religious developments; but the princ.i.p.al denominations may be stated as follows:

PROTESTANT CHURCHES.

BRITISH:

Church of England and Ireland.

Scottish Presbyterians: _Church of Scotland_.

_United Presbyterian Synod_.

_Presbyterian Church in England_.

Independents or Congregationalists.

Baptists: _General_.

_Particular_.

_Seventh Day_.

_Scotch_.

_New Connexion_, _General_.

Society of Friends.

Unitarians.

Moravians, or United Brethren.

Wesleyan Methodists: _Original Connexion_.

_New Connexion_.

_Primitive Methodists_.

_Wesleyan a.s.sociation_.

_Independent Methodists_.

_Wesleyan Reformers_.

_Bible Christians_.

Calvinistic Methodists: _Welsh Calvinistic Methodists_.

_Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion_.

Sandemanians, or Gla.s.sites.

New Church.

Brethren (Plymouth).

FOREIGN:

Lutherans.

German Protestant Reformers.

Reformed Church of the Netherlands.

French Protestants.

OTHER CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.

Roman Catholics.

Greek Church.

German Catholics.

Italian Reformers.

Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons.

JEWS.

In all, 35; of these 27 are native, and 8 foreign. These are all, or nearly all, the bodies which have a.s.sumed any formal organization. There are, in addition, many isolated congregations of religious worshippers, adopting various appellations, but none of them sufficiently numerous to deserve the name of a sect.

Of course, the chief of these various denominations is the Church of England. In the Handbook to Places of Worship, published in 1851, by Low, there is a list of 371 churches and chapels in connexion with the Establishment. Some of them have very small congregations, and every one confesses it is a perfect farce to keep them open. In some of the city churches, thirty persons form an unusually large audience. But most of them are well attended. To these churches and chapels belong, in round numbers, 700 clergymen. The appointments of ministers to the parish churches are, in most cases, under the control of the vicars or rectors of their respective parishes. In the case of private chapels, the party to whom the property belongs has, of course, nominally the right of appointing the minister; but, eventually, that appointment rests with the congregation, for to thrust in an unpopular preacher against their wishes would be to destroy his own property. For the parish churches, again, the right of appointing the clergymen is vested in various hands according to circ.u.mstances, which it would require too much time and s.p.a.ce to explain at sufficient length to make them understood. The patronage is, in a great many cases, invested in the Crown; but the Bishop of London is also a large holder of metropolitan patronage. The Archbishop of Canterbury is patron in several cases, and, in some instances, holds his patronage conjointly with the Crown. In such cases, the right of appointment is exercised alternately. The Lord Chancellor is sole patron of four or five livings in London, and in six or seven other cases exercises the right of patronage alternately with the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Bishop of London, with private individuals, and with the parishioners. The parishioners possess the sole right of patronage in only three or four instances; and, in one or two cases in the City, particular corporations possess the right of appointing the clergy. The doctrines of the Church of England are embodied in her Articles and Liturgy. Her orders consist of bishops, priests, and deacons. Besides, there are dignitaries-archbishops, deans and chapters, attached to cathedrals, and supposed to form the council of the bishops, archdeacons, and rural deans. The average income of a beneficed clergyman is 300 a year; of a curate, 81. The number of church-sittings in London and the surrounding districts, according to Mr.

Mann, is 409,834.

Next in order are the Independents or Congregationalists, who differ from the Church of England more in discipline than doctrine. They maintain the independence of each congregation-that a church is simply an a.s.sembly of believers. Only two descriptions of church officers are regarded by them as warranted by Scriptural authority-bishops or pastors, and deacons; and the latter office with them is merely secular. Amongst them the deacon merely attends to the temporal affairs of the church. In the Episcopalian Church, the deaconship is the first step to the priesthood.

In London and its neighbourhood the Independents have about 140 places of worship. Mr. Mann's return does not give them so many, but he states the number of sittings to be 100,436.