The Religious Life of London

Such is Methodism on paper; of Methodism in practice we can only say Circumspice. In London there are 132 Wesleyan, 54 Primitive Methodist, 52 United Methodist Free Church, 9 Reformed Wesleyan, and 13 Methodist New Connexion Chapels.

AT A WATCH-NIGHT SERVICE

Methodism has one special institution. Its love-feasts are old – old as Apostolic times. Its class meetings are the confessional in its simplest and most unobjectionable type, but in the institution of the watch-night it boldly struck out a new path for itself. In publicly setting apart the last fleeting moments of the old year and the first of the new to penitence, and special prayer, and stirring appeal, and fresh resolve, it has set an example which other sects are preparing to follow. In the Church of England the Methodist plan is being extensively carried out. On last New Year’s-eve there were midnight services in the churches in all parts of London. Especially have the Ritualists availed themselves of the opportunity. Dr. Cumming chose the occasion for preaching a sermon to young men, and Mr. Spurgeon’s great congregation met, as usual, to see the old year out and the new year in. But after all, the Methodist services were the most numerous. In the metropolitan district they advertised services on watch-night at no less than seventy-three chapels, and there were other smaller ones at which watch-services were held, though they were not advertised. At first sight there seem to be many obvious objections to midnight meetings. They keep people up late; they keep them out in the streets late; they interfere with the routine of business and the prescribed order of domestic life; they cause delicate people to wake up next morning with an aching brow and a fevered frame. To others they bring catarrh, disorder of the mucous membrane, cold, necessitating as a remedy water-gruel and cough mixtures. Obviously, however, these are minor considerations. It may be asked: Is not the soul, that never dies, of more value than the body, which to-morrow may be dust and ashes? The life that now is – what is it compared with the life that is to come?

Last year’s eve I was one of a crowd that found their way to the ancient head-quarters of Wesleyanism – the fine old chapel which, it is to be hoped, will not be improved off the face of the earth, in the City Road. It was an unpleasant night to tear one’s self away from one’s study fire or the friendly circle. The rain was heavy, the streets were a mass of mud, and the melancholy lamps, which are the disgrace of such a metropolis as London, did little more than make the darkness visible. Over all the City a Stygian gloom prevailed, except where the light blazed forth from the gin-palaces, which seemed, as I passed, to be doing a roaring trade, and to be filled with sots but too happy to find an excuse for the glass. Occasionally also a cigar shop threw out a little ray of light on the pavement and across the street, and now and then from an upper window the lamps gleamed, and you heard the click of billiards. So still was the traffic that even the beggars had gone home. Here and there an omnibus, here and there a cab crawling for the last time, for the new Act was to come into operation the next day – here and there a policeman, here and there a belated clerk, here and there an unfortunate – such were all you saw as you paced along the deserted City that night. You could almost fancy its inhabitants had fled as if an enemy were on its way, or as if the plague ran riot in its streets. A little after ten the scene began to change. Doors were opened by heads of families doubtful as to the state of the weather. Up area steps creeped ancient males and females to do what they had done years and years before. Children, young men and women, fathers and mothers, masters and servants, got out into the streets. I followed them, and was soon seated in the chapel in the City Road. All round me were monuments of Wesleyan worthies. It were a task too long to describe their virtues or record their memories here. Up in that pulpit Wesley preached, and there the imprint of his genius yet survives. It is hard to realize what a power Wesleyanism is. I did not expect to see many; in reality the commodious chapel was well filled. The service began at half-past ten, but it was not till long past that hour that the congregation had entirely assembled. It seemed to me this was a great mistake. For half an hour or so the opening and shutting of doors and the entrance of hearers interfered much with the comfort of those who had already come. Under these circumstances the service was trying to all taking part in it. Neither preacher nor hearer had a fair chance. In reality the attraction of the night was the sermon of the pastor of the place, the Rev. M. C. Osborn, and he did not begin till his pulpit had been occupied by an assistant for an hour. After it was all over it puzzled me to perceive what had been gained by the preliminary service and the assistant’s sermon. The assistant was a young man, and it was the sort of a sermon a properly trained young man would preach. The subject was the barren figtree, a striking subject treated with all the tediousness of commonplace. It was clear the preacher had read more than he felt, or he would not have spoken of the responsibility of a figtree, or bothered himself with the threefold sense which cropped up under his three divisions – first, as to the figtree, then as to the state of the Jews to whom Christ told his parable, and then as to its applicability at the present time. His great virtues were fluency, perfect coolness and self-possession, and a distinct and powerful utterance. When he came to the terrible climax, when he spoke of the condemnation which awaited the finally impenitent, when he repeated how there could be no hope for such as they, how for them there was agony of which no tongue could tell the horror, or no imagination conceive, there was no pathos in his tones, no tear trembling in his eye, no sign of sensibility in his heart. The Saviour wept over Jerusalem as He saw the coming fate of the city that had mocked at His warnings, that had stoned the prophets, that was to crucify Himself. It did not seem to me that the sermon produced much effect. When it has been the writer’s privilege to converse with Wesleyans they have contrasted their warmth with the coldness of the services of other denominations; but in Episcopalian church or Independent or Baptist chapel – nay, at a Quaker’s meeting – such a service as that preliminary to Mr. Osborn’s appearance might have been held without causing any sensation on account of its extra warmth and fire. It was plain, and simple, and orthodox, and when it was over the people seemed to feel that the proper thing had been said, and that was all.

