15 OCTOBER 1842, Page 11

THE PEWSEYITES.

THE development of the "ulterior objects" of the Oxford Tracta- rians, supplied by the new number of the British Critic and the week's labour of the Times, goes far to confirm the views enter- tained by Mr. Shandy, and some other philosophers, of the mysteri- ous influence which names exercise over character. The Leading Journal, in its capacity of Puseyite organ, after spending the earlier part of the week in illustrating the progress of the Oxford doctrines by dint of quotations from the pastoral addresses of the Bishops of OXFORD, EXETER, and LONDON, took courage on Thurs- day to commence operations against the abomination of Pews. The British Critic or Quarterly Theological Review was moored like a line-of-battle ship off the point to be attacked ; and, covered by her broadside, the Times—a whole flotilla of gunboats in itself— opened a raking fire upon the doomed fortress. It is now obvious to all the world, that the great mission of the Oxford Theologians is to put down the nuisance of Pews.

"It is pretty obvious," says the Quarterly Theological Review, "that whatever is to be done with regard to pews, must be done in the way of prevention. The evil, once allowed, is incurable : there is nothing which people defend with so much pertinacity as a pew. The more unreasonable, the more unjust in theory, the greater out- rage it is to public convenience and to the symmetry of the building, the greater hindrance to the general seeing and hearing, the more it is cherished." What created pew could fail to be blown out of church by such a whirlwind of indignant eloquence ? The British Critic attacks pews with logic ; the Bishop of EXE- TER, in his charge, with history. "The origin of the evil is not such as can endear it to any Churchman ; for it was part of the systematic outrage of the sacredness of churches by the Puritans, in the day of their brief triumph in the seventeenth century, when they perverted these hallowed edifices into little better than preach- ing-rooms." From which we learn, that there are " origins " which can "endear evil" to Churchmen ; and that of all rooms the Bishop of EXETER has an aversion to "preaching-rooms." But this par parenthese : that pews are a relic of Puritanism in the Church, cer- tainly bears out his Lordship's assertion, that they are "a grave evil, [the Puritans were remarkably grave,] and require to be gravely dealt with." But the Bishop, it is well known, combines the sua- viler in modo with the fortiter in re ; and accordingly—" I do not advise a sudden and violent breaking in up( n an inveterate however unjustifiable usage : but I strongly urge it on my clergy to do their utmost, quickly, to induce a better state of things." The Times, again, borrows the weapons of the Utilitarians. It argues, that church-extension ought to be preceded by removing lumbering wooden pews out of existing churches, in order to make more room for human beings before new churches are built. It tells a story of the expense of erecting a gallery in a church which might have been saved by cutting up one huge pew into seats, enough to make one's hair stand on end ; and declares, in its own powerful language—" Let not the nation be swindled into doing on a great scale what was here done on a small scale by the Church- building Society."

It is to be feared that Pews are doomed. The historical lore and insidious gentleness of the Bishop of EXETER, the close reasoning

and elegant vehemence of the British C'ritic, the argumentum ad crumenam and homely vituperation of the Times, must be too many for them. The great apostle of Tractarianisin was shadowed out by his very name as the Destiny of Pews. It is a mystical truth, that Puseyite and Anti-Pewseyite are one and the same thing. Pews are about to be flung forth of the Church as an abomination and a mystery of iniquity. Let them go, if it cannot be helped; but not without a sigh. We at least have been accustomed to re- gard them as equally Episcopalian and orthodox. Pews are Eng- lish: in Presbyterian Scotland they have only " bottom-rooms." It is impossible to conceive Sir Roger de Coverley occupying any thing but a pew : his dignity would have lacked elbow-room in the narrow space of one "bottom-room." It has been thought a beauty in the Anglican Church that it is harmonized with the decent gradations of English rank. The manorial pew has been held as indispensable in a church as the reading-desk or organ-loft. There is something indelicate in the notion of substituting " bottom- rooms " for pews : no stately dowager, no elegant young lady, could occupy the former. The true reason of this puling against pews has been let out by the Times : Jossru Hums is writing in that journal, and thinks it cheaper to pull down pews than to rear churches. If there is no one left in England to do battle for tliose ancestral monuments, let us cry across the Atlantic, " Geoffrey Crayon to the rescue!" He was trained in the school of ADDISON, and may lift up his voice against the levelling and miserly spirit which would put down pews as JOHN Knox put down cathedrals.