MR. BRIGHT ON THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. In the debate in the previous year on the bill that was thrown out by the Lords, Mr. Bright had said, "There are many who have aspired to legislate upon this subject, but have failed in these attempts at conciliation, and I think we must all feel conscious that we must either remain as we are or adopt the bill which is now before us. I confess that I am altogether against any kind of dodge by which this matter may be even temporarily settled. I think that if this church be a national establishment, you cannot by law insist that its support shall be drawn from only a portion of the population. I agree with you altogether in that. If I were a churchman I would never consent to it, and, not being a churchman, I wholly repudiate it. The dissensions to which I have referred have prevailed, prevail still, and cannot terminate as long as this impost exists. What is its natural and inevitable result? It must be to create and stimulate the pride of supremacy in the dominant church, and at the same time produce what I shall call the irritation of subjugation and injustice on the part of that great portion of the people who support their own ministers and places of worship, and who think that they ought not to be called upon to support those of any other sect or church. Now, is it necessary that this should continue? I often have occasion in this house to give hope to honourable gentlemen opposite. They are probably the most despairing political party that any country ever had within its borders. They despair of almost everything. They despaired of agriculture. Agriculture triumphs. They despair of their church, yet wherever that church has been left to its own resources and to the zeal of its members, its triumph has been manifest to the country and to the world. Are you made of different material from the five millions of people who go to the Dissenting chapels of England and Wales? You have your churches-I speak of the old ones, and not of those recently erected by means of voluntary contributions — you have your churches, which you call national, and you have them for nothing. You have your ministers paid out of property anciently bequeathed or intrusted to the state for their use. 15 In that respect you stand in a far better position for undertaking what, if church-rates are abolished, you must undertake, than do the great body of your Dissenting brethren. Have you less zeal, have you less liberality than they have? Do not you continually boast in this house that you are the owners of the great bulk of the landed property of the country? Are you not the depositaries. of political power, and do you not tell us that when a Dissenter becomes rich he always walks away from the chapel into your church? If this be so, am I appealing in vain to you, or reasoning in vain with you, when I try to encourage you to believe that if there were no church-rates the members of your church and your congregations would be greatly improved, and that, as has taken place in the parish in which I live, your churches would be better supported by your own voluntary and liberal contributions than they can ever be by the penny per pound issuing from the pockets of men who do not attend your church, and who are rendered ten times more hostile to it by the very effort to make them contribute to its support." Then referring to the successful efforts of the Wesleyan Methodists, Mr. Bright spoke of their doing marvels "in erecting chapels, paying ministers, establishing schools -raising the dead, if you like-for men who were dead to religion have been made Christians; and they have preached the gospel in every county, I might almost say in every parish, in the kingdom." Mr. Bright also asked what would be the condition of the population, the religious establishments, the education throughout England and Wales, but for the liberality of the sects who were not members of the Church of England; and having referred to former experiences of the Irish tithe and to the condition of the Welsh Dissenters, he said: “But go a little further north, to a land where men are not supposed to misunderstand their own interests; I refer to the country on the other side of the Tweed. You have an established church there. Many years ago you had two considerable secessions from its pale which became powerful sects. They have since united themselves, and their power has proportion ately increased. But lately, within the recollection of every member of this house-for it is but seventeen years ago-there was another great secession; and from what men fancied was the ruin of the Established Church of Scotland there arose a new church, offering, I will say, to the world, an example of zeal and munificence such as has not been witnessed in this country during the lifetime of the present generation. Not long ago, while in Scotland, . . . I found that the Free Church, which comprises probably not more than one-third of the population who pay any attention to religious matters, raised voluntarily, during the year when I made the inquiry, a larger sum than the whole annual emoluments of the Established Church of Scotland. It has built, I think, something like seven hundred churches throughout that part of the kingdom, and as many manses or dwellings for its ministers. It has also established schools in almost every parish. And I tell the house with the