Mr. Osborn next entered the pulpit, while the people were singing with well-trained voices and without the help of an organ one of the well-known Wesleyan hymns. His appearance excites confidence. As he stood up there seemed in his face something of the fatherly feeling of a real, not a conventional bishop. A lay brother engaged in prayer. In spite of its boisterous tone and stentorian Ohs and ands it was deep, and heartfelt, and impressive, and invoked the responses which custom permits in a Wesleyan chapel alone. Then came a short sermon from Mr. Osborn, from the text in Jeremiah which tells how “the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” In his hands the text suggested three thoughts – 1. There are special seasons for men to become religious. 2. There is a possibility of letting such seasons pass away unimproved. 3. A time will come when the consciousness of such neglected seasons will awaken in the mind bitter memory and unavailing regret. The sermon was in its way wonderfully ripe and full. To every man living under the Gospel is salvation offered. To some that offer is made in youth, or by the preaching of the Gospel, or by providential dispensations, or by revivals of religion occurring in their neighbourhood. But God never coerces any one, nor interferes with man’s free will. Human law proceeds upon the supposition of man’s perfect ability to control his actions, and God does the same. The grace of God is resistible, as the Bible shows in the case of the Antediluvians, of Pharaoh, and Jerusalem; but too late people who resist that grace will remember it, and that remembrance will form the most bitter ingredient in their lot. As it is, when people are going wrong, they refuse to think. The preacher then dwelt on the last words – not saved. Most powerfully did he carry out that meaning as he pictured the shipwrecked mariner who sees the sail that was to have saved him pass out of sight; or as the besieged army behold the succour that was to have rescued them cut off; or as the criminal left for execution hears there is no reprieve for him; or as that poor woman with her babe and little ones, who found the other night (alluding to a tragedy which had just occurred) the fire-escape failed to reach them, and fell a sacrifice to the devouring flames. But whilst there was life there was hope; and then the preacher appealed to all on that last night of the old year to accept God’s offer of life, and to cast themselves at His feet. For about ten minutes every head was bowed in silent prayer. In that great assembly I saw no wandering eye; and then, just after the clock had struck twelve, all rose to sing —

“Come let us anew our journey pursue;”

and after a short prayer by the preacher for blessings during the coming year, the service closed, and out I went into the streets, suddenly as it were wakened up into life – while church bells rang out the old 1869, and rang in a. d. 1870.

CHAPTER XI.

