THE RITUALISTIC HUNGER. T HE evidence given before the Commission on
Ritualism is very curious reading. It is impossible to conceive wider diver- gences and more random views, even amongst the most earnest adherents of private judgment, than the extreme Ritualists betray as to the grounds and justifications for their ceremonial proceed- ings. If one clergyman states that he grounds himself on the authority and tradition of the Universal Church, and indulges in Ritual practices only when all Catholic Christendom except the Euglish Church sets him the example,—the English Prayer Book not forbidding,—another, equally eminent, explains that he deprecates uniformity altogether, that he wishes there were as many different customs as there are localities of different feeling in these matters, one keeping to the strictest simplicity and even severity of worship, another adopting the most gorgeous rites. Thus, the Rev. G. Nugee says he grounds his ritualism on the authority of " Apostolic times, and the united opinion of the Eastern and the Western Churches," of which he takes any evi- dence, " as regards incense, and so on," that he can get. Every- clergyman in the Church, he thinks, should work up to a type " which he has to make out for himself by reading all the- books upon Ritual that have been published,"—a very large and vague obligation, one would think, and likely to produce a some- what variable type,—though Mr. Nugee supposes it will lead to uniformity, and expressly objects to special local customs,— like the Sarum customs,—because, " in the event of anything like an effort being made at reunion, it would be a hindrance to us." On the other hand, Mr. Bennett, the Incumbent of Frome, and formerly clergyman at St. Barnabas, the great Ritualistic church, in London, distinctly goes in for variety, and says he thinks the attempt at uniformity " has been our destruction." He thinks that "although there is only one Church, there might be a thousand ways of worship." And " if there were any legis- lation on the subject," he would "abolish the Act of Uniformity," and leave every separate place to follow its own genius as to ritual. It is impossible to conceive views further at variance than such as these, as to the ground and aim of ritual. Mr. Nugee aims at making the mode of worship as near as possible to that of the other Catholic Churches of the East and West, with a view to absolute uniformity. Mr. Bennett wishes every parish, if it will, to have its own separate custom of worship. Yet these are two of the most distinguished of the innovators on the customs of our- own Church. Again, some regard the gay chasubles and other many-coloured garments they wear as embodied doctrines, others as only a mode of doing honour to the sacramental rites. Some assert that this rainbow-hued raiment and the lights and music attract the poor ; others give evidence that the poor chiefly come to those early services conducted with the least show, and that the most gorgeous services are chiefly attended by the wealthy and well dressed classes. In a word, nothing can be more hope- less than to divine what are the " universal " grounds of these attempts to restore the Universal Church. No Protestants can differ more widely and profoundly as to doctrine than the friends of incense, and lights, and vestments, and banners do as to their reasons,—of principle and of expediency,—for using them. Some, like Mr. Bennett, elevate the consecrated elements expressly that the congregation may "adore." Others, like Mr. Nugee, adopt the compromise of only " a slight elevation," or, as he elsewhere calls it, "a partial elevation," which they do from "no super- stitious point of view," and only on the ground that " it is a custom of the Church throughout the world, East and West." There is nothing more Protestant in variety of custom and motive, nothing less like universal agreement, either in outward practice or in inward reason and motive, than the Ritual usage of these high aspirants after Catholic uniformity. The more you study their own account of themselves, the more clearly you see that they are not in the least disposed to conform to authority, or to bind their own devotional taste and feeling by any rigid precedent
or strict traditional rule. One man said distinctly that some years ago he was disposed to abide by the legal opinion of Sir R. Phillimore, but now he would wait till " the Church " decides, whenever that may be. There is no body of pure Protestants more in love with liberty, or who use it more unhesitatingly in determining the very matters for which they invoke that elastic if not mythical authority, the Universal Church, than the Ritualists as they paint themselves in their answers to the questions of this Commission. We quite acquit the great majority of them of the slightest tendency towards submission to the very real and visible government of Rome.