utmost sincerity that I believe I never questioned any man in Scotland as to the effect of the Disruption who did not admit that, painful as it was, and utterly as he and many others might have opposed it, still it has been full of blessings to the people of that country." These having been the expressions of Mr. Bright's opinions in 1860, it was not to be wondered at that he should have supported Sir John Trelawney's renewed attempt in 1861. What the Dissenters felt in this question, he said, was that it was "a struggle for supremacy, and not a question of twopence in the pound a supremacy on the part of a great establishment which was as much political as religious." Mr. Disraeli said that if the bill were carried its first effect would be to deprive parishes of the power of self-legislation, a step which ought not to be favoured by the professors of popular principles. The law as it stood was founded on the principle of affording facility for religious worship to the people of this country; but it was declared to be a grievance to the Dissenters. Now a Dissenter was not an alien, but an Englishman with all his feelings and rights, and it was his duty to yield to that majority to which it was a part of our constitutional system to defer, as it was his right to take advantage of that majority when he belonged to it. Lord J. Russell said the question was not one of abstract right, but of the advantage of the church. He did not think that the exemption of Dissenters would be a settlement of this question. By assenting to that plan. you parted with the principle of a national church; while the difficulty of carrying it into operation would be insuperable. He argued that it would be possible to keep up the fabric of the churches by voluntary contributions, and that if you took away £250,000 a year the churches would not fall into decay. Those who were attached to the Church would do well to allow this cause of difference between Churchmen and Dissenters to be removed. If that were done, no step against the Church would be taken for years; but if this bill were rejected the result would be a continued agitation, and that a Dissenting agitation-and he knew how powerful and well organized that was—which would continue till church-rates were finally abolished. The second reading of the bill was carried by 281 to 266, a majority which showed such a falling off from that of the previous one that the opponents of the measure redoubled their exertions, and on the third reading the numbers were equal and the speaker decided against the bill by his casting-vote, on the ground that such an equality demanded an opportunity for further discussion. In the following year (1862), on the 14th of May, the question was again brought before the house, but was lost by 287 votes to 286, an amendment proposed by Mr. Estcourt being carried, to the effect that it would be unjust and inexpedient to abolish the ancient customary right exercised from time immemorial by the ratepayers of every parish in England, to raise by rate amongst themselves the sums required for the repair of their church, until some other provision should have been made by parliament for the discharge of those obligations to which, by custom or statute, the churchwardens on the part of the parish were liable. While on the subject of the church and RIOTS AGAINST RITUALISM-CARDINAL MANNING. church-rates we may refer for a moment to an occurrence which afforded a significant illustration of the question of ritualistic practices, and also of the importance of the views expressed in Mr. Gladstone's letter to the Scottish bishops. During the autumn of the year 1859 the church of Saint George in the East, London, had become notorious, for the remarkable observances of an elaborate ritual which were carried on there under the direction of the rector, the Rev. Bryan King, who had gone so far as to refuse to allow time for the afternoon lecture by the Rev. Hugh Allen, an evangelical clergyman well known for his labours in the poor neighbourhood of Whitechapel. The innovations on the usual mode of conducting the service, and the introduction of vestments and ceremonies which the common people pronounced to be "popish," gave great offence to a large part of the congregation, and were resented by a still larger number who did not belong to that or any other congregation, but who took this opportunity to manifest their opinions by creating a riot in the church every Sunday. The Bishop of London unsuccessfully endeavoured to arbitrate in the case. The scenes which were enacted were a public scandal: the services were interrupted by the hooting and yelling of the mob, which fought to gain possession of the seats: the police, even when they endeavoured to interfere, were powerless to prevent the profanity and violence of the struggling crowd within the building, and the tumult was increased by the barking and howling of dogs introduced for the purpose of being set on the officiating priests and choristers. The bishop at length, assuming an authority which he did not legally possess, ordered the church to be closed for a time; but on its being reopened the rioting was at once resumed, even though the vestments and ceremonies which were the alleged cause of them were discarded, and it continued until the rector was exchanged to another parish. Any mention of the relation of religion to social progress at this time should remind us that