1 FEBRUARY 1873, Page 20

WORDS AND WORKS.* THE first thing that would probably strike

with surprise any one who might casually take up this singularly uninviting-looking volume would be, why we call attention to it. We certainly do not imagine that it will command a large circle of readers, or commend itself to the superficial reader at all. But it has an interest of its own for not a few minds, to whom the question, "Is the National Church worth preserving as such, and if so, how best increase its vital power ?" is of deep and grave importance.

Sometimes deep questions admit of very simple answers. And though we are not going for a moment to suggest that the series of loosely strung and very unequal papers we have before us in this volume, will give any adequate answer to so grave an inquiry, or go far to solve so intricate a problem, they certainly contain facts and suggestions which may help to clear the way for at least a better practical understanding of the subject. Perhaps no body of men comprehend so imperfectly the working of our parochial system as the exclusively literary class, composed, as it is, for the most part, of men who live to a great extent outside the influence of that system, and have little oppor- tunity to watch its working. We have before us a sketch of what is accomplished subject to its laws and ordered by its spirit in one large district or parish in London, namely, Soho. Everyone will grant the name calls up very varied associations. We can hardly imagine a more heterogeneous mass of human beings than are gathered together in the small area so designated. "It presents, in truth, to the inquiring mind," as one contributor to this volume observes, "a perfect collection of the lower strata of the London life of 1873." How reach the units of this mass ? How blend them into one with any common interests ? How raise them above the sordid in- terests which consume all their energies? Looking on the vast picture of sin, misery, and poverty on the one side, cold respectability and well-to-do indifference on the other, how breathe on all these dry bones that they may live? Well, says Mr. Anderson, the National Church is the proper agent in this work ; and that Church being, as its own Articles declare, a body of faithfal men, lay as well as clerical, he calls upon all the lay help he can get. His schools, for instance, which are so arranged as to form a vast national school, are placed under the management of a local com- mittee, formed of the well-to-do men of business in the parish, Mr. Anderson observing, "If our clergy understood their own interest and that of their parishes, they would do their utmost to obtain lay help, counsel, and interest in every department of their work. The business mind and lay mind are a most desirable adjunct to the professional and clerical:mind, in all matters of parish work." The education offered in these schools is as wide as it is at present practicable to make it. "No child in the parish need go ignorant, not merely of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but of the laws of health, physical and moral, and of some know- ledge in drawing, history, and French. In connection with these schools, is a library "filled," says Mr. Anderson, "with books of real interest and amusement such as we ourselves like to read, not of the doubtfully profitable or doubtfully dull sort." And we observe with considerable pleasure that with respect to the Sunday schools, which are said to be flourishing, Mr. Anderson has avoided the fatal mistake of over-organisation. "The secret of the success," he observes, " would seem to be the freedom of indi- vidual action which is adopted, and hence the full scope for per- sonal interest. Rules are well, but narrow rules in a Sunday- school are a great mistake." We wish the spirit of those words could enter the heart and brain of every manager of a Sunday- school. The "Young Men's Discussion Class," of which Mr. Anderson is president, and which meets for the discussion of ele- mentary science, history, politics, &c., brings him into contact with a very large element for good or evil in his parish ; while his parochial savings' bank, where four per cent, interest is given on sums under five pounds, numbers between six and seven hundred members, all of whom come, from the very fact of membership, under civilising, if not Christianising influence. We have merely touched upon a few of the principal philanthropic and educa- tional institutions in direct connection with the clergyman at work in this one parish, and have left out for the moment those more directly connected with his spiritual

• Words and Works in a London Parish. Edited by Rev. C. Anderson, M.A. London: Henry S. King and Co. 1873.

work, in some of which we might be disposed to question the tnodus operandi, but that we remember the reproof administered when the disciples saw one casting out devils in Christ's name, and forbad him, "because he followed not us." But our prin- cipal reason for calling attention to the work thus quietly going on in Soho is not because it is greater or more marvellous than parish work ordinarily is, but because it is just what thousands of unknown clergymen up and down the country could put their names to, and say, "This, and this, and this is just my work too." Many of these men are utterly unqualified for preaching. There are curates who have garnered no small sheaf of good wheat where the lookers-on saw only tares, and will carry the same with them, the offering of their life's work, into the great Home Land, of whose Sunday essay many a schoolboy would be ashamed ; but we believe the great work of the Church of England as a National Church is increasingly well and faithfully done, that the facts contained in the pages before us are simply typical of what is going on through the length and breadth of the land, and the de- sultory papers which form the rest of this volume help to indicate this. One of them, called "Endale Revisited," gives an account of a visit paid, we presume, by Mr. Anderson himself to a parish where twenty years before he had been curate. This is a bit of his description of the village as it was :—

" On Sundays, dreary formal prayers, by the parson and the clerk hymns sung to a barrel-organ, chiefly through the nose ; a sermon drawled from a printed book to high-backed empty pews ; such was the service. Village school there was none, unless the dame's school may claim that title. To be 'religious,' was to be suspected of Metho- distic leanings ; and not without some reason, as most such went to chapel. For recreation, there were the stiff full-dress dinners, which went the round of the squires and rector ; the talk, such as there was, not being quite in keeping with the new curate's tastes and habits."

