" RELIGIO LAIC."
MR. H. C. BEECHING in the very temperate and able paper on the cleavage between the clergy and the laity of the Church of England which he calls " Religio Laici," and publishes in the Monthly Review, limits his view too closely to the conflict between the majority and the High Church. He hardly admits sufficiently the depth of the cleavage among all classes of opinion. He thinks, for instance, that the dislike to sacerdotalism, which he entirely admits, and which is now so widespread that it forms a cardinal point in the lay creed, and would, if-the Articles could be rewritten by Parliament, be very roughly expressed, is chiefly caused by the preposterous claims of certain among the Ritualist clergy, like the vicar who ordered that no layman should ever be admitted, even upon a weekday, within the chancel of his church. Mr. Beeching himself is a clergyman and he was admitted, while his lay friend, who was much more interested in chancels, was compelled to stay outside. It is quite true, no doubt, that when the laity argue upon the subject, which is very seldom, they are apt to dwell upon extravagant absurdities of this kind; but that is by no means the whole of the truth which the clergy will one day have to face. Rightly or wrongly, and from whatever cause, the disposition to attribute any supernatural power whatever to the clergy- man is fading away in the lay mind. There is not, so far as we see, the least disposition, such as has occasionally shown itself in Catholic countries, either to despise or dislike the clergyman. On the contrary, when he is approved there is a disposition to respect him, to smooth his path—always with the exception of any consent to increase his stipend— and to assist his efforts in every way that he is ready to permit. The clergy have distinctly risen, instead of falling, in public estimation, a fact due no doubt in part to their much higher average of excellence in conduct, and their social standing could hardly be improved. But the layman—we speak, of course, with full consciousness that there is a minority which holds different opinions—has silently aban- doned the belief that the clergyman is a priest. He would not have him intruded upon in his functions for the world, for, in the lay judgment, they belong to him by right of train- ing and of a special habitude of mind. A layman arrogating to himself a right to perform all the functions of a clergyman offends other laymen just as an ordinary man of ability assuming the functions of a Judge or of a Colonel would offend him, but it is exactly in the same way and for the same reasons. He never, unless most severely pressed by circum- stances, tells the clergyman this. He thinks it the height of bad manners, especially if he likes his rector, to deny, or still more, to ridicule, his pretensions, but he thinks these pretensions none the less unwarranted by the essential spirit of Christianity. His clergyman is the same as his lawyer or his doctor in all except that he is called to more solemn duties, and may, if to him has been given the gift of persuasion, be of a higher use. He is only a human being, though he may be respected, or even venerated, as a King may, or a Premier. It is this great change in the general attitude of the lay mind which the clerical body fail to recognise, and which lies at the root of much of the con- troversy about the meaning and intent of the Lord's Supper. We do not think that the Sacrament is so generally believed to be merely commemorative as is sometimes imagined. The majority of recipients think, of course with different degrees of conviction, that the rite either does or may convey to them some inward and spiritual grace, but they believe that this grace comes from the rite itself, and not in any way or degree whatever, either directly or mediately, fro; the person who administers the Communion. They do not
rebel against that idea, they do not often argue about it but they have lost in some way of which they are hardly conscious the power of believing it. It is the same with worship. We should say that Mr. Beeching rather underrated the English reverence and liking for worship as distinguished from preaching, but the majority feel it as strongly when the captain of a ship leads the service as when a clergyman does. They prefer the clergyman because it is his business, but they see no other difference. The clergy, apart from their convictions, are naturally most reluctant to believe this, as Judges would be if the same depreciating change had happened about them, and it is this reluctance which maintains the cleavage of which so much is made.
We are not arguing just now whether the clergy or the laity are right in their view, but only stating a fact patent, as we think, to all who ever hear the religious laity when speak- ing beyond a clergyman's range of hearing. And there is another fact, not of equal importance, which tends in the same direction. The laity in all Protestant countries, Eng. land included, have lost to a quite curious degree the percep- tion of the truth that ethics must rest, in some degree at least, upon a basis of dogma. They hold them to be all in all, and forget that there are ethics and ethics; that, for example, if Christ was only a philosopher, it is quite possible that the prevalent system of thought is not hard enough, that it pardons too much, makes too much of love, and is too in- different to the very stern system of ethics revealed in Nature. They do not see that, failing Christ, the Chinaman cannot think as they do about the massacre of his enemies. Why should they not be massacred, he thinks, if the provocation is adequate ? Conduct has become to the laity all in all, and they quite forget that the rule of conduct cannot be absolutely based upon utility, but must depend, in part at any rate, upon convictions as to the nature and commands of God. A Mussulman and a Christian do not even fight from the same impulse or under the same ethical sanction. The clergy as a body have never been able to lose this perception so com- pletely. A few of them do, and suffer their whole minds to be absorbed in works of benevolence, the need of which, God knows, is ever before them; but the majority do not. They feel themselves impelled, both by conscience and by training, to tell their audiences from time to time how important belief must be, and upon what evidence belief should rest, and then the laity fret. They want, they say, to be told what to do, not what to believe, and fail to see not only that faith without works is dead, but that the kind of works which are righteous must depend in large measure upon the kind of faith which is accepted. If Christ never rose, why are you to postpone this world to the next? If he were not commissioned, why ought you to forgive unto seventy times seven ? A world organised upon the ideas of Marcus Aurelius would have a very strong system of ethics, but it would be very unlike a Christian world. It is a singular root of cleavage, for it indicates in the laity a certain failure in the power of thought; but that it exists, and leads to a certain contemptuous tolerance of spiritual teaching, as very proper but needless, we are absolutely convinced, as we are that the clergy do not quite perceive it. If they did, they would make much clearer than they sometimes do the binding nexus which must always exist between any system of religious thought and the consequences that must flow from it. They think that their congregations are "cold to Christian verities " the necessity of teaching which they themselves quite perceive, and do not see that the coldness is not due either to scepticism or impiety, but to an illogical faith in results only which marks in all directions the thought of the day. I want to know,' says the man of science, the law of the Röntgen ray.' I want only to know,' says the layman, what the ray will do for me.' The cleavage is a wide one, though we fear our clerical readers will say that we have described it but clumsily.
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