Part 31 (1/2)
The Book of Common Prayer, as arranged by Convention in 1790, is well worthy of notice, and, in many points, of imitation. These pages are not the proper place for a theological discussion, and my only reason for touching upon the subject at all is, that the public voice is constantly calling for some modification of the great length of our present Sunday services, and I therefore conclude that the following observations may be interesting to some of my readers.
The leading points of retrenchment are--removing all repet.i.tions, such as the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Collect for the day; a portion of the close of the Litany is omitted at the discretion of the minister.
The Communion Service is not read every Sunday. I suppose the Church authorizes this omission at the discretion of the minister, as I have attended service on more than one occasion when the Communion was not read; when read, Our Lord's commandment, Matthew xxii. 37-40, follows the Commandments of the Old Testament, and a short Collect, followed by the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the day, finish that portion of the service. Independent of the regular Psalms, for the day, there are ten separate short collections, any one of which the minister may subst.i.tute for the proper Psalms, and the Gloria Patri is only said after the last Psalm.
The leading features of difference from our own ”Common Prayer” are as follow:--They appoint proper Second Lessons for the Sunday, instead of leaving them, to the chance of the Calendar--they place the Nicene and Apostles' Creed side by side, and leave the minister to select which he prefers, and to use, if he think proper, the word ”Hades” instead of h.e.l.l. They remove the Athanasian Creed entirely from the Prayer Book, leaving to the minister to explain the mysteries which that creed so summarily disposes of. When it is considered how many Episcopalians are opposed to its d.a.m.natory clauses, and how much more nearly the other creeds resemble that model of simplicity, the Lord's Prayer, they appear to have exercised a sound discretion in this excision. Few deep-thinking people, I imagine, can have heard the children of the parish school reading the responses of that creed after the minister, without pain.
Lest the pa.s.sing opinion of a traveller upon the subject be deemed hasty or irreverent, I beg to quote Bishop Tomline's opinion. He says--”Great objections have been made to the clauses which denounce eternal d.a.m.nation against those who do not believe the faith as here stated; and it certainly is to be lamented that a.s.sertions of so peremptory a nature, unexplained and unqualified, should have been used in any human composition.... Though I firmly believe that the doctrines of this creed are all founded on Scripture, I cannot but conceive it to be both unnecessary and presumptuous to say that, ”except every one do keep them whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.” Mr.
Wheatley also, when writing on the Creed, says, that the third and fourth verses const.i.tute the creed, and that what follows ”requires our a.s.sent no more than a sermon does, which is made to prove or ill.u.s.trate a text.”--To resume.
They have proper prayers and thanksgivings for individuals who desire their use, instead of, as with us, introducing a few words into the ordinary service. They have provided a liberal collection of psalms and hymns for singing in church, and no others are allowed to be used. Each psalm and hymn has the Gloria Patri suited to it marked at the beginning. The inconvenience of the total want of such a provision in our Church is most palpable. Not long before I went to America, I was attending a parish church in the country, where a great proportion of the psalms and hymns used were the minister's own composition, and if I recollect right, the book cost half-a-crown. I came up to town, and I found my parish church there had a selection under the sanction of the Bishop of London. Since my return from America, I have gone to the same London church, under the same Bishop, and I have found a totally different book in use.--The foregoing are the princ.i.p.al alterations in the Sunday services.
The alterations in the other services are chiefly the following:--In the full Communion Service, the word ”condemnation” is subst.i.tuted for ”d.a.m.nation,” in the notice of intimation. The whole of the d.a.m.natory clause in the exhortation, from the word ”unworthily” to ”sundry kinds of death,” is expunged. The first prayer in our Church after the reception, is modified by them into an oblation and invocation, and precedes the reception. The remainder of the service is nearly the same as our own.
They have removed the objectionable opening of the Marriage Service; but, not content with that, they have also removed the whole of the service which follows the minister's blessing after the marriage is p.r.o.nounced, and thus reduced it to a five minutes' ceremony. While on this subject, I may as well observe that, from inquiries I made, I believe but few of those marriages take place by which husband and wife are prevented from kneeling at the same altar, by which their highest interests can never be a subject of mutual discussion, and by which children are either brought up without any fixed religious ideas at all, or else a compromise is entered into, and the girls are educated in one church and the boys in another. In short, I believe the Romanists in America marry but rarely out of the pale of their own church. I cannot say what the law of divorce is, but it appears to offer far greater facilities than would be approved of in England. A gentleman mentioned two cases to me, in one of which the divorce was obtained by the wife without the husband being aware of it, although living in the same State; in the other, the wife returned to the State from which her husband had taken her, and there obtained a divorce without his knowledge.--To return from this digression. In the Visitation of the Sick they have removed that individual absolution of the minister, the wording of which is so objectionable that, if I am rightly informed, it is rarely used by ministers in England. In the Burial of the Dead, they have changed the two concluding prayers in those sentences which refer to the deceased. The Commination they have entirely expunged. They have added a full service for Visitation of Prisoners, and a Harvest Thanksgiving; and they have provided a form of morning and evening prayer for families.
