Transcriber's note

An earlier volume of essays by the same authors, titled "Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform", was released as Project Gutenberg ebook number 64263, available at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64263.

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PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM
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BY

CANON S. A. BARNETT (the late)

AND

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1915

INTRODUCTION.

The first edition of Practicable Socialism was printed in 1888, the second in 1894. Now, twenty-one years afterwards, a new series is issued, but the most important of the two authors, alas! has left the world, and it therefore falls to me to write the introduction alone.

In selecting the papers for this volume, out of a very great deal of material, the principle followed has been to print those which deal with reforms yet waiting to be fully accomplished. It would have been easier and perhaps pleasanter to have taken the subjects dealt with in the previous volumes, and by grouping subsequent papers together, have shown how many of the reforms then indicated as desirable and “practicable,” had now become accepted and practised. But so to do would not have been in harmony with our feelings. My husband counted the sin of “numbering the people” as due to a debased moral outlook, and the contemplation of “results” as tending to hinder nobler efforts after that which is deeper than can be calculated. Of him it is truthful to quote “His soul’s wings never furled”.

The papers have been grouped in subject sections, and though the ideas have for many years been set forth by him in various publications, in most instances the writings here reproduced are under six years old. In a few cases, however, I have used quite an old paper, thinking it gave, with hopeful vision, thoughts which later lost their freshness as they became accomplished facts.

The book begins with [The Religion of the People] and [Cathedral Reform], for Canon Barnett held with unvarying certainty that—to quote his own words—“there is no other end worth reaching than the knowledge of God, which is eternal life,”—and that “organizations are only machinery of which the driving power is human love, and of which the object is the increase of the knowledge of God”. To this test our plans and undertakings were constantly brought. “Does our work give ‘life’ by bringing men nearer to God and nearer to one another.” “In the knowledge of what ‘life’ is, let us put our work to the test.” “Do the Church Services release divine hopes buried under the burden of daily cares?” “Do the new buildings refine manners?” “Does higher teaching tend to higher thoughts about duty?” “Does our relief system help to heal a broken dignity as well as to comfort a sufferer?” “Do our entertainments develop powers for enjoying the best in humanity past and present?”

That the Church should be reformed to make it the servant of all who would lead the higher life, was the hope he cherished throughout many years spent in strenuous efforts to obtain a social betterment. He writes: “The great mass of the people, because they stand apart from all religious communions, may have in them a religious sense, but their thought of God is not worked through their emotions into their daily lives. They do not know what they worship, and so do not say with the psalmist, ‘My soul is athirst for the living god,’ or say with Joseph, ‘How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ The spiritualization of life being necessary to human peace and happiness, the problem which is haunting this generation is how to spiritualize the forces which are shaping the future.”

My husband urged that the reform of the Church would tend to solve that problem. “The Church by its history and organization has a power no other agency can wield. If more freedom could be given to its system of government and services, if it could be made directly expressive of the highest aspirations of the people, it is difficult to exaggerate the effect it might have. In every parish a force would be brought to bear which might kindle thought, so that it would reach out to the highest object; which might stir love, so that men would forget themselves in devotion to the whole; and which might create a hope wherein all would find rest. The first need of the age is an increase of Spirituality, and the means of obtaining it is a Reformed Church.”

The papers under [Recreation] might almost as well have been placed in the Education Section, so strongly did my husband feel that recreation should educate. Only a few months before his illness he wrote: “The claim of education is now primarily to fit a child to earn a living, and therefore he is taught to read and write and learn a trade. But if it were seen that it is equally important to fit a child to use well his leisure, many changes would be made.” And such changes he argued would increase, not lessen, the joy of holidays, an opinion which my experience as Chairwoman of the Country-side Committee of the Children’s Country Holiday Fund abundantly supports.

In the Section for [Settlements] and their work, only three papers will be found, for so much has been written and spoken of Toynbee Hall and kindred centres of usefulness, that it seems almost unnecessary to reproduce the same thoughts. Yet in view of the fact that questions are often asked as to the genesis of the idea, I have put in [one of the first papers] (1884) that my husband wrote after we had had nine years’ experience of the work of University men among the poorest and saddest people, in which he suggested the scheme of Toynbee Hall, and also a paper of mine written nine years after its foundation, in which I chat of the [Beginnings of Toynbee Hall].

Between the first and the [third paper] there is a stretch of twenty-one busy years, 1884-1905, and the article bears the marks of Canon Barnett’s intense realization of the need of higher education, and his almost passionate demand for it on behalf of the industrial classes. “Social Reform,” he writes, “will soon be the all-absorbing interest as the modern realization of the claims of human nature and the growing power of the people will not tolerate many of the present conditions of industrial life.... The well-being of the future depends on the methods by which reform proceeds. Reforms in the past have often been disappointing. They have been made in the rights of one class, and have ended in the assertion of rights over another class. They have been made by force, and produced reaction. They have been done for the people, not by the people, and have never been assimilated. The method by which knowledge and industry may co-operate has yet to be tried, and one way in which to bring about such co-operation is the way of University Settlements.”

So many are the changes which affect [Poverty and Labour], so rapidly have they come about, and so keen and living an interest did Canon Barnett feel with every step that the great army of the disinherited took towards social justice, that it has been difficult to select which papers on which subject to reprint, but I have chosen the most characteristic, and also those connected with the reforms which most influenced character and life. In this Section also some of the many papers which Canon Barnett wrote on Poor Law Reform have been admitted. I know that the activities of the Fabian Society and the “Break up of the Poor Law” organization have rendered some of the ideas familiar, but many of the Reforms he advocated are not yet accomplished, and to those who are conversant with the subject, his large, sane, unsensational statement of the case, as it appeared to him, will be welcome,—all the more so because for nearly thirty years he was a member of the Whitechapel Board of Guardians, the Founder of the Poor Law Conferences, and had both initiated and carried out large administrative reforms. He also had a very deep and probing tenderness for the character of individual paupers, and a sensitive shrinking from wounding their self-respect or lowering the dignity of their humanity, an attitude of mind which influenced his relation to schemes sometimes made by paper legislators who considered the poor in “the lump” instead of “one by one”.

Of the [Social Service Section] there is but little to say. [The Real Social Reformer] contains guiding principles, [The Mission of Music] is an interesting and curious output from a man with no ear for tune or time or harmony, and [The Church on Town Planning] is but an example of how eagerly he desired that the Church should guide as well as minister to the people. [Where Charity Fails] is another plea that the kindly intentioned should not injure the character of the recipient, and that the crucial question, “Is our aim the self-extinction of our organization,” should be borne in mind by the Governors and enthusiastic supporters of even the best philanthropic agencies.

The [Educational] Section might have been much larger, but the papers selected bear on the three sides of the subject which my husband in recent years thought to be the most important. [The Equipment of the Teachers] but carried on the ideals towards which he ever pressed, from the days when as a Curate at St. Mary’s, Bryanston Square, he taught the monitors of the Church Schools, through the days when the first London Pupil Teachers’ Centre had its birthplace in Toynbee Hall, through the days when he established the Scholarship Committee whose work was to select suitable pupil teachers and support them through their University careers in Oxford and Cambridge, through the days when he rejoiced at the abandonment of the vast system of pupil teachers,—to the days when he demanded that teachers for the poorest children should be called from the cultivated classes, and take their calling as a mission, to be recognized and remunerated, as an honoured profession undertaken by those anxious to render Social Service.

The article [Justice to Young Workers] deals with the vexed question of Continuation Schools, attendance at which Canon Barnett thought should be compulsory, since he believed that economic conditions would more readily change to meet legally established educational demands than was possible, when, in the interwoven complexity of business, one unwilling or ten indifferent employers could throw any complicated voluntary organization out of gear.

The two articles on [Oxford and the Working People] and [A Race between Education and Ruin] only inadequately represent the thought he gave to the matter, or the deeply rooted, great branched hopes he had entwined round the reform of the University,—but for many reasons he felt it wiser to stand aside and watch younger men wield the sword of the pen. So his writings on this subject are few, but that matters less than otherwise it would have done, because the group of friends who have decided to establish “Barnett House” in his memory are among those in Oxford who shared his work, cared for his plans, and believed in his visions, created as they were on knowledge of the industrial workers and the crippling conditions of their lives. So as “Barnett House” is established and grows strong, and in conjunction with the Toynbee Hall Social Service Fellowship will bring the University and Industrial Centres into closer and ever more sympathetic relationship, it is not past the power of a faith, however puny and wingless, to imagine that the reforms my husband saw “darkly” may be seen “face to face,” and in realization show once more how “the Word can be made flesh”.

In some Sections I have included papers from my pen, not because I think they add much to the value of the book, but because my husband insisted on the previous volumes of Practicable Socialism being composed of our joint writings as well as illustrative of our joint work, or to use his words in the 1888 volume: “Each Essay is signed by the writer, but in either case they represent our common thought, as all that has been done represents our common work”.

HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.

17 July, 1915.

CONTENTS

SECTION I.
RELIGION.

[The Religion of the People]—[Cathedral Reform]—[Cathedrals and Modern Needs.]

THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE.[^[1]]

By Canon Barnett.

July, 1907.

[1] From the “Hibbert Journal”. By permission of the Editor.

The people are not to be found in places of worship; “the great masses,” as Mr. Booth says, “remain apart from all forms of religious communion”. This statement is admitted as true, but yet another statement is continually made and also admitted, that “the people are at heart religious”. What is meant by this latter statement? The people are certainly not inclined to assert their irreligion. Mr. Henderson, who as a labour leader speaks with authority, says, “I can find no evidence of a general desire among the workers to repudiate the principles of Christianity”. And from my own experience in East London I can testify to the growth of greater tolerance and of greater respect for the representatives of religion. Processions with banners and symbols are now common, parsons are elected on public bodies, and religious organizations are enlisted in the army of reform. But this feature of modern conditions is no proof that men and women are at heart religious. It may only imply a more respectful indifference, a growth in manners rather than in spiritual life. Does the statement mean that the people are kind, and moved by the public spirit? This again is true. There is widely spread kindness: rough lads are generous—one I knew gave up his place to make room for a mate whose need was greater; weak and weary women watch all night by a neighbour’s sick-bed; a poor family heartily welcomes an orphan child; workmen suffer and endure private loss for the sake of fellow-workmen. The kindness is manifest; but kindness is no evidence of the presence of religion. Kindness may, indeed, be a deposit of religion, a habit inherited from forefathers who drew into themselves love from the Source of love, or it may be something learnt in the common endurance of hardships. Kindness, generosity, public spirit cannot certainly be identified with the religion which has made human beings feel joy in sacrifice and given them peace in the pains of death.

Before, however, we conclude that the non-church-going people are religious or not religious, it may be well to be clear as to what is meant by religion. I would suggest as a definition that religion is thought about the Higher-than-self worked through the emotions into the acts of daily life. This definition involves three constituents: (1) There must be use of thought—the power of mental concentration—so that the mind may break through the obvious and the conventional. (2) There must be a sense of a not-self which is higher than self—knowledge of a Most High whose presence convicts the self of shortcoming and draws it upward. (3) There must be such a realization of this not-self—such a form, be it image, doctrine, book, or life—as will warm the emotions and so make the Higher-than-self tell on every act and experience of daily life. These constituents are, I think, to be found in all religions. The religious man is he who, knowing what is higher than himself, so worships this Most High that he is stirred to do His will in word and deed. The Mohammedan is he who, recognizing the Highest to be power, worships the All-powerful of Mohammed, whom in fear he obeys, and with the sword forces others to obey. The Christian is he who, recognizing the Most High to be love, worships Christ, and for love of Christ is loving to all mankind. Are these three constituents of religion to be found among the people?

1. They are using their powers of thought. There is a distinct disposition to think about unseen things. The Press which circulates most widely has found copy in what it calls Mr. Campbell’s “New Theology”. The “Clarion” newspaper has published week after week letters and articles which deal with the meaning of God. There is increasing unrest under conditions which crib and cabin the mind; men and women are becoming conscious of more things in heaven and earth than they can see and feel and eat. They have a sense that the modern world has become really larger than the old world, and they resent the teaching which commits them to one position or calling. They have, too, become critical, so that, using their minds, they measure the professions of church-goers. Mr. Haw has collected in his book, “Christianity and the Working Classes,” many workmen’s opinions on this subject. Witness after witness shows that he has been thinking, comparing things heard and things professed with things done. It is not just indifference or self-indulgence which alienates the people from church or chapel or mission; it is the insincerity or inconsistency which they themselves have learnt to detect. Huxley said long ago that the greatest gift of science to the modern world was not to be found in the discoveries which had increased its power and its comfort, so much as in the habit of more scientific thinking which it had made common.

The people share this gift and have become critical. They criticize all professions, theological or political. They criticize the Bible, and the very children in the schools have become rationalists. They also construct, and there are few more interesting facts of the time than the strength of trades unions, co-operative and friendly societies, which they have organized. Even unskilled labour, ever since the great Dock strike, has shown its power to conceive methods of amelioration, and to combine for their execution. The first constituent of religion, the activity of thought, is thus present amid the non-church-going population.

2. This thought is, I think, directed towards a Higher-than-self; it, that is to say, goes towards goodness. I would suggest a few instances. Universal homage is paid to the character of Christ. He, because of His goodness, is exalted above all other reformers, and writers who are bitter against Christianity reverence His truth and good-will. Popular opinion respects a good man whatever be his creed or party; it may not always be instructed as to the contents of goodness, but at elections its votes incline to follow the lead of the one who seems good, and that is sometimes the neighbouring publican whose kindness and courtesy are experienced. In social and political thought the most significant and strongest mark is the ethical tendency. Few proposals have now a chance of a hearing if they do not appeal to a sense of justice. Right has won at any rate a verbal victory over might. In late revivals there has been much insistence on the need of better living, on temperance, on payment of debts and fulfilment of duty, and the reprints which publishers find it worth their while to publish are penny books of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and other writers on morals.

People generally—unconsciously often—have a sense of goodness, or righteousness, as something which is higher than themselves. They are in a way dissatisfied with their own selfishness, and also with a state of society founded on selfishness. There is a widely spread expectation of a better time which will be swayed by dominant goodness. The people have thus, in some degree, the second constituent of religion, in that they have the thought that the High and Mighty which inhabits Eternity is good.

3. When, however, we come to the third constituent, we have at once to admit that the non-church-going population has no means of realizing the Most High in a form which sustains and inspires its action. It has no close or personal touch or communion with this goodness; no form which, like a picture or like a common meal, by its associations of memory or hope rouses its feelings; nothing which, holding the thought, stirs the emotions and works the thought into daily life. The forms of religion, the Churches, the doctrines, the ritual, the sacraments, which meant so much to their fathers and to some of their neighbours, mean nothing to them. They have lost touch with the forms of religious thought as they have not lost touch with the forms of political thought.

Forms are the clothes of thought. Forms are lifeless, and thought is living. Unless the forms are worn every day they cease to fit the thought, as left-off clothes cease to fit the body. English citizens who have gone on wearing the old forms of political thought can therefore go on talking and acting as if the King ruled to-day as Queen Elizabeth ruled 300 years ago, but these non-church-going folk, who for generations have left off wearing the forms of religious thought, cannot use the words about the Most High which the Churches and preachers use. They have breathed an atmosphere charged by science—they are rationalists, they have a vision of morality and goodness exceeding that advocated by many of the Churches. They have themselves created great societies, and their votes have made and unmade governments. When, therefore, they regard the Churches, the doctrines of preachers, and all the forms of religion, not as those to whom by use they are familiar or by history illuminated, but as strangers, they see what seem to them stiff services, irrational doctrine, disorganized and unbusinesslike systems, and the self-assertion of priests and ministers. They, with their yearnings to touch goodness, find nothing in these forms which makes them say, “There, that is what I mean,” and go on stirred in their hearts. They who have learnt to think turn away sadly or scornfully from teaching such as that of the Salvation Army about blood and fire, where emotion is without thought. Those who manage their own affairs resent membership in religious organizations where all is managed for them. They want a name for the Most High of whom they think as above and around themselves, but somehow the doctrines about Christ, whom they respect for His work 2000 years ago, do not stir them up as if He were a present power. The working classes, says Dr. Fairbairn in his “Religion in History and Modern Life,” are alienated because “the Church has lost adaptation to the environment in which it lives”.

Perhaps, however, some one may say, “Forms are unimportant”. This may be true so far as regards a few rarely constituted minds, but the mass of men are seldom moved except through some human or humanized form. The elector may have his principles, but it is the candidate he cheers, it is his photograph he carries, it is his presence which rouses enthusiasm, and it is politicians’ names by which parties are called. The Russian peasant may say his prayers, but it is the ikon—the image dear to his fathers—which rouses him to do or to die. The Jews had no likeness of Jehovah, but the book of the law represented to them the thought and memories of their heart, and they bound its words to their foreheads, their poets were stirred to write psalms in its praise, and by the emotions it raised its teaching was worked into their daily acts. A non-religious writer in the “Clarion” bears witness to the same fact when he says, “All effective movements must have creeds. It is impossible to satisfy the needs of any human mind or heart without some form of belief.” The Quaker who rejects so many forms has made a form of no-form, and his simple manner of speech, his custom of dress or worship, often moves him to his actions.

