A CRITIC OF THE CLERGY.
IT is difficult to believe that there is any serious meaning in a scheme which Mr. H. W. Massingham published in a late number of the Contemporary Review, for what he is pleased to call "the Nationalisation of Cathedrals." To "nationalise" signifies, in the jargon of the new economics, to transfer A's property to B. So far we understand Mr. Massing- ham ; but the transference which he proposes is peculiarly irrational, and even grotesque. He allows that " Disestablish- ment as a party watchword has largely lost its magic ;" but he suggests a scheme which goes far beyond the most revolu- tionary proposals of the Liberationists. The endowments of the cathedrals are to be secularised. They are not to be shared between the Anglican Church and the teachers of other religious bodies. For these latter Mr. Massing- ham professes an arrogant contempt, which is certainly not justified by the facts. The cathedrals, "so unique in historic and spiritual learning," are not to be handed over to a "body of contending sectaries inconspicuous for their learning." The deaneries and canonries are to be made into prizes for art and science and learning. Lord Tennyson, for instance, might be Dean of Westminster ; and Sir F. Leighton be installed in a canonry. Curiously enough, Mr. Massingham has just been complaining that these eccle- siastical offices are sinecures. His contention in this respect is, to say the least, a gross exaggeration. Deans and Canons have duties which he naturally does not understand, and would not appreciate if he did, but which are sufficiently real. His new cathedral dignitaries could not possibly do anything in return for the emoluments which it is proposed to hand over to them. Would Lord Tennyson—we must really• apologise to him, and to others whose names we take from Mr. Massingham's paper—give an early reading of a new poem from the pulpit of Winchester Cathedral, Mr. Lecky lecture on Home-rule, or Professor Huxley criticise the Mosaic cosmogony ? Would not some of these gentlemen be as much at a loss as was the sham Professor Huxley, when he was asked to say grace at the "Golden Butterfly" dinner of celebrities ? Surely, to be serious, the cathedrals are meant for worship. The services in them are to be patterns for orderliness and beauty to all the churches of the diocese. They may not always fulfil this function, or fulfil it in the best possible way ; but in most, we might almost say in all of them, an honest endeavour in this direction is made. Any one who will compare them as they are now with what they were some thirty or forty years ago, will acknowledge that a vast improvement has been made. Preaching. of course, is "foolish- ness" to Mr. Massingham, except it be done by laymen—he is evidently a firm believer in the "infallibility of the laity "- but the crowds which throng the naves of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, and of almost every provincial cathedral, do not agree with him. The services, it is graciously allowed, may go on under the superintendence of the Minor Canons, and "no revolutionary change need at once be contemplated in the ritual or doctrine of the Church" [we italicise the words "at once," so significant do they seem], but the endowments by which they are virtually supported are to be handed over to men who might be indifferent or hostile to all that these services represent, and could not, however friendly, do any- thing to promote them.
It is needless to criticise at length Mr. Massingham's figures. It is a common fallacy to exaggerate the wealth the possession of which you wish to make invidious, and Mr. Massingham does not fail to employ it. The dignitaries whom he attacks will read with a melancholy smile his state- ment that Deans enjoy, on an average, an income of 21,200 per annum, and Canons of 2700. Nor will we do more than point out the blunder, unpardonable in a writer who claims to be such an authority on culture, of talking of "Professors in the University of London." It will be enough to say a few words about his main contention,—viz., that the Anglican clergy are an uncultured and ignorant set, "nowhere in science, in literature, in art, in scholarship," so hopelessly below what they ought to be, that the "half-century of life" which might otherwise have been given to the Church is now out of the question. This is the general indictment brought against the whole body ; it is specially applied, in view of the writer's purpose, to the cathedral dignitaries. Now, we are quite ready to admit that the prominent ecclesiastics of the day are not as distin guished for qualities and attainments other than professional as they were, say, twenty years ago. It is possible that we may now be in the midst of one of those " low-water " periods which occur in the history of all institu- tions. And we thoroughly agree in Mr. Massingham's criti- cism of Lord Salisbury's appointments. He has given high places in the Church to undistinguished men ; he has passed
• over men who were eminently deserving. But it would be unjust to censure his choice if he had no materials to choose from. The whole force of the criticism lies in the fact, which Mr. Massing- ham implicitly admits, that there were worthy recipients of these honours, and that, from carelessness or want of sympathy, the Prime Minister has passed them over. This might be a reason for changing the system or the man who administers it, but it is a little hard on the profession which is treated so ill. The real question is, not whether the best men are chosen for office and honour, but whether the general body of the clergy are the stupid and illiterate dunces which Mr. Massingham makes them out to be. Now, in the first place, how many really eminent men does Mr. Massingham think he ought to find in the clerical or in any other profession ? How many really great Generals, Admirals, architects, men of science, engineers, do we possess ? There are plenty of able men in each vocation ; but how few who are distinguished, say, beyond their own country ! Eminence must be rare, or it ceases to be eminence. In the second place, why should distinction in branches of knowledge outside their own work be demanded of the clergy more than of any other body of profes- sional men ? They have an engrossing occupation, in which more and more urgent demands are daily made upon them ; they have a study of their own which it requires a lifetime to master. Preaching, pastoral work, theology, Mr. Massingham doubtless despises ; but these things do, as a matter of fact, occupy the energies of men of first-rate ability. And yet the clergy do distinguish themselves in outside matters more than do the members of any other profession. Take the doctors, or the practising lawyers,—shall we be able to compile out of their ranks such a list of men distinguished in science, litera- ture, and scholarship as could be found among the clergy ? The days when ecclesiastics monopolised professorships and fellowships are past, and happily past. But it does not follow that because some forty or fifty clergymen are no longer thrust into places to which they were often unequal, the .whole body is deteriorated. Of course the clergy feel, as all other professionals feel, the specialising influence of the age. They have far more of their own work to do, and less time, in con- sequence, for other things ; but they are still far off, as the most casual examination of such a book as " Crockford's " will show, from the general condition of illiteracy to which Mr. Massingham assigns them. In one letter of the alphabet alone, we find the names of Capes, Chase, Cheetham, Sir G. Cox, Dr.
W. Cunningham, all distinguished for attainments outside their profession. And if we compare them—and this is, after all, the fairest test—with any other clergy in the world, what do we find ? What Episcopacy could show names that even now,. when our Bench is not particularly distinguished, could be ranked with ours ? Where else in the Western Church, or the Eastern, could we find men, as we can find them in hundreds of cases—scholars, men of science, thinkers, and writers on great social subjects—content to pass their lives in obscure country, villages? There are influences within and without that tend,. we acknowledge with pain, to depress the level of attainments and culture in the clergy ; but that level is still high enough to make the accusation of Mr. Massingham as unjust as it is. unmannerly.
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