the name of a man who had once held a distinguished position in the English Church VOL. IV. 17 was again heard of from quite a different quarter. Henry Edward Manning, formerly Archdeacon of Chichester, had now been nominated as the Roman Catholic provost of Westminster. Those who had known most of his opinions were probably not surprised at his secession from the Church of England; those who were acquainted with the power of his personal influence and his intellectual attainments, may reasonably have expected that he would be appointed to fulfil an important office in the Church of Rome. The youngest of four sons of Mr. William Manning, a London merchant, who was for many years M.P. for Lymington and governor of the Bank of England, Henry Edward Manning had been educated at Harrow and at Baliol College, Oxford, where he obtained the highest classical honours. Soon afterwards he was elected to a fellowship of Merton College, which he vacated on his marriage with a daughter of the Rev. John Sargent, rector of Lavington and Graffham in Sussex. To this living Mr. Manning succeeded on the death of his father-in-law, and there he published treatises on The Unity of the Church and The Rule of Faith, both in accordance with the views which he had long professed. For he had been one of the most active among the leaders of the "Anglo-Catholic" or Tractarian movement which originated at Oxford in 1833, and had so greatly attracted the regard of all those with whom he came in contact that, in some respects, he occupied as influential a position as that of Newman or Pusey. In 1840 he was appointed Archdeacon of Chichester, to the surprise of those who knew that the bishop from whose hands he received the nomination held opinions entirely at variance with his own. If the appointment was intended to keep him within the pale of the Anglican Church, it failed. Unlike some of those who have since brought dissension and reproach into their communions, he had "the courage of his convictions," as Newman has had. The Gorham controversy of 1850 is understood to have been the immediate occasion of his secession. His last public act as a minister of the English Church was his 65 appearance at a large meeting held to protest | working together for the purpose of advancing against the decision of the privy-council in that case. He afterwards, in conjunction with Archdeacon Wilberforce of Yorkshire and Dr. Mill of Cambridge, drew up and published a formal protest, and at about the same time relinquished his preferments. Mr. Manning had long been a widower without children, and on his secession he spent the winter of 1850–1851 in retirement, after which he was admitted to the Roman Catholic communion by the Rev. Mr. Brownbill at Farm Street Chapel near Berkeley Square. Soon afterwards he was made a member of the priesthood, entered upon a course of studies in the Collegio Pio at Rome, and on leaving, received the cap of Doctor of Divinity from Pope Pius. He became noted as a preacher in Rome, but on his return to England undertook no public charge beyond occupying a confessional in the church of the Jesuits in Farm Street and frequent occasional preaching, until he was appointed to the direction of a new mission served by the members of the congregation of St. Charles, in the poorest part of Westminster, and subsequently to the mission of the church of St. Helen, afterwards "St. Mary of the Angels," Bayswater. He again visited Rome in the winter of 1856, and on his return in the following year, was nominated by the pope to the provostship of Westminster, of which he became Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop after the death of Dr. Wiseman, in February, 1865. The consecration took place in the Roman Catholic Chapel, Moorfields. There was little external resemblance between the somewhat reserved, thin, and ascetic-looking Cardinal Manning and his portly, rubicund predecessor, about whom something has been said in a previous page. The peculiar social influence which Dr. Manning had displayed at Oxford, however, was still there, and though able to maintain his hold on the people over whom he was officially appointed to the spiritual control, he has been able to meet the promoters of social progress and public beneficence on common ground, and to be one of the foremost advocates of that true Christian unity which consists in temperance, morality, and charitable effort. Perhaps in relation to some of the extravagances of the period now under review, we should not pass altogether unnoticed the introduction of what was called "Spiritualism," but which has since been more correctly designated "Spiritism," an importation from America, which had in it very little that was really new, and probably not much that could be altogether dissociated from what was delusion on the one hand and imposture on the other. The claim of certain persons who called themselves "mediums" to obtain for a company assembled in a dark room, and sitting with their hands on a table, communications from departed spirits, had a certain resemblance to the ancient Greek or Roman divination of the tripod; and a large number of persons were to be found ready not only to become the dupes of designing "mediums" of "spiritualistic" manifestations, but to join in dark séances and adopt the extraordinary pretensions by which they fell into a condition of spasmodic or even of chronic delusion. This is not the place