The foregoing const.i.tute the leading points of difference. Of course there are many minor ones which are merely verbal, such, for instance, as their expunging the scriptural quotation of ”King of kings, Lord of lords,” from the prayer for the President, probably out of deference to the prejudices of the Republicans, for which omission they have partially atoned by the subst.i.tution of the grander expression of ”only Ruler of the Universe,” in lieu of the more limited term ”only Ruler of Princes.” To enter into all these verbal changes would be alike tedious and useless. Enough, I trust, has been written to convey a general idea of the most striking and interesting points of difference.
Other churches transplanted to this hemisphere seem to differ from the parent stock most essentially. Thus I find in the almanack for 1853, ”Methodist Episcopal Church (North) 3984 ministers, and 662,315 communicants,” and below them ”Methodist Episcopal Church (South)”
without any return of statistics. I regret not being able to give the reader any history of this occidental hierarchy. I do not even know the Episcopacizing process they go through, whether it is entirely lay or entirely clerical, or whether it is a fusion of the two. At first I imagined it was a Wesleyan offshoot, but I can find no indication of that fact; and, moreover, the Wesleyan is a very small body, numbering 600 ministers and 20,000 communicants. I only allude to it because it appears to me a totally novel feature in Dissenting bodies--as understood in England. Another curious change produced by this Western climate is, that it turns all my Presbyterian friends instrumentally musical. I do not remember entering any of their churches without finding an organ, and in many instances a very good choir. Although I approve highly of the euphonious improvement, I feel sure that many of my countrymen in the extreme north would rather see a picture representing Satan in Abraham's bosom inside their kirk than any musical instrument. Such is the force of habit and prejudice.
The extent to which the churches in America have increased is doubtless most creditable to the community, when it is remembered that all the various denominations are supported voluntarily. Nor is their number the only point worthy of notice: the buildings themselves have all, some ecclesiastical appearance, and many of them are fine specimens of architecture. Besides which, they are always kept clean and in good order; you will never find those unsightly barns, and still less the dilapidation which is often met with in the mother land. I have myself been in a church at home where the flooring was all worn away, and gravel from the outside subst.i.tuted, and where the seats were so rickety that a fall might be antic.i.p.ated at any moment. The paris.h.i.+oners were poor Highlanders, it is true, but the owner of the soil was a man of considerable wealth.
I have, since my return to England, been into a beautiful old parish church in one of the midland counties; the building was in a most deplorable state of dilapidation, and the communion-rail formed a music-stand, while inside were placed an orchestra of two fiddles and a ba.s.s-viol. The minister received, for the first three years he officiated, the exorbitant remuneration of thirty pounds a year; since which time he has taken the duties of parish schoolmaster, the salary of which, increased by a small sum from Queen Anne's Bounty, enables him to keep body and soul together. But of course the school engrossed all his time, except what was necessary to prepare his discourses, and his paris.h.i.+oners were unavoidably and totally neglected, till dissenting ministers came to the rescue. As a natural consequence, they soon followed the ministers who made them the objects of their care, and when I attended this beautiful old parish church, the congregation, independent of the orchestra and the parish school, consisted of eleven souls, three of whom came from the minister's own house. You might seek in vain to parallel such a case throughout the whole Republic.
I now propose to make a few observations about disbelief in the United States. On this point I have no statistics to refer to, nor do I believe such exist. I therefore can form no idea of its extent; but the open way in which some parties not only express their doubts of the authenticity of Scripture, but dispute every doctrine which it contains, and openly proclaim it the enemy of man, is worthy of some notice. An Ismite Convention was held for many days at Hartford, in one of the New England States (Connecticut) where, I suppose, education may be considered as universal as in any other State in the Union.
The meeting was considered of sufficient importance to occupy daily several columns of one of the New York leading journals, and to employ a special reporter. It is thus headed--”MEETING OF PHILOSOPHERS, THEOLOGIANS, THINKERS, STRONG-MINDED WOMEN, SPIRITUAL RAPPERS, ATHEISTS, AND NEGROES.” Details of this Convention would be too tedious; I propose only giving a few of their resolutions.
Resolved--”That the Bible, in some parts of the Old and New Testament, sanctions injustice, concubinage, prost.i.tution, oppression, war, plunder, and wholesale murder, and, therefore, that the Bible as a whole, originated,[CG] is false, and injurious to the social and spiritual growth of man.” After which the chairman goes on to prove (?) it is purely human, &c. Another resolution reiterates the former, and adds that ”the time has come to declare its untruthfulness, and to unmask those who are guilty of its imposture.” Then follows a resolution for the especial consideration of slave-owners:--”Resolved--That it is the climax of audacity and impiety for this nation to receive the Bible as the inspired Word of G.o.d, and then to make it a penal offence to give it to any of the millions who are held as chattel slaves on its soil, thus conspiring to make them miserable here and hereafter.” Then follows a charitable resolution, declaring their belief that all the clergy ”would readily burn the Bible to-morrow if public sentiment demanded it.” One of the orators brings the Bible to the bar of geology, and there condemns it, and recommends ”that the Hindoos should establish a mission to enlighten Christians of this and other countries. He believed that the priesthood and the Bible were opposed to all liberty and progress, and the deadliest enemies of mankind.”