Mr. Gladstone bears testimony to the place of form in religion. “The Church,” he says, “presented to me Christianity under an aspect in which I had not yet known it, ... its ministry of symbols, its channels of grace, its unending line of teachers forming from the Head a sublime construction based throughout on historic fact, uplifting the idea of the community in which we live, and of the access which it enjoys through the living way to the presence of the Most High.”

Mr. Gladstone found in the Anglican Church a form of access to the Most High, and through this Church the thoughts of the Most High were worked into his daily life. Others through the Bible, the sacraments, humanity, or through some doctrine of Christ have found like means of access. Forms are essential to religion. Forms, indeed, have often become the whole of religion, so that people who have honoured images or words or names have forgotten goodness and justice—they wash the cup and platter and forget mercy and judgment; they say “Lord, Lord,” and do not the will of the Lord. Forms have often become idols, but the point I urge is that for the majority of mankind forms are necessary to religion. “Tell me thy name,” was the cry of Jacob, when all night he wrestled with an unknown power which condemned his life of selfish duplicity; and every crisis in Israelitish history is marked by the revelation of a new name for the Most High. The Samaritans do not know what they worship; the Jews know what they worship,—was the rebuke of Christ to a wayward and ineffective nation. Even those Athenians to whom God was the Unknown God had to erect an altar to that God.

The great mass of the people, because they have no form and stand apart from all religious communions, may have in them a religious sense, but their thought of God is not worked through their emotions into their daily lives. They do not know what they worship, and so do not say with the Psalmist, “My soul is athirst for the living God,” or say with Joseph, “How can I do this wickedness, and sin against God?” They have much sentiment about brotherhood, and they talk of the rights of all men; but they are not driven as St. Paul was driven to the service of their brothers, irrespective of class, or nation, or colour. They have not the zeal which says, “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel”. They endure suffering with patience and meet death with submission, but they do not say, “I shall awake after His likeness and be satisfied”. The majority of English citizens would in an earthquake behave as brave men, but they have not the faith of the negroes who in the midst of such havoc sang songs of praise.

The three constituents I included in the definition are all, I submit, necessary. Thought without form does not rouse the emotions. Form without thought is idolatry, and is fatal to growth. Emotion without thought has no abiding or persistent force. Religion is the thought of a Higher-than-self worked through the emotions into daily life.

With this definition in mind I now sum up my impressions. The religion of the majority of the people is, I think, not such as enables them to say, “Here I take my stand. This course of life I can and will follow. This policy must overcome the world.” It is not such either as keeps down pride and egotism, and leads them to say as Abram said to Lot, “If you go to the right I will go to the left”. It does not make men and women anxious to own themselves debtors and to give praise. It does not drive them to greater and greater experiments in love; it does not give them peace. It is not the spur to action or the solace in distress. It has little recognition in daily talk or in the Press. One might, indeed, live many years, meet many men, and read many newspapers and not come into its contact or realize that England professes Christianity.

When I ask my friends, “How does religion show itself in the actions of daily life?” I get no answer. There seems to be no acknowledged force arising from the conception of the Most High which restrains, impels, or rests men and women in their politics, their business, or their homes. There are, I suggest, three infallible signs of the presence of religion—calm courage, joyful humility, and a sense of life stronger than death. These signs are not obvious among the people.

The condition is not satisfactory. It is not unlike that of Rome in the first century. The Roman had then forsaken his old worship of the gods in the temples, notwithstanding the official recognition of such worship and the many earnest attempts made for its revival. There was then, as now, something in the atmosphere of thought which was stronger than State or Church. There was then, as now, an interest in teachers of goodness who held up a course of conduct far above the conventional, and the thoughts of men played amid the new mysteries rising in the East. The Romans were restless, without anchorage or purpose. They were not satisfied with their bread and games; they walked in a dense shadow, and had no light from home. Into their midst came Christianity, giving a new name to the Most High, and stirring men’s hearts to do as joyful service what the Stoics had taught as dull duty.

In the midst of the English people of to-day there are Churches and societies of numerous denominations. Their numbers are legion. In one East-London district about a mile square there were, I think, at one time over twenty different religious agencies. Their activity is twofold. They work from without to within, or from within to without—from the environment to the soul, or from the soul to the environment.

1. The work from without to within, resolves itself into an endeavour to draw the people to join some religious communion. The environment which an organization provides counts for much, and influences therefrom constantly pass into the inner life. Membership in a Church or association with a mission often brings men and women into contact with a minister who offers an example of a life devoted to others’ service. It opens to them ways of doing good, of teaching the children, of visiting the poor, and of joining in efforts for social reform. It affords a constant support in a definite course of conduct, and makes a regular call on the will to act up to the conventional standard, and it brings to bear on everyday action an insistent social pressure which is some safety against temptation. Sneers about the dishonesty of religious professors are common, but, as a matter of fact, the most honest and reputable members of the community are those connected with religious bodies.

Those bodies have various characters, with various forms of doctrine and of ritual. Human beings, if they are true to themselves, cannot all adopt like forms; there are some men and women who find a language for their souls in a ritual of colour and sound, there are others who can worship only in silence; there are some who are moved by one form of doctrine, and others who are moved by another form. Uniformity is unnatural to man, and the Act of Religious Uniformity has proved to be disastrous to growth of thought and goodwill. Progress through the ages is marked by the gradual evolution of the individual, and the strongest society is that where there are the most vigorous individualities. If this be admitted, it must be admitted also that the growth of vigorous denominations, and not uniformity, is also the mark of progress.

But, it may be said, denominations are the cause of half the quarrels which divide society, and of half the wars which have decimated mankind. This is true enough. The denominations are now hindering the way of education, and it was as denominations that Catholics and Protestants drowned Europe in thirty years of bloodshed. It is, however, equally true to say that nationalities have been the cause of war, and that the way of peace is hard, because French, Germans, and British are so patriotically concerned for their own rights. Nationalities, however, become strong during the period of struggle, and they develop characteristics valuable for the whole human family; but the end to which the world is moving is not a universal empire under the dominance of the strongest, it is to a unity in which the strength of each nationality will make possible the federation of the world. In the same way denominations pass through a period of strife; they too develop their characteristics; and the hope of religion is not in the dominance of any one denomination, but in a unity to which each is necessary.

The world learnt slowly the lesson of toleration, and at last the strong are feeling more bound to bear with those who differ from themselves. There is, however, dawning on the horizon a greater lesson than that of toleration of differences: it is that of respect for differences. As that lesson prevails, each denomination will not cease to be keen for its own belief; it will also be keen to pay honour to every honest belief. The neighbourhood of another denomination will be as welcome as the discovery of another star to the astronomer, or as the finding of a new animal to the naturalist, or as is the presence of another strong personality in a company of friends. The Church of the future cannot be complete without many chapels. The flock of the Good Shepherd includes many folds.

The energy of innumerable Churches and missions is daily strengthening denominations, and they seem to me likely to stand out more and more clearly in the community. One advantage I would emphasize. Each denomination may offer an example of a society of men and women living in reasonable accord with its own doctrine—not, I ask you to reflect, just a community of fellow-worshippers, but, like the Quakers, translating faith into matters of business and the home. Mediaeval Christians sold all they had and lived as monks or nuns. Nineteenth century Christians were kind to their poorer neighbours. Twentieth century Christians might give an example of a society fitting a time which has learnt the value of knowledge and beauty, and has seen that justice to the poor is better than kindness. Every generation must have its own form of Christianity.

The earnest endeavour of so many active men and women to increase the strength of their own denomination has therefore much promise: provided always, let me say, they do not win recruits by self-assertion, by exaggeration, or by the subtle bribery of treats and blankets. Each denomination honestly strengthened by additional members is the better able to manifest some aspect of the Christian life, and, in response to the call of that life, more inclined to reform the doctrines and methods which tend to alienate a scientific and democratic generation.

Such denominations are, I submit, those most likely to reform themselves, and as they come to offer various examples of a Christian society, where wealth is without self-assertion, where poverty is without shame, where unemployment and ignorance are prevented by just views of human claims, and where joy is “in widest commonalty spread,” all the members of the community will in such examples better find the name of the Most High, and feel the power of religion. “If,” says Dr. Fairbairn, “religion were truly interpreted in the lives of Christian men, there is no fear as to its being believed.” “What is wanted is not more Christians but better Christians.”

2. The activity of ministers and missionaries is, as I have said, twofold. Besides working from without to within by building up denominations, it also works from within to without by converting individuals. Members of every Church or mission are, in ordinary phrase, intent “to save souls”. Their work is not for praise, and is sacred from any intrusion. Spirit wrestles with spirit, and power passes by unknown ways. Souls are only kindled by souls. Conversion opens blind eyes to see the Most High, but it is not in human power to direct the ways of conversion. The spirit bloweth where it listeth. There are, however, other means by which eyes may be opened at any rate to see, if only dimly, and some of these means are under human control. Such a means is that which is called higher education or university teaching, or the knowledge of the humanities.