Which of us who can remember twenty years ago, but can recall some well-known Endale? Here is Endale as it is :—

" But of all the interests for me, came first, and foremost, the change in church and rectory ; a change most difficult to realise. The new rector is a young man of modest life and manners, no magistrate, sparing for himself, but lavish for church, and schools, and services, and other work ; with a good taste, a devout heart, and a wide intellect to guide him. 'Which will you see first,' they said, 'the old church ? you will not know it ; our new schools ? they are just finished ; or the labourers' club ? it is a great success.' How can I choose of things

each so improbable. But I did see all The church within ; it is quite true, I should not have known it. The high-walled pews, all

changed for simple benches Then we went to see the schools ; a modest building, but well ordered ; with light and air in plenty, and a clean-washed floor; and clean-washed faces, too, which are still rarer. When will our schoolmasters learn that 'smartness' may be got out of the farm lad at school, as easily as out of the farm recruit, in barracks? When will our town schoolmasters learn the need of such a system' Such ' smartness ' can be gained, and readily, at any school. I have seen such both in town and country schools. And its good influence reaches out from school right to the end of life. But as a rule, it is not to be met with. If the master has it not in himself, how then hope to find it in his boys ? And now of tho labourers' club. This is young Ashton's hobby. He is secretary, manager, banker, and shareholder. He brews their beer, buys in their coffee, supplies the milk cost free, goes to market for the tha,cca,' gets up their cricket matches in the summer, and their bagatelle games in the winter. His young wife superintends the library and the newspapers. The rector, from time to time, reads a lecture on his travels and researches. The curate trains the glee choir. And, at Christmas-time, old Ashton gives a supper to all the members. And whence come the funds ? Well, each member pays his mite, and the farmers help. But whence comes the bulk of all this capital expended? My record answers not. It is a mystery ; like those many other gifts which flow in from somewhere, in a wealthy land, whore true Christian men are not yet quite wanting. But, per- haps, nowhere is there seen a greater change than in the farm labourer himself. His wage is, here, now doubled, since my old days. Hence the men are better fed, and clothed, and housed ; and their children stop a longer time at school. Much of the farm work, indeed most of it, is now carried on by machinery, steam force, and scientific method. But labour is not on this account in less demand ; skilled labour is more than ever needed. All farm produce has, by new improvement and new enterprise, widened out and multiplied."

Will the veriest pessimist in Church matters venture to say such a change for the better is not common, is not rather the rule than the exception ? Plenty, of course, remains to be done. There are still cottagerslhc-r,sed worse than pigs, labourers paid like serfs, and sufficiently large districts where ignorance, squalor, and brutishness are the rule; but the number of such is decreasing rapidly, and the National Church is unquestionably no insignificant power in promoting the change. The present writer can remem- ber at this moment more than half a dozen villages in Essex alone which have solely through the exertions of their respective rectors changed their entire character.

Among the papers in the volume before us we have two on "Labourers' Combinations from a Clerical Point of View," and "A Christian Aspect of Strikes," one by Mr. Llewelyn Davies, and the other by Mr. Harry Jones. We commend both to the attention of such of our artisans, and we fear in cities they are a numerous class, who believe always "the parson is against them." One observation, however, we mast notice in Mr. Jones's paper, because we think it is sometimes in danger of being overlooked by men to whom " striking " has become almost a hobby. After observing that "Magna Charta itself was got, so to speak, by a 'strike' of the House of Lords," and that the worst condition is one of isolation, and that "hence in the great cause of Christian civili- sation we hail such a movement, say, as that which is now being known as the Labourers' Union," Mr. Jones observes :—

" Very possibly some of the Working Classes may overrun the mark. There is always some toil to be done. One thinks of the Arab pro- verb: 'If I am master, and thou art master, who shall drive the asses ?' And in striving, naturally enough, for, say, higher wages, some artisans may find that not the masters, but the public, including themselves, are the employers of labour. It is possible to go too far. And too far East, is West. The public has a broad back ; but there is a limit to its -willingness, as well as its capacity, to spend money. Time will show whether dearness of labour will generate economy in purchasing it."

There are two otherpapers in this volume, on which we have not space to comment, but which we would heartily commend to the attention of our readers, —one by Mr. Stopford Brooke, called " Easter Thoughts," full of suggestions of singular power and beauty ; and one by Mr. Anderson, the editor, with whose writing we are not always in accord, on "Lay Influence and Interest in Church Work," which contains not a few hints which might be taken with advantage by some of his clerical fellow-labourers.