Another member of this blasphemous band becomes highly indignant because the orthodox clergymen--who probably remembered that ”evil communications corrupt good manners”--would not meet them on their infidel platform, and he presents a resolution declaring that ”by their absence, they had openly declared their infidelity to their professions of theological faith, and had thus confessed the weakness and folly of their arrogant a.s.sumptions, and proved that they loved popular favour more than common good; and they are therefore moral cowards, pharisees of this nineteenth century, seeking to enslave more and more the mind of man,” &c. Another orator then proposes a resolution, to the effect that the spirit and genius of Bible religion is not a system of salvation from sin and its effects, but a system of d.a.m.nation into sin and its effects; that it is the friend of moral and spiritual slavery, and therefore ”the foe of human mental and spiritual liberty.” Subsequently a strong-minded woman, called Mrs. Rose, appeared on the platform amid considerable uproar, followed by extinguis.h.i.+ng the gas and singing songs. After a severe struggle, the lady managed to express her sentiments in these mild and Christian terms:--”The Church is upon your neck. Do you want to be free? Then trample the Church, the priest, and the Bible under your feet.”--The last day's proceeding closed by a row in the gallery, owing to a fight, in which a dirk had been drawn; and then the Convention adjourned till the following year.
The reader must not imagine that I state this as an indication of the tone of religious feeling in the New England States,--far from it; but it appears to me a fact worth noticing, that a Convention of such a nature and magnitude, and considered of sufficient importance to employ the special reporter of a leading journal of New York, should by any possibility a.s.semble for days and days together, and give vent to such blasphemous sentiments among a people so liberally educated and so amply supplied with means of religious instruction. I only hope that the infidelity of the whole Republic was gathered into that one a.s.sembly, and that having met in so uncongenial an atmosphere, they all returned to their homes impregnated with some of the purer atmosphere of the great majority of the people.
The subject of Education naturally follows the Church; but, on this point, any attempt at accuracy is hopeless. Whether it be from the variety of school systems in the different States, or from some innate defect in the measures taken to obtain information, I cannot pretend to say; but the discrepancies between the statements made are so great, that I can only pretend to give a moderate approximation to the truth, which is the more to be regretted, as the means provided for education throughout the length and breadth of the Republic const.i.tute one of its n.o.blest features. In rough numbers, they may be thus stated:--
Schools. Number. Instructors. Pupils.
Public 81,000 92,000 4,000,000 Colleges 220 1500 20,000 Academies, & others 6,000 12,000 261,000
Of the above colleges, theology claims 44, medicine 37, law 16.
Among the expenses of the various colleges, which I can refer to, I find University College, Virginia--the terms of which occupy 44 weeks--is the most expensive. The annual charges for a student are the following:--College expenses, 40l.; board, 22l.; was.h.i.+ng, fuel, and lights, 4l.--in all, 70l. It is obvious that no provision is here made for champagne suppers, hunters, tandems, and other ”necessaries,”
of our University students, including a few ”auxiliaries,” in the shape of I O U's, for red coats, top-boots, Hudson's regalias, and mysterious jewellery bills for articles that men don't wear. Doubtless some papas would prefer the Virginian bill of fare; but then, they must remember that the republican lads go to college to learn something, whereas many papas send their first-born hopes to Oxford and Cambridge to save themselves trouble, and to keep the youths out of mischief during the awkward period of life yclept ”hobbledehoyhood.” How they succeed is pretty well known to themselves, and probably their bankers have some idea also; yet, with all these drawbacks, who will deny that those seats of learning turn out annually some of the most manly and high-minded, and some of the best educated and most industrious, young men in the country?
Having entered into some of the details of education at various places during my travels, I shall not trespa.s.s on the reader's patience by dwelling further on the subject, except to call attention to the following important regulation with regard to children in factories; and I most sincerely hope it may reach the eye of Lord Shaftesbury, or some other of his coadjutors in the n.o.ble work of the protection and education of helpless youth. The regulation exists in some shape or other in many States. I subjoin the wording of it from that of Ma.s.sachusetts:--
_”No child under the age of fifteen years shall be employed in any manufacturing establishment, unless such child shall have attended some public or private day-school, where instruction is given by a teacher qualified according to law to teach orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, arithmetic, and good behaviour, at least one term of eleven weeks of the twelve months next preceding the time of such employment, and for the same period during any and every twelve months in which such child shall be so employed.”_