MORALITY OF THE CLERGY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
1st October 1845.
Sta—I am a clergyman, a subscriber for some years to the Spectator; and moreover, I have taken some trouble to understand your principles, and to defend and explain them to others. I admire, and feel that I have derived much benefit from, the clear nervousness of your diction, and the manly and upright tone of your political views. You will therefore, I trust, excuse me when I say that I feel disappointed and somewhat aggrieved by the article called "Clerical De- linquencies." It appears to me hastily written, and concluded without your usual force of premises.
You assert that " the lamentable frequency of those minor offences, verging
upon swindling, of which the police takes cognizance—cases like that of the Reverend James West, charged at Lambeth with illegally pawning—renders the clergy suspected of a lower moral tone than the members of any other gentle- manly profession." At the same time, you exonerate them from the charge of depravity of a more flagrant character. Now, I have no wish to defend those wretched men whose misdeeds have led you to speak thus. As they deserve, so let them be branded with universal ignominy. But I do not think that my " esprit de corps is leading me to palliate the vices of my brethren," when I am desirous of defending the clergy against your sweeping statement. And my de- fence is simply a denial of the accuracy of your assertions. For while I am read?, to admit that your knowledge of the passing events of the day and of men s opinions thereon is far superior to mine, yet I cannot believe it possible that such facts as alone can justify your words could escape the notice of me or of brother clergymen, sensitively alive, whatever you may think, to scandal in our profession: I meet, therefore, your assertion with a counter-assertion, that your statement is not correct; that, in the first place, these lamentable occurrences are not, as you say, frequent; and secondly, that the clergy as a body are not suspected of a lower moral tone than are members of any other gentlemanly pro- fession. Two or three cases are not enough to prove your point. Surely it is not to be considered sufficient proof of the immorality or low tone of the clergy that this Mr. West is guilty of swindling, or that a young clergyman at Andover makes a foolish answer when flurried by an examination of a novel kind. Do you mean to say, that among the many clergymen with whom you probably are acquainted, a low moral tone obtains? The clergy of the Anglican Church, in 1838, (Mr. Jones's Remarks on Tithe,) amounted to 20,000; at the present time probably there are as many as 24,000. How then is it possible that out of so large a body of men, a few, how- ever lamentable this may be, should not show themselves to be bad ?
The usual way of meeting a charge of deficiency in intellect in any body of men, which also you bring against the clergy, is by recounting instances to the contrary. This, however, is beside my purpose. If your readers cannot supply themselves with these, and if they who live in country-towns, villages, and the like, really believe the clergy to be inferior in intellect to those with whom they are versed, no arguments of mine would have any avail with them. But I deny most confidently your assertion that the heart of the clergy of the present day, taken as a body, is not in their profession. I am sure you cannot be aware of the sacrifices of health and fortune, unostentatious indeed, which are daily making by many, I may say, thousands, among us. Did you ever cast your eye on the sub- scription made two years ago for the education of the manufacturing districts? or on that for the new Missionary College at Canterbury? or on any other which comes before the clergy? You could no but see that they are working earnestly and with a will. I do not say this for self-satisfaction; nor do I deny that more can be done—that stricter lives may and ought to be led by many. But I believe that you do not yourself understand by strictness of life what I mean by it, and that the lives and doings of the clergy are misrepresented in your article ac- cording to the meaning which you give to your words. I think, then, I have said enough to answer your charge, or at least to make it necessary for you to prove it more definitively. If, as I say, your assertions are unfounded, it seems needless to enter upon your theory of the cause why that exists which does not exist, or on your remedies for this evil. Yet even here let me say one word.
So far from the clerical life being, as you suppose, a life spent in contemplation, retirement, and inaction, I as a practical man assure you, that an opportunity for this retirement and contemplation is the very thing which we need. A clergyman is in constant contact with men on every sort of subject. And as to the early education of a clergyman, if the university, as at present constituted, do not " force him into intimate contact with the future lawyers, diplomatists," and all the rest, save of course the soldiers and sailors, I should like to know what will.
I am, Sir, your very obedient servant, W. J. B.
[Other communications, having the same object as the above, have reached us: but this, which we select as the best-written, and also the strongest statement of the case for the clergy, will probably suffice.
These correspondents appear to have very much misapprehended the aim of our remarks. We did not positively assert that the moral tone of the clergy was lower than that of other gentlemanly professions: we merely observed that the frequency of certain magisterial revelations led people to suspect that they might be; and that it was more for the interest of the Church to probe the troth of this suspicion, and if well founded to apply a remedy, than to waste talent and energy on struggles to enforce or restore outward forms. Nor did we assert that a large number of the clergy were suspected to be capable of such actions as the Reverend James West, the clergyman who figured in the Hammersmith case, the Honourable and Reverend Metropolitan clergyman recently suspended by his dio- cesan, and others of whom the provincial journals have recently been making mention. In the case of the labouring classes, the number and character of offences of which their members are convicted are held to indicate the weak side of the conventional morality of each class—the " sin which most easily besets it"—the average moral tone of those who have done nothing to forfeit their stand- ing in society. We applied the same test to one of the educated classes. Among educated men whose professions rank them with the upper classes, positive delin- quency—such as leads to " convictions "—is comparatively rare: there are a thousand props to which a man can cling and arrest his downward career. And yet the conventional tone of the class may be lamentably low. It is of bad omen for any country when the classes which give the tone to society are in this con- dition; and the Church is necessarily weakened in that country where the moral tone of its professors is not in marked advance of their equals in social rank. Whether this is or is not the case at present in England, we presume not to decide: but it is a question which every habitual reader of the newspapers, if friendly to the Church, must wish that the ecclesiastical authorities should quietly and calmly examine thoroughly. As to the conjecture we threw out respecting the possible influence of the edu- cation and employments of the Anglican clergy, it may be wrong, but e still fancy there might be amendment in that respect. In the case of the clergy of Scotland, we believe their association with young men of other professions while at the University, and their participation in the secular cares of a parish afterwards, have conduced to brace their characters and give them a robust healthy moral tone. There is a large proportion of the Anglican clergy upon whom no such cares devolve: and as to associating with aspirants to the learned lay professions at the English Universities, that is out of the question, for, except with the clergy, the professional education only commences after the University is left, and a majority of our most successful lawyers and medical men never enter rt.—ED.]
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