LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
EXCLUSIVE RELIGIOUS TEACHING IN BARNET UNION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] heartily acknowledge the general fairness and courtesy of your article on this subject. There are some aspects of the question which could not come under your view, and some matters of opinion on which it was inevitable that differences would arise, upon both of which I ask your indulgence to be heard. I gravely question the assumption on which your article is based, that the State Church, as it is now organised, furnishes real and sufficient guarantees for the satisfactory teaching of Christian truth by her clergy. What are the guarantees which you describe ? What is it that they do secure? Beyond the bare facts of ordination and exemption from flagrant immorality and avowed scepticism, there are, so far as I know, no adequate guarantees that the Rector of a parish or the chaplain of a work- house shall be a spiritually minded man, a capable preacher, or a skilful and sympathetic pastor and visitor of the sick. If such authority as you speak of is a reality, how can we explain the ceaseless disputes within the Church itself, the lamentations of Bishops, the sentences of Courts of Law, and the contrast between Dr. Lee, of Lambeth, and the Bishop of Liverpool ? The ecclesiastical patronage of such men as the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Lonsdale is hardly fitted to lead to the Utopia which you imagine. It is a new thing to a reader of the Spectator to learn from it that such a definite standard exists within the Church. I always inferred that the Spectator followed the teachings of the late F. D. Maurice, and found the source of certainty in the contact of the inner consciousness with reality. It is a new idea to me to discover that at last some organised judgment has been reached by the Church on such questions as the Eucharist, prayers for the dead, baptism, and the rights of the clergy. I should like to know what the voice of the Church on these sub- jects is at the present moment. I am strongly of opinion that the main function of a Christian minister is the inculcation of the moral obligations to God and to society which bind men as subjects of the kingdom of Christ. Discussions about vest- ments, sacramental efficacy, apostolic succession, are irrelevant, whether for paupers or ordinary church-goers. But where are the pledges that require the clergy to avoid foolish fables, and to expound and apply the truths that constitute the ethics of Christianity P It was precisely this phase of the question that led the Guardians, some of them devout members of the Church, to adopt the course they took. They shrunk from handing over the spiritual care of the paupers to a Ritualist, or a perfunctory official with no love for the souls of the poor. The competition between the different parties in the Church that arose directly the vacancy was declared—the canvassing and wire-pulling- confirmed them in their hesitation. Pity the authority which guarantees so ranch after a chaplain is appointed, does not also prevent a number of clergymen from outbidding one another in
the scramble for vacant posts. As to the objection to the em- ployment of a dozen preachers and visitors, composed of clergy- men and Nonconformist ministers, I see no more difficulty in that than in a commission of clergymen only. A college does not suffer from a mixed staff of professors, nor a hospital from a numerous medical staff. The judicious variety that now exists secures freshness, which the paupers appreciate, and the unity shown is good for the Churches and for the public. It is open for any number of clergymen to co-operate. The credit of the Establish- ment for philanthropy will not suffer by their disinterested labour. Nor can I see the force of your objection to the un- sectarian service as involving debate upon the supposed applica- tion of a Positivist. Surely such debate could do no harm to any one. With all the triumphs of a Christian civilisation around us, and the unapproachable supremacy of Christianity as the religion for the poor and suffering, we need not fear that its presence will not carry its own vindication, or that the voice of need and pain will ever cease to demand its hopes and resources. No better thing could happen to the Gospel than to have its superiority discovered by actual working among the distressed and dying, even in the face of its foes. I think we may safely treat our Guardians to prefer the light of Christian truth, to the proposals of Mr. Cotter Morison to lessen the evils of society by checking the increase of population. The applica- tion of medical quackery or of commercial imposture soon finds rejection by that process of sifting and selection which secures the survival and use of what is fitting. That law may be trusted to keep out all false beliefs, and to preserve the revela. tion of the Bible as the paupers' faith.
Considerable misapprehension exists as to the religious pre- ferences of the inmates of the Union. The loosest method has been adopted to get at their beliefs. What constitutes member- ship in the Church of England has never yet been defined. lain not at liberty, as a servant of the Guardians, to declare the results of my contact with the paupers. But I am bound to say that the large claim that has been made to identify 90 per cent, with the Establishment is not warranted. Nearly all of them attend the present services, and some do not hesitate to express their preference for the simplicity and heartiness that mark them. If the paupers' vote were taken as decisive, there can be no doubt that the new plan would be permanent. With 140 Unions in the United Kingdom in which mixed services have been the practice for many years with the happiest results, no one need fear the "religious anarchy" whieh you apprehend, or the doleful issue predicted by a neighbouring clergyman,—" The little spark of religion that smoulders in the hearts of these poor people will die out."—I am, Sir, Sm., High Barnet. J. MATTnEws.
[Our correspondent has indulged in a rather vague dissertation, which does not seem to us to touch a single point of our article; but does suggest to us that the movement has probably more connection with the general wish for Disestabishment than we apprehended last week.—En. Spectator.]
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