DECANAL FUNCTIONS. E CCLESIASTICAL curiosity is perhaps more active when a
Deanery has to be filled up than in the case of any similar vacancy. This is not because Deaneries are any longer peculiarly rich " plums." They have ceased to be great prizes, and occasionally, when the capitular estates have been restored to them, they bear, during the present agricultural depression, an unpleasant resemblance to blanks. The exceptional stimulus to curiosity lies in the fact that no one, from the Prime Minister downwards, seems to have any clear idea of a dean's duties, or of what manner of man he ought to be in order to perform them. The public has arrived at some- thing of the kind in the case of Bishops. It likes to have them active, statistical, and ready at any moment to touch the fringe of great questions. It tolerates the appointment of an historian or a scholar, but it pro- fers a dash of something more sensational. Still, it has come to realise that a Bishop ought to be chosen, not so much for what he has already done, as for what he may yet do. There is no agreement of this kind in the case of deaneries. Nobody seems clear whether they should serve as rewards for past work, or as occasions for future work. There is something to be said in behalf of either contention. The Church has not too many good things to give away, and if a clergyman has shown exceptional merit in any line, he ought to be rewarded. That seems a reasonable argument, and from it the inference is easily drawn that he should be rewarded with a deanery. When no one knows exactly what a dean has to do, it seems unnecessary to inquire whether he is fit to do it.
We pass by the theory which would make deaneries the possession of men who have rendered specific services to their political party. It is not an uncommon theory in prac- tice, though it is not often defended in word. Indeed, it is very hard to defend it in word. If a dean has any- thing to do, why should he be chosen for qualifications which imply nothing as to his ability to do it ? If he has nothing to do, why should he be rewarded out of Church revenues for work done, not for the Church, not even for a school of thought in the Church, but for the Conservative or the Liberal Party ? There is no answer to these questions ; and those of whom they are asked commonly escape from them by mixing up secular and ecclesiastical activity. The appointment of an active Conservative is justified on the plea that he has defended the interests of the Established Church ; the appointment of an active Liberal is justified as the introduction of a new broom into a nest of eccle- siastical cobwebs. Neither class of appointment is very often justified by results. The Conservative appointment only increases the impression that the Church is kept going in the interest of the Tories ; the Liberal appoint- ment leaves the ecclesiastical cobwebs pretty much where they were. On the whole, we may say that the most popular view of deaneries is that which makes them the reward of ecclesiastical merit, using the term in a pretty wide sense. The public conscience is satisfied if a vacant deanery is filled by a popular preacher. The large con- gregations he has drawn are counted to him for righteous- ness. But it will be equally well satisfied in other ways. The writing of a book which has made its mark, associa- tion with large philanthropic schemes, a reputation for a gift in parochial organisation, will all serve. The news of the appointment draws forth the comment that so-an d- so deserves promotion, and no one stops to inquire whether the promotion he has got is the precise promotion he deserved. Yet this second method differs rather in degree than in kind from the political method. They are alike in having reference only to the past, and not at all to the present or the future. Of course, it is conceivable that this may be he right way to look at deaneries. Now that sinecures have been so generally abolished, it is a difficult matter to reward even real merit. We see every day the in- congruous results to which this difficulty leads. A great historian is appointed to a bishopric, in which the time he would like to spend in consulting authorities and decipher- ing manuscripts has to be given up to rural confirmations. We do not mean to put the latter occupation below the other ; we only say that it is an inappropriate reward for the other, and that if sinecures still existed, they would supply a more congruous method. It is conceivable, we say, that deaneries may be exactly what we are in want of. You cannot hope in these days to create a new sinecure, or to keep one long in being if such a thing exists. But if an office could be invested with the appearance of work without the reality, the same purpose might be answered. And the popular notion of a deanery certainly points in this direction. If a dean appears in his stall on Sundays, and occasionally in the week, he is supposed to have done all that his position requires of him, and then everything above the small per-tentage of his official income that is represented by these prefunctory attend- ances may be regarded as a reward for whatever real work he has done before he became dean. But if this view be accepted as correct, how shall wo answer the question : What is the use of cathedrals ? ' If it were once ascertained that the position of captain of a man-of- war, or commanding officer of a battalion, was a purely ornamental one, we should certainly be led on to consider whether ships or battalions were of any further use. Cathedrals, of course, have an architectural and artistic value quite apart from any practical use to which they may be turned. But a capitular establishment is a very costly machine for keeping up a fine specimen of archi- tecture or glass-painting. It might be done much more cheaply by a custodian, with enough assistants to ensure that the visitors did no mischief to the building. If deans are only idle officials paid nominally for what they are doing, but really for something quite different which they did long ago, we suspect that the besom which has swept away so many other sinecures will not be long in reaching cathedrals. Now, let us look at the other side of the picture, and ask whether a cathedral may not, even now, be eomewhat more than a museum or a covered promenade. If it is not more than this, it is clear that Christians in all ages have been ill-informed as to their own needs and the way of meeting them. What was the impulse that covered Europe with cathedrals, that in so many places has kept the cathedral standing when buildings scarcely less splendid have been swept away ? Why is it that of late years the thoughts of Churchmen have been so often turned to cathedrals as the natural centres of new efforts for the diffusion of religion ? No doubt it may be only an instinct, and an untrustworthy instinct ; but before we dismiss it in this way, we ought, at least, to consider the alternative possibility, and to consider it from the point of view of a believer in the religion to which cathedrals owe their birth. If we do this, we shall see, as it seems to us, that cathedrals might be made to answer, at the very least, two purposes, which could not be answered without them. They were founded, as their statutes commonly show, to secure the most splendid attainable rendering of religious worship. What the architecture of a cathedral is to the architecture of a village church, that the services of a cathedral should be to the services of a village church. In frequency—in the assured presence of the nucleus, at all events—of a congre- gation, in beauty of music, in dignity of ceremonial, the cathedral of a diocese should be an example, not neces- sarily to be imitated, but to be admired and reverenced. The second purpose is the maintenance of theological learning. We should like to see a good theological and general library attached to each cathedral, and to see the capitular body become a Theological Faculty for the whole diocese. When the clergy have left the University or the theological college, it is difficult for them to im- prove, or even keep up, their theological attainments. Their libraries are, perhaps, small, or if they are large, they are sorely in want of a guide to the contents of their well-filled shelves. This is a function which the capitular body might fill—if it were qualified to fill it—with very great advantage to the younger men around them. Nor would we limit the help thus given to pure theology. We have no sympathy with the present craze for turning every parson into an economist or a scientific investigator. But there is room for many excursions into the border- lands which separate theology from the other sciences, and with a properly constituted Chapter, the cathedral would be the naturel starting-point of these inquiries, and the canons the natural guides to them. Well, it may be said, granting that all this is true, it is an argument for choosing active canons rather than for choosing active deans. Not a bit of it. The efficiency of a man-of-war depends in part on its subordinate staff, but it depends much more on its captain. The efficiency of a battalion depends in part on its company of officers, but it depends much more on its commander. What the colonel is to a battalion and the captain to the ship, that the dean is to the cathedral ; and if once this were realised, there would be an end to the notion of prize deaneries.
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