What is it, then, if neither the desire for a fixed authority, nor for uniformity, which draws so many of the best and most active clergymen of the Church into what we cannot help considering this mummery with banners, and stoles, and incense, and prostra- tions, and the like? It is not, we believe, in general any special doctrine, though no doubt thebelief in the power to summon Christ's body to the altar is, with most of these Ritualists, the central point of their ceremonial. Still, there are so many who believe in this all but Romanist doctrine, who have yet no eagerness for ritual- istic extravagances, and do not care to embark in them, that we cannot but think there is some other than doctrinal root. of the Ritualistic mania, we do not say exactly distinct from this creed, but in addition to Transubstantiation, and superinduced upon it. No doubt the centre of fascination in the creed of transubstantia- tion for the sacerdotal profession, is the pledge which such a doctrine, once believed, gives, that it does wield, as a profession, peculiar and mighty supernatural powers. The privilege of calling God down to the altar, of invoking at a given moment to a local position and in a bodily form the Presence that fills all space and all eternity, is one which, once sincerely believed, has a wonderful fascination for a class of minds not otherwise liable to deep speculative impressions or devotional raptures. It is, as Dr. Newman has called it, "a great action," as distinguished from mere words, even of the most confident and truthful prayer. We can quite understand the feeling which some believers in transubstantiation appear to entertain, — that they can scarcely bear to have any intermission of an invocation which, as they believe, brings down so great a blessing with it, and unites them so much more closely to their God, than they can be united by any merely spiritual act of worship. It is said that celebrat- ing masses is the great rapture, the one bliss, of some of the Catholic priesthood, so profoundly do they realize their own power to invoke their Saviour. And, no doubt, if there are any among our Ritualist clergy who believe and realize it equally, the most frequent communions enumerated,—those, we imagine, of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, where there are three every Sunday and Saint's day, and one every day in the year,—must seem almost intolerably rare. But apart from the pure devotional charm which a service must have, in which the officiating priest really believes that he can by his own action summon God to him in a sense infinitely closer and more potent than ordinary prayer, one great element of this fascination is the mere pleasure of activity, of effecting a great physical and spiritual change. Our nation is not properly a con- templative one. The contemplative side of our national mind, even in connection with devotional feeling, is not its strong side. We have a craving, an appetite for action, and each distinct pro- fession, of course, for its specific actions. The clergy are no exception. They do not easily rest satisfied with contempla- tion themselves, or with imparting such vision as they have of spiritual beings and truths, to others. They want to be doing, and, of course, if possible, like every other profession, to be doing something that no one else, not belonging to their class, can do. Hence, we believe, in a great degree this Ritualistic hunger. The clergy, as we believe,—as all true Pro- testants believe,—are not a caste with a monopoly of special powers, but only men endowed as a class with no power that does not belong to all men, yet devoting their lives to the task of bringing man nearer to God. But this conception of the office of a clergy- man throws him back on strictly those means of action which are open to everybody,—as Dr. Newman, we think, once satirically said, to everybody " who has his evenings to himself, and a turn for theology." To be satisfied with such a conception of his office, requires a mind of very deep spiritual vision, or very strong moral capacity. There are very many good clergymen who are neither, —who have no strong and direct grasp of theology, like Mr. Maurice, who have no gift for bringing men nearer to God by the mere force of their moral ardour, like the late Dr. Arnold. Such men feel as clergymen as if they had nothing to do unless they have special sacerdotal powers,—as if their profession were a mere hollowness without a technique of its own which only they can
control. They are utterly restless till they can persuade them- selves that they possess these special powers. The attraction of the belief in their own function as confessors, and spiritual advisers, and absolvers, in their power to bind, and loose, and consecrate, and offer up sacrifices, and the rest, is the attraction which eager, active, and energetic men feel in believing that they have profes- sional powers commensurate with their energy. If they did not see a special virtue in processes which only priests can effectually preside over, they would quickly fidget themselves out of their profession. For the most part, our clergy are not natural preachers, and still less natural seers. The chasubles and albs and stoles and incense boxes and minute ceremonial generally, are to them conditions of belief in their own usefulness. If they can do so much that it would be impossible for ordinary Christians to do, and the effect of which is to draw attention at least, if not popularity and admiration, to their services, their occupation means something ; they are not ciphers. But if they are only ordinary men, whose sole justification for being priests should be that they have at least rather more than ordinary gifts for reaching the consciences, and organizing the spiritual activity, of men, then they would feel- too often that they have nothing to plead for their special choice of duty. No large and energetic body of men, especially in England, will ever be fasci- nated by a profession in which they do not consider themselves possessed of special active powers or skilled capacities, not shared by ordinary members of society. The Protestant priesthood, on the other hand, is properly based on special love of, and devotion to, a side of life common to all men, though too often weak in root ; and it requires, therefore, only a higher degree of intensity in ordinary human insights and ordinary human faiths. The priest who does not feel this will always fidget after technical professional powers, or fidget himself out of the priesthood altogether. He wants to be sure that he can do something which justifies his calling ; and if he can believe that he has been gifted with a sacramental unc- tion that enables him to do many things impossible to ordinary mortals, he is satisfied. This seems to us the one characteristic com- mon to such men as Mr. Nugee and such men as Mr. Wagner. Till " the eyes of those that see shall not be dim, and the ears of those that hear shall hearken,"—we suppose it must be ever so in some department or other, even of that Church whose great duty it is to purge the eye of the spirit from its films, and to open the blocked-up avenues by which alone the conscience can hear the voice of God.
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