I would therefore conclude by calling notice to the much or the little which is being done by this higher education. The people are to a large extent blind because of the overwhelming glory of the present. They see nothing beyond the marvellous revelations of science—its visions of possessions and of power, and its triumphs over the forces of nature. They are occupied in using the gigantic instruments which are placed at the command of the weakest, and they are driven on by some relentless pressure which allows no pause on the wayside of the road of life. They see power everywhere—power in the aggressive personalities which heap money in millions, power in the laboratory, power in the market-place, power in the Government; but they do not see anything which satisfies the human yearning for something higher and holier; they cannot see the God whose truth they feel and whose call they hear. Many of them look to the past and surround themselves with the forms of mediaeval days, and some go to the country, where, in a land of tender shades and silences, they try to commune with the Most High.

But yet the words of John the Baptist rise eternally true, when he said to a people anxiously expectant, some with their eyes on the past, and some with their eyes on the future, “There standeth one among you”. The Most High, that is to say, is to be found, not in the past with its mysteries, its philosophies, and its dignity of phrase or ritual, and not in the future with its vague hopes of an earthly Paradise, but in the present with its hard facts, its scientific methods, its strong individualities, and the growing power of the State. The kingdom of heaven is at hand; the Highest which every one seeks is in the present. It is standing among us, and the one thing wanted is the eye to see.

Mr. Haldane, in the address to the students of Edinburgh University, has described the character of the higher teaching as a gospel of the wide outlook, as a means of giving a deeper sympathy and a keener insight, as offering a vision of the eternal which is here and now showing its students what is true in present realities, and inspiring them with a loyalty to the truth as devoted as that of tribesmen to their chief. This sort of teaching, he says, brings down from the present realities, or from a Sinai ever accompanying mankind, “the Higher command,” with its eternal offer of life and blessing—that is to say, it opens men’s eyes to see in the present the form of the Most High. Higher education is thus a part of religious activity.

I am glad to know that my conclusion is shared by Dr. Fairbairn, who, speaking of the worker in our great cities, and of his alienation from religion, says, “The first thing to be done is to enrich and ennoble his soul, to beget in him purer tastes and evoke higher capacities”.

I will conclude by calling notice to the much or the little which is being done to open the people’s eyes by means of higher education. I fear it is “the little”. There are many classes and many teachers for spreading skill, there are some which increase interest in nature; there are few—very few—which bring students into touch with the great minds and thoughts of all countries and all ages—very few, that is, classes for the humanities. For want of this the souls of the people are poor, and their capacities dwarfed; they cannot see that modern knowledge has made the Bible a modern book, or how the bells of a new age have rung in the “Christ that is to be”.

For thirty-four years my wife and I have been engaged in social experiments. Many ways have been tried, and always the recognized object has been the religion of the people—religion, that is, in the sense which I have defined as that faith in the Highest which is the impulse of human progress, man’s spur to loving action, man’s rest in the midst of sorrow, man’s hope in death.

With the object of preparing the way to this religion, schools have been improved, houses have been built and open spaces secured. Holidays have been made more healthy, and the best in art has been made more common. But, viewing all these efforts of many reformers, I am prepared to say that the most pressing need is for higher education. Where such education is to begin, what is the meaning of religious education in elementary schools, and how it is to be extended, is part of another subject. It is enough now if, having as my subject the religion of the people, I state my opinion that there is no activity which more surely advances religion than the teaching which gives insight, far sight, and wide sight. The people, for want of religion, are unstable in their policy, joyless in their amusements, and uninspired by any sure and certain hope. They have not the sense of sin—in modern language, none of that consciousness of unreached ideals which makes men humble and earnest. They have not the grace of humility nor the force of a faith stronger than death. It may seem a far cry from a teacher’s class-room to the peace and power of a Psalmist or of a St. Paul; but, as Archbishop Benson said, “Christ is a present Christ, and all of us are His contemporaries”. And my own belief is that the eye opened by higher education is on the way to find in the present the form of the Christ who will satisfy the human longing for the Higher-than-self.

Samuel A. Barnett.

CATHEDRAL REFORM.[^[1]]

By Canon Barnett.

December, 1898.

[1] From “The Nineteenth Century and After”. By permission of the Editor.

Cathedrals have risen in popular estimation. They represent the past to the small but slowly increasing number of people who now realize that there is a past out of which the present has grown. They are recognized as interesting historical monuments; their power is felt as an aid to worship, and some worshippers who would think their honesty compromised by their presence at a church or a chapel, say their prayers boldly in the “national” cathedral. A trade-union delegate, who had been present at the Congress, was surprised on the following Sunday afternoon to recognize in St. Paul’s some of his fellow delegates. No reformer would now dare to propose that cathedrals should be secularized.

But neither would any one who considers the power latent in cathedral establishments for developing the spiritual side of human nature profess himself satisfied. It is not enough that the buildings should be restored, so that they may be to-day what they were 400 or 500 years ago, nor is it enough that active deans should increase sermons and services.

A cathedral has a unique position. It holds the imagination of the people. Men who live in the prison of mean cares remember how as children their thoughts wandered free amid the lights and shadows of tombs, pillars, arches, and recesses. Worshippers face to face with real sorrow, who turn aside from the trivialities of ritual, feel that there is in the solemn grandeur a power to lift them above their cares.

A cathedral indeed attracts to itself that spiritual longing which, perhaps, more than the longing for power or for liberty, is the sign of the times. This longing, compared with rival longings, may be as small as a mustard-seed, but everywhere men are becoming conscious that things within their grasp are not the things they were made to reach. There is a heaven for which they are fitted, and which is not far from any one of them. They like to hear large words, and to move in large crowds. They see that “dreaming” is valuable as well as “doing”. They feel that there is a kinship between themselves and the hidden unknown greatness in which they live. The ideal leader of the day is a mystic who can be practical.

Men turning, therefore, from churches or chapels which are identified with narrow views, and from a ritual which has occupied the more vacant minds, are prepared to pay respect to the cathedral with its grand associations.

And the cathedrals which thus attract to themselves modern hope, and become almost the symbol of the day’s movement, are equipped to respond to the demand. They have both men and money. They have men qualified to serve, and a body of singers qualified to make common the best music, and they have endowments varying from £4000 to £10,000 a year.

A cathedral is attractive by its grandeur and its beauty, but it ought to be something more than an historic monument. Its staff is ample, and is often active, but it ought to be something more than a parish church.

Its government, however, is so hampered that it can hardly be anything else, and the energies of the chapter are spent in efforts to follow the orders of restoring architects. The building is cleared of innovations introduced by predecessors, who had in view use and not art. Its deficiencies are supplied, the dreams and intentions of the early builders are discovered, and at last a church is completed such as our ancestors would have desired.

The self-devotion of deans or canons in producing this result provokes admiration from those who in their hearts disapprove. Money is freely given, and, what is often harder to do, donations are persistently begged. The time and ability of men who have earned a reputation as workers, thinkers, or teachers, are spent in completing a monument over which antiquaries will quarrel and round which parties of visitors will be taken at 6d. a head.

The building has little other use than as a parish church, and the ideal, before a chapter, anxious to do its duty, is to have frequent communions, services, and sermons, as in the best worked parishes. In some cases there is a large response. The communicants are many, but, being unknown to one another and to the clergy, they miss the strength they might have derived by communicating with their neighbours in their own churches. The sermons are sometimes listened to by crowded congregations, but the people are often drawn from other places of worship, and miss the teaching given by one to whom they are best known. But in most cases the response is small. The daily services, supported by a large and well-trained choir of men and boys, preceded by a dignified procession of vergers and clergy, often help only two or three worshippers. Many of the Holy Communions which are announced are not celebrated for want of communicants, and the sermons are not always such as are suitable for the people.

There are, indeed, special but rare occasions when the cathedral shows its possibilities. It may be a choir festival, when 500 or 600 voices find space within its walls to give a service for people interested in the various parishes. It may be some civic or national function, when the Corporation attends in state, or some meeting of an association or friendly society, when the church is filled by people drawn from a wide area. On all those occasions the fitness of the grand building and fine music to meet the needs of the moment is recognized, and the citizens are proud of their cathedral.

But generally they are not proud. They think—when they care enough to think at all—that a building with such power over their imagination ought to be more used, and that such well-paid officials ought to do more work. “One canon,” a workman remarked, “ought to do all that is done, and the money of the others could be divided among poor curates.” The members of the chapter would probably agree as to the need of reform. It is not their conservatism, it is the old statutes which stand in the way.

These statutes differ in the various cathedrals, but all alike suffer from the neglect of the living hand of the popular will which in civil matters is always shaping old laws to present needs. Their object seems to be not so much to secure energetic action as to prevent aggression. Activity, and not indolence, was apparently the danger which threatened the Church in those old days.

