BISHOP BOYD CARPENTER.*
BISHOP BOYD CARPENTER does not give us, and, indeed, could not be expected to give us, much about his strictly' mg LT,. By the Rt. Rev. W. Ddyd Carpenter. London Williams and Norgete. [15a. net.] episcopal experiences. If some day a bishop could tell us the story of his rule—could tell us, for instance, what he says and writes to his clergy, and what his clergy say and write to him, it would be an interesting record to say the least. But we cannot expect it. At least it would have to be kept under seal for a century. Nevertheless we have in the volume before us some noteworthy experiences and opinions. Generally the bishop does not approve of the present-day ideals in his own profes- sion. The clergyman is too much " the fussy, ubiquitous deviser of novelties," expected, not only to visit and to attend services "needful and needless," but to do countlees other things, some of them very like " serving tables." Generally " the ideal to-day, alike of episcopal and parochial duty, is dire eipation of energy—the apostolic ideal was concentration of purpose." Even modern fashions of clerical dress do not please him. He misses the shirt-front, regretting, we read, "the disappearance of clean linen from the clerical attire" 0.-might we suggest that four white shirts in the week would cost sixteen pence, as against threepence for one flannel, i.e., £4 as against 13s., no insignificant difference where an income Of £150 is concerned P " Clericalism " generally is distaste- ful. It is an "isolating vice" ; the clergyman should show himself as a citizen among citizens. Of course it may be answered that this rule has been followed and without good results ; that it brought about the indifference against which the Methodist, the Evangelical, and the Tractarian revivals were successively directed. And so we are confronted with the old antinomy between the secular and the religious, between the life which touches the world and is absorbed by it and the life which stands remote from the world and does not influence it for good. We can only say with the Princess Ida, "The matter hangs." Let us pass to subjects less difficult.
The Bishop's early days were spent in Liverpool, where his father bad a charge, a parish, or, rather, half a parish. 'he story of how this division came about is a very curious one. The Corporation of Liverpool built several churches and spent huge sums of money in the building, for, indeed, the pseudo-classical style, with a spire added, was very costly. (St. Pancras, in London, without a spire cost L70,000). The -Corporation, to recoup itself, sold the patronage, augmenting the price by creating two incumbencies in each church. The senior incumbent was minister, the junior chaplain. These two had equal rights. The Bishop's father had one of these parishes. His junior colleague was touched by the Tractarian Movement, end after rousing suspicion by preaching the " Plain Sermons "—some of our older readers will remember these auxiliaries of the Tractarian Movement—openly scandal- ized the congregation by going up into the pulpit without changing his surplice for a gown. On the next Sunday a large proportion, by way of protest, left the church. Then a truce was arranged. The old way was to he followed in the morning, the new in the evening. But the situation was not agreeable, and the junior incumbent escaped from it by an exchange. But the exchange did not brin g an improvement. The outgoing clergyman was a High Churchman ; the newcomer was a High Calvinist, one of the sort who, in reading the text "that the world through Him might be saved," would alter the word ". world " into the word " elect" ; he was also thoroughgoing. He refused to greet his colleague at the end of his first year, and in summing up the results of his ministry he denounced him as the "adversary." We have not yet reached the ideal of -brotherly love, -but, at least, such doings are not now possible. For one thing the dual incumbencies have been abolished. If one parson denounces a brother at least he does it in another church. The future bishop was not altogether happy in his 'school, the Royal Institution—it has now passed away— then presided over by the Rev. Dawson Turner, a man of ability and energy—he spent the Christmas holidays of 1854-55 in helping relief workers in the Crimea—but already showing some signs of the mental malady which afterwards declared -itself. The second in command, Albert Wynn, was of a very different kind ; "my only real teacher" is the Bishop's tribute ; and the writer . of this notice, who knew the man, is not surprised at the praise. Generally Liverpool was appreciated as a dwelling pleee. And, indeed, there are few towns to equal it.. There is the country round about, on either side of the Mersey, and the matchless spectacle of the docks. In due course came Cembridge. The Bishop says very little about his life there, except, indeed, about the University Volunteer Corps, of which ho was an active member. He regrets that the volunteers have been disbanded. The