the quakers

Modern Christianity, it is often said, has little in common with that of apostolic times: I fear it is equally true that the Quakerism of to-day has little in common with the heroic Quakerism of an earlier day. It was in 1646, during the prevalence of civil and religious commotions, that George Fox commenced his labours as minister of the Gospel, being then in the twenty-third year of his age. It was a hard time of it he and his disciples had; no men ever fared worse and for less provocation given, at the hands of arbitrary powers, than did the Quakers. Baxter thus describes them: – “They made the light which every man hath within him to be his sufficient rule, and consequently the Scripture and ministry were set light by. They spake much for the dwelling and working of the Spirit in us, but little of justification and the pardon of sin and our reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. They pretend their dependence on the Spirit’s conduct against set times of prayer and against sacraments, and against undue esteem of Scripture and ministry. They will not have the Scriptures called the Word of God. Their principal zeal lieth in railing at the ministers as hirelings, deceivers, false prophets, &c., and in refusing to swear before a magistrate, or to put off their hat to any, or to say you instead of thou or thee, which are their words to all. At first they did use to fall into wailings and tremblings at their meetings, and pretend to be intently acted on by the Spirit, but now that is ceased. They only meet, and he that pretendeth to be moved by the Spirit speaketh, and sometimes they say nothing but sit an hour or more in silence and then depart.” The most fiery, the most untameable of men were the old Quakers, now a Friend is the sleekest and fattest of men; lives in a style of the utmost comfort, and wears the best of everything; there are no such homes of luxury, no such lives of ease as amongst the Quakers. It is no wonder they are a long-lived race. They mingle little with the world, and find a peace which often the worldlings miss. As a religious organization they are becoming weaker every day; they have a few chapels in various parts of London, but as the old worshippers die off no new ones appear. At their last annual meeting Mr. R. Barclay, who referred with satisfaction to the fact that all over the land, Sunday by Sunday, 1100 Friends were engaged in teaching 1400 children and 3000 adults, regretted to find that no other Church had declined so much either in this country or in America since 1720. In the United States 13,000 seats were closed in the meeting-houses between 1850 and 1860. “If,” said he, “other Churches had declined as we have done, Christianity must have died out.” As regards the metropolis they seem to be in a little better condition; the last statistics of membership show an increase of 95 in the year, the whole number being 6608 males, 7286 females; total, 13,894; the births exactly balanced the deaths. There were 121 new members from convincement and 61 resignations, against 31 disownments there were 19 reinstated. The habitual attenders at the places of worship are 3803, being an increase of 145. It was remarked by a senior Friend that the resignations were fewer and the convincements more than in any year since accounts had been kept; Mr. Tallack gave it as his opinion that the Society was never more healthy, not even in the first years of its existence; J. Grubb believed that there was a considerable change for the better, both as regards public and private prayer. It is to be hoped such may turn out to be the case. The great characteristic testimony of the Friends, particularly against ecclesiastical pretensions on the one side and against religious forms on the other, is as much requisite now as ever; there is, as one of their official documents remarks, “a strong tendency in the human mind to substitute the form of religion for the power, and to satisfy the conscience by a cold compliance with exterior performances while the heart remains unchanged. And inasmuch as the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the communion of the body and blood of Christ, of which water baptism, and bread and wine, are admitted to be only signs, are not dependent on those outward ceremonies or necessarily connected with them, and are declared in Holy Scripture to be effectual to the salvation of the soul, which the signs are not, Friends have always believed it to be their place and duty to hold forth to the world a clear and decided testimony to the living substance – the spiritual work of Christ in the soul and a blessed communion with him there.” Practically, in the promotion of temperance and education, in the improvement of prisons and prison discipline, in the advocacy of universal peace and freedom, in philanthropy and charity, the Friends have ever led the way. For such ends they have freely sacrificed money and time, and energy and life itself; nor do they forget those of their own household, as it were; every poor Friend who may be unable to earn a livelihood usually receives aid from his brother members to the extent of 20l. to 40l. per annum (administered privately in general), according to age or infirmity. When the poorer Friends are out of a situation they are often helped to obtain employment by various arrangements under free registries, and by the aid of private inquiries for vacancies. In addition it may be remarked that a large number of charitable bequests and special funds have been bequeathed for the local or general benefit of the members of this religious community. The City of London owes much to Quakers, who in time past by their industry and self-denial laid the foundations of many of its noblest charities and its most princely mercantile establishments.