The Bishop, who is visitor and is called the head of the cathedral, cannot officiate—as of right—in divine service; he is not entitled to take part in the Holy Communion or to preach during ordinary service.

The Dean governs the church, and has altogether the regulation of the services; but he can only preach at the ordinary services at three festivals during the year.

The Canons, who preach every Sunday, have no power over the order or method of the uses of the church.

The Precentor, who is authorized to select the music and is required to take care that the choir be instructed and trained in their parts, must not himself give instruction and training.

The Organist, who has to train and instruct the boys, has to do so in hours fixed by the Precentor, and in music chosen by him.

An establishment so constituted cannot have the vigour or elasticity or unity necessary to adapt cathedrals to modern needs. It affords, as Trollope discovered, and as most citizens are aware, a field for the play of all sorts of petty rivalries and jealousies. No official can move without treading on the other’s rights. Bishops, Deans, and Canons hide their feelings under excessive courtesies. Precentors and Organists try to settle their rights in the law courts, and the trivialities of the Cathedral Close have become proverbial.

The apparent uselessness of buildings so prominent, and of a staff so costly, provokes violent criticism. Reformers become revolutionists as the Dean, Chapter, and choir daily summon congregations which do not appear, and the officials become slovenly and careless as they daily perform their duties in an empty church. Sacraments may be offered in vain as well as taken in vain, and institutions established for other needs which go on, regardless of such needs, are self-condemned.

If the army or navy or any department of the civil service were so constituted, the demand for reform would be insistent. “We will not endure,” the public voice would proclaim, “that an instrument on whose fitness we depend shall be so ineffective. It is not enough that the members of the profession are prevented from injuring one another. Our concern is not their feelings, but our protection.” It is characteristic of the indifference to religious interests that an instrument, so costly and so capable of use as a cathedral establishment, has been left to rust through so many years, and that the troubles of a Chapter should be matter for jokes and not for indignant anger.

A Royal Commission, indeed, was appointed in 1879. It was in the earlier years presided over by Archbishop Tait, who showed, both by his constant presence and by his lively interest, how deeply he had felt and how much he had reflected on this subject. The Commissioners had 128 meetings, and issued their final report in 1885; but notwithstanding the humble and almost pathetic appeal that something should be “quickly done” to remedy the abuses they had discovered, and forward the uses which they saw possible, nothing whatever has been done. The position of the Cathedrals still mocks the intelligence of the people they exist to serve, and the hopes which the spread of education has developed.

The Commissioners recognized the change which had been going on in the feeling with regard to the tie which binds together the cathedral and the people, and their recommendations lead up, as they themselves profess, to “the grand conception of the Bishop of a diocese working from his cathedral as a spiritual centre, of the machinery there supplied being intended to produce an influence far beyond the cathedral precincts, of the capitular body being interested in the whole diocese, and of the whole diocese having claims on the capitular body”.

This conception, apart from its technical phraseology, may be taken as satisfactory. “A live Cathedral in a live Diocese” is, in the American phrase, what all desire. It may be questioned, however, in the light of thirteen years’ further experience of growing humanity, whether their recommendations would bring the conception much nearer to realization.

Their recommendations are somewhat difficult to generalize. The peculiarities and eccentricities in the constitution of each cathedral are infinite. Some are on the old foundation, with their Deans, Precentors, Chancellors, and Prebendaries. Some date from Henry VIII, and have only a Dean and a small number of residentiary Canons. Some possess statutes which are hopelessly obsolete, and one claims validity for a new body of statutes adopted by itself. Some are under the control of the chapter only, some have minor corporations. Some have striven to act up to the letter of old orders, some have statutes which are of no legal authority. But the difference of constitution of the several cathedrals was by no means the only difficulty with which the Commissioners had to contend.

There is the difference in their local circumstances. Some, as Bristol and Norwich, are in the midst of large populations; some, as Ely and St. David’s, are in small towns or amid village people. St. Paul’s, London, stands in a position so peculiar that it does not admit of comparison with any other cathedral in the kingdom.

There is, further, the difference in wealth and the provision of residences for the capitular body; some are rich, and endowed with all that is necessary for the performance of their duties; some are comparatively poor.

The Commissioners have met these difficulties by considering each cathedral separately, and by issuing on each a separate report with separate recommendations. There is, however, a character and a principle common to all their recommendations, by which a judgment may be formed as to how far they would, if adopted, fit cathedrals to the needs of the time.

I.—Central Authority.

The Commissioners were at the outset met by the fact that cathedral bodies are stationary institutions in a growing society. They remain as they had been formed in distant days: ships stranded high above the water-line, in which the services went on as if the passengers and cargo had not long found other means of transit. They felt that even if by the gigantic effort involved in parliamentary action the cathedrals were reformed in order to suit the changed society of the nineteenth century, the reforms would not necessarily suit the twentieth century. They saw that there must be a central authority always in touch with public opinion, which would, year by year, or generation by generation, shape uses to needs.

They at once therefore introduced the Cathedral Statutes Bill, by which a Cathedral Committee of the Privy Council was to be appointed. The Bill did not become law, but the provision was admirable. By this means, just as the Committee of Council year by year now issues an Education Code, by which changes suggested by experience or inquiry are introduced into the educational system of the country, so this new Committee of Council was, as occasion required, to issue new statutes to control or develop the use of cathedrals.

A living rule was to take the place of the dead hand. Representative men, and not the authority of an individual or of an old statute, were henceforth to control this State provision for the religious interests of the people, as a similar body, with manifest advantage, controls the State provision for the secular interests. A Committee of the Privy Council made up of the Ministers of the day, being professed Christians, together with some experts, is probably the best central authority to be devised.

But when the Commissioners further proposed that after the expiration of their commission it should remain with Deans and Chapters to submit proposals for reform in the use of their cathedrals, they at once limited the utility of that central authority. Is it to be conceived that Deans and Chapters will promote necessary reforms? Can they be said to be in touch with the people? Will they, if they make wise and far-reaching suggestions, be trusted as representatives?

The Commission aimed to create a living authority, and then proposed to bind it hand and foot; it set up a body of representative men capable of daring and of cautious action, and then limited the sphere of such action by the decisions of Chapters sometimes concerned for inaction.

The obvious criticism is a testimony to the progress of the last few years. Education and the extension of local government have made all parties recognise that the voice of the people ought to be trusted, and can be trusted. Checks and safeguards are no longer thought to be so necessary. Interests once jealously preserved by the classes are now known to be safe in the hands of the masses. The Crown, property, order, are all safe grounded on the people’s will.

It seems therefore out of place, in the eyes of the present generation, to safeguard every change in the use of the cathedral by trusting to those proposed by Dean and Chapter. The basis of government must be democratic. The people, and not any class, must have the chief voice in their control. The County Councils, by means of a committee of professed Christians, the Diocesan Council, or any body to which the people of the neighbourhood have free access, should be that empowered to bring suggestions before the central authority. In the Church of England, of which every Englishman is a member, and whose Prayer Book is an Act of Parliament, there is no new departure in making the County Councils the originating bodies to suggest uses for the cathedral.

With the growing interest to which allusion has been made, it is not hard to conceive that the call for suggestions would evoke deeper thought and remind members of secular bodies that progress without religion is very hollow. Parliament was never more dignified, or better fitted for foreign or home policy, than when it held Church government to be its most important function. County Councils, called on through their committees to submit suggestions for the better use of the cathedrals to the Committee of Privy Council, might be elevated by the call, and at the same time offer advice valuable in itself, and approved by the people as coming from their representatives.

The first essential cathedral reform is therefore a central authority as recommended by the Commission, which, on the initiative of really representative bodies, shall have power to make statutes and publish rules of procedure in the several cathedrals.

II.—The Bishop and His Cathedral.

The Commissioners were evidently struck by the need of promoting “earnest and harmonious co-operation between the Bishop of the Diocese and the Cathedral Body”. They have endeavoured, as they reiterate, “to define and establish the relation in which the Bishop stands to the cathedral, and have made provision for assuring to him his legitimate position and influence”. When, however, reference is made to the statutes by which they carry out their intention, they seem very inadequate: the Bishop, for instance, is to “have the highest place of dignity whenever he is present”; “to preach whenever he may think fit”; “to hold visitation and exercise any function of his episcopal office whenever it may seem good”. He is also empowered to nominate a certain number of preachers, and is constituted the authority to give leave of absence to the Dean or Canons. The Dean, however, is left responsible for the services, in control of the officials, and at liberty to develop the use of the church.

It is difficult to see how, by such changes, the cathedral will become the spiritual centre from which the Bishop will work his diocese, and at the same time have harmonious relations with the Dean and Chapter. If he uses his full powers: gathers week by week diocesan organizations for worship, for encouragement, and for admonition; if he is often present at the services, if he arranges classes for the clergy, devotional meetings for church workers; if he institutes sermons and lectures on history or on the signs of the times—what is there left for the Dean and Canons to do? If he does not do such things, how can he make the cathedral the centre of spiritual life?