truth is that no other course was possible in view of the general defection of the middle class; with a few exceptions, such as the Inns of Court, nine-tenths of the first supporters of the movement bad deserted it. The author's first charge was at Maidstone, where he had the trying experience of a cholera epidemic. Then ho held curacies at Clapham and Leo, and in ]870. became Vicar of St. James's, Holloway, whither -he bad gone a few months before as assistant to the Vicar. His last parochial charge before his elevation to the episcopate was Christ Church, Lancaster Gate. This seems the fitting place• to find out what the Bishop has got to say about preach- ing. No one has a better right to speak. He stands at. the top of the preachers of the -day; and there are very few among the great pulpit orators whose eloquence is still a living memory who can be preferred to him. His own University has conferred upon him all the honours -which she bad to give in this direction ; and Oxford has made him a, Select Preacher, a distinction not often bestowed on a stranger,. and also Bampton Lecturer, a still more unusual honour. His first remark will be a little surprising. One who aspires to- success in the pulpit might not unreasonably wish to be- entirely calm and self-possessed. Not so, says the Bishop,. and he quotes Archbishop Magee, who, to young clergy com- plaining that they are too nervous to do what they desired, would reply "If you are not -nervous you will never do it.' This is a hard saying, and it is not made easier by-the almost tragic story of the plight in which Dr. Boyd Carpenter found himself when preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral at the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy. He opened the Bible to give out- the text ; the chapter he could see, but the verses were a blank. Presumably there is a judicious mean in this as in other- things. Be not nervous over }ramie Feel the importance of the occasion, but do not let the feeling overpower you. Of one of the three modes of preaching the Bishop pronounces; a thorough and unhesitating condemnation. This is the plan- of writing out the sermon and committing the written ward to memory. " This," he says, " has always seemed to me the height of folly and the vain striving after the impossible." Yet some great preachers have used it. Where the written discourse has been regarded as almost an impiety, and such places there have been, and, perhaps, still are; no other alter- native is possible—at least for some preachers. But it will never be a popular method. Practically the choice lies between. reading and speaking. The Bishop does not pretend to decide- between them. He remembers what great men have used the written discourse—Henry Melville, Liddon, Phillips Brea& among them. Bat he prefers the spoken, commonly but wrongly called the extempore. Much, indeed, of the expression an some of the thought will be of the moment. There is a gift. of improvisation, and it may be used in the pulpit. Then, as- our author points out, the spoken sermon has a better chance- of being well heard, and, as Augustus Hare put it, there is, the " preaching of the eye " which the reader can scarcely help using. But different men have different gifts. Few- would deny that, given absolute equality in the matter- delivered, the spoken sermon has the advantage.
Three of the most interesting chapters in the book are- headed "Tennyson," "The Queen," "The Empress Frederick.'" We do not care to quote anything from them. To isolate ae passage might well be to spoil it. We will only say that it is not so much the distinction of the great poet, the Queen,. the Empress, that impresses us as we read as the elevation of thought which marks them all.
And the good stories—what of them P Well, they are here,. and will give no little entertainment to the reader. But,. again, though for another reason, we do not care to quote.. We will give instead the story which the Bishop tells of a kinsman, William Boyd. He was a Fellow of Trinity College,. Oxford, and the living of Arneliffe, in the West Riding of York-- shire, fell vacant. He was going to spend his vacation in the North, and he volunteered to inspect it. He went to Leede,. and no one knew anything definite about it. He went to- Skipton and -found that it was seventeen miles distant, and was occasionally visited by a carrier's cart. He wont and found it a desolate place—" 34,079 acres, population 059,"' we find in the Gazetteer. Ho went back and gave in his report. That night the thought came to him, " Will anyone.
go P Shall I hav3 hindered others from going ? " had, prospects at Oxford; be had private means, but he went; he lived for the people and the place fifty-eight more years. He made the church and the churchyard beautiful; he made the parsonage a pleasant dwelling ; he raised the incomes of the poor benefices near; and then after fifty-eight years of devotion he died. " Let no one say that the ago of saints is pasts"
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