to discuss the possi bility of remarkable physical impressions resulting from little known, nervous, or mental conditions, or the peculiar influence of animal magnetism about which we have yet so much to learn: but it may be stated that self-styled spiritualistic "phenomena" were placed outside scientific investigation by the professors of the “ new manifestation" themselves, while repeated impostures, the evident weakness of the victims, and the irreverent absurdity of the demonstrations were sufficiently apparent to men accustomed to deal with evidence, to prevent the claims of the spiritists being generally accepted. At the same time there were so many persons of distinction and of social importance who took up the craze that the mental balance of the country seemed to be disturbed, and religion itself was likely to suffer because of the degrading superstitions and the obvious deceptions which were associated with the thoughts of immortality. Many of the advocates of Spiritism claimed for it, that it supported a belief in a SPIRITISM-IMPOSTURES-FARADAY-SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. future state, without reflecting that numbers of its most trusted exponents had been detected in scandalous impostures, and that the manifestations attributed to the spirits, even of the great and good, were so trivial, and often so repulsive, that had they been true they could scarcely be regarded otherwise than as evidences of an immortal imbecility. The arch-medium of the period was one Home or Hume, who came, it was believed, from America, and perhaps the attitude of the ❘ more sensible portion of the community may be illustrated by the reply of Professor Faraday to Sir Emerson Tennant when he was invited to take part in one of Home's séances. Faraday had already turned his keen attention to the claims of the spiritists, and now said: "I do not wish to give offence to anyone, or to meddle with this subject again. I lost much time about it formerly in the hope of developing some new force of power, but found nothing worthy of attention. I can only look at it now as a natural philosopher: and because of the respect due to myself I will not enter upon any further attention or investigation, unless those who profess to have a hold upon the effects agree to aid to the uttermost. To this purpose they must consent (and desire) to be as critical upon the matter, and full of test investigation in regard to the subject, as any natural philosopher is in respect of the germs of his discoveries. How could electricity, that universal spirit of matter, ever have been developed in its relation to chemical action, to magnetic action, to its application in the explosion of mines, the weaving of silk, the extension of printing, the electro-telegraph, the illumination of lighthouses, &c., except by rigid investigation grounded on the strictest critical reasoning, and the most exact and open experiment? And if these so called occult manifestations are not utterly worthless, they must and will pass through a like ordeal." It must be remembered that Faraday was no sceptic in religion. He was a devout member of a very small and simple sect of Christians who professed to found their belief on the doctrines of the New Testament; it is not surprising, therefore, that he could not accept the unexplained but none 19 the less insignificant vagaries exhibited by the mediums as communications from the noble spirits of the just in the world beyond the grave. Some exposures which were subsequently made in a trial where Mr. Home or Hume was the defendant, as well as the detection of several impositions, served to discredit the spiritist professors, but for a long time the craze maintained a sinister influence and was the cause of much domestic calamity and social mischief. The quotation which we have made from Faraday's letter indicates the enormous rapidity with which the application of electricity to industrial operations had spread. We have already glanced at some of the prominent inventions and improvements which marked the advances of scientific discovery: but any comprehensive record, however brief, of the progress made in almost every department of engineering and manufacturing skill would extend these pages beyond their proper limits. The invention of Mr. Henry Bessemer in 1855–6, for producing a special kind of steel by passing cold air through liquid iron, had been of great importance in our engineering works, and the adoption of iron-plated ships had necessitated the production in our arsenals and shipyards, of engines and tools of enormous power, by which the metal could be treated as though it were wood-and planed, drilled, and pressed into shape with marvellous rapidity and precision. In the domestic ranks of life, improvements in the sewingmachine, which had first been introduced in America by Howe, soon resulted in a complete revolution of the business of the cheap tailor and the seamstress. Washing-machines, and various ingenious appliances of domestic conveniences, many of them of American invention, came into use; and no such rapid development had taken place in the larger operations of mechanical industry since the invention of the steam-hammer by Nasmyth, and its introduction in 1842. In other countries the progress of great enterprises was also remarkable, and it may be remembered that, in 1861, the tunnel through Mont Cenis, which had previously been car |