The Commission was evidently hampered in its recommendation by the presence of two dignitaries with somewhat conflicting duties. The simple solution is to make the Bishop the Dean. He would then have, as by right, all the powers it is proposed to confer upon him; he would exercise them at all times, without fear of any collision, and he would be in name and fact the sole authority in carrying out the statutes, and in controlling all subordinate officials. He would then be able to make the cathedral familiar to every soul in his diocese, associate its building and services with every organization for the common good—secular and religious—with choral societies, clubs, governing bodies, friendly societies, missionary associations, and such like. He would, in fact, make the cathedral the centre of spiritual life, and he would for ever abolish the petty rivalries and jealousies which grow up under divided control, and which bring such discredit on cathedral management. He would be master, and it is for want of a master that each official is now so disposed to magnify the petty privileges of his own office. There must be some one who is really big, that others may feel their proper place.

III.—The Canons and Their Utility.

The Commission has little to suggest, save that they should be compelled to reside for eight months of the year in the neighbourhood of the cathedral, and during three months attend morning and evening service, each one “habited in a surplice with a hood denoting his degree”. They are also, if called on, “to give instruction in theological and religious subjects, or discharge some missionary or other useful work”. These functions seem hardly sufficient for men who are to receive £800 a year, and it is difficult to see what virtue there is in mere technical residence, or how daily attendance at service is compatible with the performance of regular duties as citizens or teachers.

The Canons would better help in making the cathedral the centre of spiritual life if they were the Suffragan Bishops of the diocese. They would in this case have to receive appointment by the Bishop, and take duties assigned by him. One might be responsible for the order of the services, for the care of the property of the cathedral, and for the proper control of the officials. He might, indeed, be called the Dean. Another might be a lecturer or teacher for the instruction of the clergy, and the others might assist the Bishop in those functions which now so largely intrude on his time.

The Bishop of the twentieth century looms large in the distance. He has a place not given to any of his predecessors, as a democratic age has greater need of leaders. He is called to new duties and new functions, and the danger is that he who might be lifting his clergy on to a higher plane, meeting them soul to soul, and comforting them by his contagious piety, will be absorbed in organizing, in business, or in the performance of functions. Suffragan Bishops attached to the cathedral would relieve him from “such serving tables,” and leave him more free to be a father in God to the clergy.

IV.—The Fabric and Finance.

The care of the fabrics is more and more recognized as a national concern. Not long ago there was a proposal put forward by non-Christians for their preservation out of local or national resources. The Commissioners’ suggestion that a report on their condition should be published at frequent intervals shows trust in the readiness of a voluntary response, but it is hardly a businesslike recommendation.

The suggestion, already made in this paper, that some local representative body, such as the County Council, should be the body authorized to initiate reforms in the use of the building, would naturally lead to the same body becoming responsible for its proper care. It is not hard to conceive of such a growing interest as would lead to a ready expenditure under the direction of the best advisers. The mass of the people are now shut out from contribution; their pence are not valued, and even if their gift “be half their living,” it opens to them no place on the restoration committee.

If the cathedral is to be the people’s church, its support must rest on the people, and this is only possible by means of the local bodies which they control.

Finance, as might be expected in a commercial country, takes up a large portion of the report. Failure is again and again attributed to poverty, and a schedule shows what is wanting in each cathedral for the proper payment of officials. The total per annum is an increase of £10,876. The Commissioners’ happy thought was, “Why not get this amount from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who have profited largely from cathedral property?” They forthwith made application and were duly snubbed.

But the suggestion already made in this paper, for the more harmonious management of cathedrals by the absorption of the Dean’s functions in that of the Bishop, at once solves the financial difficulty. The salaries now given to the Deans—probably on an average at least £1000 a year—would then be ready for redistribution, and might follow the lines suggested by the Commissioners, and would supply other gaps due to the depreciation of agricultural values.

Conclusion.

The Commissioners take into view many details connected with the other officials, with the rivalry of Precentor and Organist, with the meeting of the greater chapter, and with the abolition of the minor corporations existing in some cathedrals alongside of the chapter corporation, which are in their way important, but which would all fall into place under a large scheme of reform.

The essentials of such a scheme are, it is submitted, (1) control by a distinguished body, like that of the Committee of the Privy Council, which takes its initiative from a representative body like that of the County Council; (2) the reinstatement of the Bishop as the chief officer of the cathedral, with the Canons as his suffragans.

The cathedrals seem to be waiting to be used by the new spiritual force which, amid the wreck of so much that is old, is surely appearing. There is a widespread consciousness of their value—an unexpressed instinct of respect which is not satisfied by the disquisitions of antiquarians or the praises of artists. Common people as well as Royal Commissioners feel that cathedrals have a part to play in the coming time. What that part is none can foretell, but all agree that the cathedrals must be preserved and beautified, that the teaching and the music they offer must be of the best, offered at frequent and suitable times, and that they must be used for the service of the great secular and religious corporations of the diocese.

Under the scheme here proposed this would be possible. The Bishop, as head of the cathedral, would direct the order of the daily worship and teaching, arrange for the giving of great musical works, and invite on special occasions any active organization. He would have as coadjutors able men chosen by himself, who, by lectures, meetings, and conferences, would make the building alive with use. He would have behind him the committee of the County Councils or other local authority, empowered to suggest changes in the statutes as new times brought new needs, and ready with money as their interest was developed. The scheme, at any rate, has the merit of utilizing two growing forces—that of the Bishop, and that of local government. No scheme can secure that these forces will work to the best ends. That, as everything else, must depend on the extent to which the growing forces are inspired by the spirit of Christ.

A cathedral used as a Bishop would use it would receive a new consecration by the manifold uses. Just as the silence of a crowd which might speak is more impressive than the silence of the dumb, so is the quiet of a building which is much used more solemn than the quiet of a building kept swept and clean for show. Our cathedrals, being centres of activity, would more and more impress those who, themselves anxious and careful about many things, feel the impulse of the spiritual force of the time. Workmen and business-men would come to possess their souls in quiet meditation, or to join unnoticed in services of worship which express aspirations often too full for words.

Samuel A. Barnett.

THE CATHEDRALS AND MODERN NEEDS.[^[1]]

By Canon Barnett.

1912.

[1] From “The Contemporary Review”. By permission of the Editor.

This generation is face to face with many and hard problems. Perhaps the hardest and the one which underlies all the others is that which concerns the spiritualizing of life. Discoveries and inventions have largely increased the attractions of the things which can be seen and heard, touched, and tasted. Rich and poor have alike found that the world is full of so many things that they ought to be all as happy as kings, and the one ideal which seems to command any enthusiasm is a Socialistic State, where material things will be more equally divided among all classes.

But even so, there is an underlying consciousness that possessions do not satisfy human nature. Millionaires are seen to miss happiness, and something else than armaments are wanted to make the strength of a nation. There is thus a widely-spread disposition to take more account of spiritual forces, and people who have not themselves the courage to forsake all for the sake of an idea speak with sympathy of religion and patronize the Salvation Army. There is much talk of “rival ideals dominating action,” and the prevalent unrest seems to come from a demand, not so much for more money as for more respect, more recognition of equality, more room for the exercise of admiration, hope, and love. Modern unrest is, in fact, a cry for light.

The problem which is haunting this generation is how to spiritualize the forces which are shaping the future; how to inspire labour and capital with thoughts which will both elevate and control their actions; how to enable rich and poor to move in a larger world, seeing things which eyes cannot see; how to open channels between eternal sources and every day’s need; how to give to all the sense of partnership in a progress which is fitting the earth for man’s enjoyment and men for one another’s comfort. The spiritualization of life being necessary to human peace and happiness; its accomplishment is the goal of all reformers, and every reform may in fact be measured by its power to advance or hinder progress to that goal.

I would suggest that the cathedrals are especially designed to help in the solution of the problem. Their attractiveness is a striking fact, and people who are too busy to read or to pray seem to find time to visit buildings where they will gain no advantage for their trade or profession, not even fresh air for their bodies. They are recognized as civic or national possessions, and working people who stand aloof from places of worship, or patronize meeting-houses, are distinctly interested in their care and preservation. They have an unfailing hold on the popular imagination, so that it is always easy to gather a congregation to take part in a service, or to listen to a lecture.

“It was not so much what the lecturer said,” was the reflection of Mr. Crooks after a lecture in Westminster Abbey on English History, “as the place in which it was given.”

The cathedrals have thus a peculiar position in the modern world, and if it be asked to what the position is due I am inclined to answer: to their unostentatious grandeur and to their testimony to the past. They are high and mighty, they lift their heads to heaven, and they open their doors to the humblest. They give the best away, and ask for nothing, neither praise nor notice. They are buildings through which the stream of ages has flowed, familiar to the people of old time as of the present, bearing traces of Norman strength and English aspirations, of the enthusiasm of Catholics and Puritans, of the hopes of the makers of the nation. The cathedrals are thus in touch with the spiritual sides of life, and make their appeal to the same powers which desire before all things to see the fair beauty of the Lord, and to commune with man’s eternal mind.

But the cathedrals which make this appeal can hardly be said to be well used. There are the somewhat perfunctory services morning and afternoon, often suspended or degraded during holiday months when visitors are most numerous; there are sermons rarely to be distinguished from those heard in a thousand parish churches; there is a staff of eight or ten clergy who may be busy at good works, but certainly do not make their cathedral position their platform; and there are guides who for a small fee will conduct parties round the church. Among these guides are indeed to be found men who have made a study of the building, and are able to talk of it as lovers, but the guides for the most part give no other information than lists of names and dates, sometimes relieved by a common-place anecdote. The cathedrals are treated as museums, and not so well as the Forum of Rome. The question is: Can they be made of greater use in spiritualizing life? I would offer some suggestions:—

1. Cathedrals might, I think, be more generally used for civic, county and national functions, for intercession at times of crisis, and for services in connexion with meetings of conferences and congresses. The services might be especially adapted by music and by speech to deepen the effect of the building with its grandeur and memories. The use in this direction has increased of late years, and even when the service seems to be little more than a church parade, those present are often helped by the reminder that their immediate concern has a place in a greater whole. But the use might be largely extended, so that every example of corporate life might be set in the framework which would give it dignity. Elections to civic councils might be better understood if the newly-elected bodies gathered in the grand central building where vulgar divisions would be hushed in the greatness, and the ambitions of parties lifted up into an atmosphere in which the rivals of past days are recognized in their common service to the State. The meetings of congresses and conferences—of scientific and trade societies—of leagues and unions for social reform would be helped by beginning their deliberations in a place which would both humble and widen the thoughts of the members.

Intercessional services, when guided by a few directing words, at which men and women would gather to fix their minds on great ideals—on peace—on sympathy with the oppressed—on the needs of children and prisoners, would gain force from the association of a building where generations have prayed and hoped and suffered. And if, as well as being more frequent, such use were more carefully considered the effect would be much deeper. It is not enough, for instance, that the service should always follow the old form, and the music be elaborate and the sermon orthodox. Consideration might be given so that prayers, and music, and speech might all be made to work together with the influences of the building to touch the spiritual side of the object interesting to the congregation. The soul of the least important member of a civic council or a society is larger than its programme. The cathedral service might be, by much consideration, designed to help such souls to realize something of the vast horizons in which they move—something of the infinite issues attached to their resolutions and votes, something of the company filling the past and the future of which they are members. The cathedrals, by such frequent and well-considered uses, might do much to spiritualize life.

2. There are, as I have said, usually eight or ten clergy who form the cathedral staff. Many of them are chosen for their distinction in some form of spiritual service, and all have devoted themselves to that service. They may be in other ways delivering themselves of their duties, but they as spiritual teachers cannot as a rule be said to identify themselves with the cathedral. They do not use all their powers to make the building a centre of spiritual life.

I would suggest, therefore, that these clergy attached to the cathedral should have classes or lectures on theological, social, and historic subjects. They should give their teaching freely in one of the chapels of the cathedral, and the teaching should be so thorough as to command the attention of the neighbouring clergy and other thoughtful people. They would also, on occasions, give lectures in the nave designed to guide popular thought to the better understanding of the live questions of the day, or of the past.

And inasmuch as many of the clergy have been chosen for their skill in music, which often at great cost holds a high place in cathedral worship, I would suggest that regular teaching be given in the relation of music to worship. Words, we are often told, do not make music sacred, and religion has probably suffered degradation from the attachment of high words to low music. There is certainly no doubt that the music in many churches is both bad in character and pretentious. If teaching were freely given by qualified teachers in the cathedrals, if examples of the best were freely offered, and if the place of music in worship were clearly shown, then music might become a valuable agent in spiritualizing life.

Perhaps, however, the clergy might urge that they could not by such teaching deliver themselves of their obligation to do spiritual work. They would rather wrestle with souls and unite in prayer. But surely if their teaching has for its aim the opening of men’s minds to know the truth—the enlistment of men’s hearts in others’ service and the bringing of the understanding into worship, then their teaching will end in the knowledge of others’ souls and in acts of common devotion. The cathedral staff might, through the cathedral and the position it holds in a city, do much to spiritualize life.

3. The great spiritual asset of the cathedral is, however, its association with the past, and its living witness that the present is the child of the past. This may be called a spiritual asset, because it is this conception of the past which, as is evident among the Jews and Japanese, is able to inspire and control action. The people who see as in a vision their country boldly standing and suffering for some great principles and hear the voices of the great dead calling them “children,” have power and peace within their reach.

It is, as I have said, because of some dim consciousness of this truth that crowds of visitors flock into the buildings and spend a rare holiday in hanging upon the dry words of the guides. It is easy to imagine how their readily-offered interest might be seized, how guides with fresh knowledge and trained sympathy might make the building tell and illustrate the tale of the nation’s growth, how the different styles of architecture might be made to express different stages of thought, how the whole structure might be shown to be a shell and rind covering living principles, how every one might be lifted up and humbled as the building told him of England’s search for justice, freedom, and truth. It is easy to imagine how such a living interpretation might be given to the message of the building, but much work would first be necessary.

The cathedral staff would have to be constant learners, and take up different sides of interest. They would themselves frequently accompany parties and individuals, so that in intimate talk they would learn the mind of the people, and they would be continually instructing the regular guides. Their special duty would be to give at certain times short talks on the history, the architecture, and the art, so that visitors might be sure that at these times they would learn what light new knowledge was throwing on the familiar surroundings.

The power of the past is dormant, it is buried beneath the insistent present, but it is not dead, and it is conceivable that thoughtful and devoted effort might rouse it to speak through the buildings which have witnessed the highest aspirations of successive ages. If such effort succeeded, and if the people of to-day could be helped to know and feel the England of old days, they would be conscious of a spiritual force bearing them on to great deeds. They would begin to understand how things which are not seen are stronger than things which are seen. The cathedrals have in themselves a message which would help to spiritualize life, but without interpreters the message can hardly be heard.

4. I would add one other suggestion arising from the monuments which in every cathedral attract so much notice. They are the memorials of men and women notable in national or local history who belonged to various parties and classes, to different forms of faith and different professions representing divers qualities and diverse forms of service.

It would not be difficult for each cathedral to make a calendar of worthies. A lecture every month on one such worthy would give an opportunity for taking the minds of modern men into the surroundings of the past, where they would see clearly the value of character. Familiarity with the lives of Saints has been doubtless a great help to many lonely and anxious souls, but this hardly applies to those who hear sermons on St. Jude, and St. Bartholomew, and other Saints of whom little can be known. If, however, from its great men and women each cathedral selected twelve, for one of whom a day should be set apart each month, the people in the locality would gradually become familiar with their characters and gain by communion with them.

Thoughts are best revealed through lives, and the attraction of personality was never more marked than at the present day. Through the lives of the great dead, and through the persons of those who walked or worshipped within familiar walls, it would be possible to make people understand great principles, and gradually become conscious of the Common Source from which flows “every good and perfect gift”. The dead speak from the walls of the cathedral, but they have no interpreter, and the mass of the people who are waiting for their message go away unsatisfied. A power which would help to spiritualize life is unused.

But perhaps it may be urged that if all were done which has been suggested, if the minds of visitors were kindled to admiration, if the past were made to live and the dead to speak, much more would be necessary to spiritualize life. Certainly the “spirit bloweth where it listeth,” and only they who feel its breath are born again and enter a world of power, of peace, and of love.

But it may be claimed that some attitudes are better than others in which to feel this breath, and that people whose pride has been brought low by the beauty of a great building, or whose ears have been opened to the voices of the past, will be more likely to bow before the Holy Spirit than those who have no thought beyond what they can see, hear, or touch.

The age, we sometimes say, is waiting for a great leader—a prophet who will make dead bones to live. It is well to remember that for all redeemers the way has to be prepared, and the coming spiritual leader will be helped if through our cathedrals people have developed powers of communion with the Unseen.

Samuel A. Barnett.

SECTION II.
RECREATION.

[The Children’s Country Holiday Fun’]—[Recreation of the People]—[Hopes of the Hosts]—[Easter Monday on Hampstead Heath]—[Holidays and School days]—[The Failure of Holidays]—[Recreation in Town and Country.]

THE CHILDREN’S COUNTRY HOLIDAY FUN’.[^[1]]

By Mrs. S. A. Barnett.

April, 1912.

[1] From “The Cornhill Magazine”. By permission of the Editor.

Five thousand two hundred and eighty Letters, 872 Sketches, 199 Collections, all in parcels neatly tied up, the name, age, and sex of the writer, artist, or collector clearly written on the first page of the covering paper. There they lie, all around me, stack upon stack. The sketches are crude but extraordinarily vivid and unaffected; the collections are very scrappy but show affectionate care; the letters are written in childish unformed characters, and are of varying lengths, from a sheet of notepaper to ten pages of foolscap, but one and all deal with the same subject. What that subject is shall be told by a maiden of nine years old:—

“On one Thursday morning my Mother woke me and said, ‘To-day is Country Holiday Fun,’ so I got up and put my cloes on”.

On that Thursday morning, 27 July, 22,624 happy children left London and its drab monotonous streets, and went for a fortnight’s visit into the country, or by the sea. Oh! the joy, the preparation, the excitement, the hopes, the fears, the anxieties lest anything should prevent the start; but at last, by the superhuman efforts of all concerned, the Committee, the ladies, the teachers, and the railway officials, the whole gay, glad, big army of little people were successfully got off. It is from these 22,624 children, and 21,756 more who took their places two weeks later, that my 5,280 letters come; for only those who really choose to write are encouraged to do so.

In almost all cases the journey is fully described, the ride in the ’bus, the fear of being late, the parcel and how “it fell out,” the gentlemen at the station, the porter who gave us a drink of water “cause we were all hot,” the gentleman who gave the porter 6d. because he said: “This 6d. is for you for thinking as how the children would be thirsty”. The number that managed to get in each carriage, the boy who lost his cap “for the wind went so fast when my head was outside looking,” the hedges, the cows, the big boards with —— Pills written on them, how “it seemed as if I was going that way and the hills and cows and trees were going the other way”. It is all told with the fresh force of novelty and youth. The names of the Stations and the mileage is often noted, as well as the noise. “We shouted for joy,” writes a boy of eleven. “We told them it was rude to holler so,” writes a more staid girl. “I got tired of singing and went to sleep,” records a boy of eight; but the journey over there follows the description, often given with some awe, of how,—

“We all went and were counted together, and there were the ladies waiting for us, and the gentleman read out our names and our lady’s name and then we went home with our right ladies,”

and then, almost without exception, comes the bald but important statement, “and then we had Tea”. Indeed, all through the letters there is frequent mention of the gastronomic conditions, which appear to occupy a large place among the memories of the country visit. Evidently the regularity of the meals makes a change which strikes the imagination.

“I got up, washed in hot water and had my breakfast. It was duck’s egg. I then went out in the fields till dinner was ready. I had a good dinner and then took a rest. We had Tea. My lady gave us herrings and apple pie for tea, then we went on the Green and looked about and then came home and had supper and went to bed.”

Some letters, especially those written after the first visit to the country, contain nothing but the plain unvarnished tale of the supply of regular food. One girl burns with indignation because

“We girls was sent to bed at 7·30 and got no supper, but the boys was let up later and got bread and a big thick bit of cheese”.

A boy of eight chronicles that

“I had custard for my Tea and some jelly which was called corn flour”.

One small observer had apparently discovered the importance of meal-times even to the sea itself, for he writes: “The sea always went out at dinner time and came back when Tea was ready”. I can see my readers smile, but to those of us who know intimately the lives of the poor, the significance of meals and their regularity occupying so large a place in a child’s mind is more pathetic than comic.

From all the letters the impression is gathered of the generosity of the poor hostesses to the London children. For 5s. a week (not 9d. a day) a growing hungry boy or girl is taken into a cottager’s home, put in the best bed, cared for, fed three or four times a day, and often entertained at cost of time, thought, or money.

“I like the day which was Bank lolyiday Monday because it was a very joyafull day. My Lady took me to a Flower Show. It was 3d. to go in but she paid, and I had swings and saw the flowers, and then we had bought Tea, and a man gave away ginger beer.”

Another girl of eleven writes:—

“My lady took me to Windsor Castle. The first thing I saw was the Thames. I went and had a paddled and then I went in the Castle and saw a lot of apple trees.”

The visits to Windsor are modern-day versions of the old story of the Cat who went to see the King and saw only “Mousey sitting under the Chair,” for another child records:—

“There were plenty of orchards with apple trees in it. But we would not pick them, or else we would be locked up but I went in the Castle and I saw a very large table with fifty chairs all round it and a piano and a looking glass covered up on the wall.”

One boy who was taken to the lighthouse, though only ten, was evidently eager for useful information. He writes:—

“I asked the man how many candlepowers it was but I forgot what he said——”

an experience not unknown to his elders and betters!

This child records that “when playing on the beach I made Buckingham Palace but a big boy came along and trod it and so we went home to bed”—an unconscious repetition of the often-recorded conclusion of Pepys’ eventful days.

One of the small excursionists was taken by her hostess to see Tonbridge, and writes: “We went to the muzeam wear we saw jitnoes of different people”.

The hospitality of the clergymen and their families and the goodness of doctors is also often mentioned. Some of the children write so vividly that the country vicarage and its sweet-smelling flowers, the hot curate and the active ladies, rise up as a picture, the “atmosphere” of which is kindness and “the values” incalculable. Other children merely record the facts—in some cases anticipating time and establishing an order of clergywomen.

“We asked the Vicar Miss Leigh if we could swim and she said No because one boy caught a cold.”

“We all went to the Reveren to a party.” “Saturday mornings we went to the Rectory haveing games, swings, sea sawes and refreshments.” “The party by the Church was fine.” “They had a Church down there called the Salvation Army. I thought there was only one Salvation Army.”

One of the Vicars hardly conveyed the impression he intended, for the boy writes:—

“We went to Church in the morning and in the afternoon for a walk as the Clergyman told us not to go to Sunday School as he wanted us to enjoy ourselves”.

One wonders if the Sunday School organization and the “intolerable strain” which would be put on it by London visitors was in that vicar’s mind.

The letter that is sent by the Countryside Committee to the children before they leave London tells them in simple language something about the trees and flowers and creatures which they will see during their holiday, and asks them to write on anything which they themselves have observed or which gave them pleasure to see. This request is granted, for the children wrote:—

“The trees seemed so happy they danced”.

“The wind was blowing and the branches of the trees was swinging themselves.”

“The rainbow is made of raindrops and the sun, tears and smiles.”

“It was nice to sit on the grass and see the trees prancing in the breeze.”

These extracts show, in the four small mortals who had each spent the ten years of their lives in crowded streets, an almost poetic capacity, and the beginning of a power of nature sympathy that will be a source of unrecorded solace. The sights of the night impress many children, the sky seen for the first time uninterrupted by gas lamps.

“When I (aged eleven) looked into the sky one night you could hardly see any of the blue for it was light up with stars.”

“I saw a star shoot out of the sky and then it settled in a different place.”

“One night I kept awake and looked for the stars and saw the Big Bear of stars.”

“At night the moon looked as if it were a Queen and the stars were her Attendants.”

“The clouds are making way for the moon to come out.”

The sun, its rising and setting, is also frequently mentioned. One child had developed patriotism to such an extent as to write:—

“One day I looked up to the Sky and saw the sun was rising in the shape of the British Isles”.

Alas! What would the Kaiser think?

Another of my correspondents expressed surprise that “the moon came from where the sky touched the Earth,” an evidence of street-bound horizon.

In other letters the writers record:—

“I saw the sun set it was like a big silver Eagle’s wing laying on a cliff”.

“When the sun was setting out of the clouds came something that looked like a County Council Steamer”.

That must have been a rather alarming sunset, but hardly less so than “the cloud which was like Saint Paul’s Cathedral coming down on our heads”.

The animals gave great pleasure and created wonder:—

“The cows made a grunting noise, the baa lambs made a pretty little shriek”.

“The cows I saw were lazy, they were laying. One was a bull who I daresay had been tossing somebody.”

“I heard a bird chirping it was make a noise like chirp chirp twee.”

“I saw a big dragon fly. It was like a long caterpillar with long sparkling transparent wings.”

“The birds are not like ourn they are light brown.”

“There were wasps which was yellow and pretty but unkind.”

“I (aged eleven) saw a little blackbird—its head was off by a Cat. I made a dear little grave and so berreyed it under the Tree.”

The flowers, of course, come in for the greatest attention and after them the trees are most usually referred to:—

“I (aged nine) know all the flowers that lived in the garden, but not all those who lived in the field”.

“Stinging nettles are a nuisance to people who have holes in their boots.”

“The Pond is all covered with Rushes. These had flowers like a rusty poker.”

“I picked lots of flowers and always brought them home—”

shows influence of the Selborne Society in teaching children not to pick and throw away what is alive and growing.

“The Cuckoo dines on other birds.”

“There was one bird called the squirrel.”