JONATHAN GRUBB AT THE AGRICULTURAL HALL

Long, long ago the wise men came from the East, and from the east of England has come to us a man wise, in the opinion of his friends, in the best wisdom. It is of Mr. Jonathan Grubb I write, who has been living in Sudbury for many years, and who for the last twelve or fourteen has almost entirely devoted himself to missionary work in various parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. I think as a temperance lecturer he first came before the public. It was the sin of drunkenness which first led him to lecturing. He had seen the evils of intemperance; he had seen what poverty, what wretchedness and crime were its results; and much and deeply moved thereby he mounted the platform, which more or less ever since has been familiar with his name. While in Cornwall on one occasion he found an opportunity of talking on something else – on that common salvation without which, in the opinion of pious people, temperance itself is of little worth. The opportunity was one of great spiritual benefit, and ever since he has been engaged in what is called by the denomination to which he belongs – the denomination whose energetic and untiring philanthropy has been honoured all the world over – the denomination which, from the days of George Fox, has ever borne a silent protest against the frivolities of fashion and the vanities of life – public preaching. In the opinion of those excellent people an ordinary minister is not a public preacher at all. They reserve that title exclusively for one who, like Mr. Grubb, goes out into the world, as it were, collects the crowds by the wayside, on the seashore, in the crowded street, and there, to those for whose souls few care, who otherwise would perish for lack of knowledge, proclaims that Gospel which tells how, for such as they, pardon can be secured and life and immortality brought to light. In our day no Friend is more extensively engaged in this work than Mr. Grubb. In all parts of Suffolk his labours have been many. In various districts of the metropolis he has been similarly engaged. He has also spent much time in Ireland – where he has been listened to and aided by Roman Catholic and Protestant alike. It was only on one occasion that he has ever been prevented from preaching by the intrusion of a mob, and that was (tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon) in no less ancient and respectable a borough than that of Bury St. Edmunds. In the filthiest and most depraved districts of London, in the very heart of Roman Catholic Ireland, he has never been interfered with at all. Of course some of this success is due to Mr. Grubb himself. With his one aim to tell how sinners may be saved, he has been remarkably successful in avoiding collision with class feelings and sectarian animosities. His manner is also eminently kind and gentle; but after all does not his experience also show, what we have long believed, that honest, simple, faithful preaching is never exercised in vain? It may be also said that some of Mr. Grubb’s qualifications are hereditary. By birth he is an Irishman (he comes from Tipperary), and his mother was an eminent Quakeress, and extensively useful in her day. It was a sermon from her that was the instrument, humanly speaking, in the conversion of one of the most respected of our open-air preachers in London at the present day. We take much from those to whom we owe our being. Why should we not also inherit some of their excellences? The question may be asked though not answered here.

But to return to Mr. Grubb. The last time I heard him he had a truly magnificent congregation at the Agricultural Hall, Islington. Mr. Thain Davidson’s well meant effort to attract outsiders, and to keep up a large Sunday-afternoon service, now that the novelty of the thing has passed away, seems as successful as ever. He and his people have lately moved into the new hall, a most commodious building, and right well do they fill it. It will be much to be regretted if this scheme fall through for want of funds. It appears much good has resulted from it. Not a week passes but cases occur in which it has been shown how awakening have been the addresses delivered. A service that only lasts an hour is a desideratum. No one could have listened to Mr. Grubb without feeling how his kind of address is pre-eminently adapted to encourage and stimulate the religious life, to arrest the attention of the impenitent, and to touch especially the hearts of the young. Mr. Grubb takes no text, preaches no formal sermon, aims at no rhetorical flight, does not strike you as being very intellectual, or very original, or very learned. It may be that he is all three – it certainly is not for me to say that he is not – but whether he be so or not, it is clear that he judges and judges rightly that, at the Agricultural Hall on a Sunday afternoon what is wanted is not the glare of the rhetorician, not the learning of the divine, not the elaborate argument of the trained logician, not the fancy of the poet, not the dramatic action of the elocutionist, but the tender beseeching of one who, saved by Divine mercy himself, and assured of all its fulness and omnipotence, would force a similar boon on all around. It was thus he preached on Sunday afternoon. He seemed to speak out of the depth of a holy love, in language very simple, abounding with the commonest, and, as some might think, most worn of Scripture quotations, yet with a pathos that, as it came from the heart, at once reached the hearts of all his hearers. A more homely or plainer-looking man than Mr. Grubb you don’t often see. As he stood there, with his sunburnt, honest face, with his suit of sober black and grey, with his rustic air, you felt that his power (for there was not a single unattentive hearer) was such as a Whitefield or a Wesley wielded, and which has never been exerted in our world in vain. Man’s fallen state, his need of pardon, his need of pardon now, the danger of delay, the duty of all instantly to receive the proffered grace – such were his themes. He told them he had stood by the death-bed of a woman who had believed that there was no mercy for such a wicked old sinner as she was, and had heard her song of joy as she passed from the poverty and sorrow of earth to the wealth and joy of heaven. Yes, for all there was mercy, and that all there present might attain it was his prayer; and as thus he spoke, light came to his eye and animation to his voice, and, with uplifted arm and flowing utterance, he gave you his idea of the true evangelist – the man always needed in our land – and it is to be feared, in spite of all our boasted Christianity, never more than now. But it is not for me to say what are Mr. Grubb’s peculiar qualifications for his work. What they are may be best gathered from his abundant labours. In his own denomination it is well known how numerous are his efforts and how great his successes. He is a fitting representative of active and spiritual Quakerism. Men say that body is not what it was; that it is losing its power; that it has little hold upon the people; that it makes no converts. It may be so, but if it has many such ministers as Mr. Grubb in its midst, as much as any it is fitted with a living ministry which will go out into the highways and hedges and bring back to the fold those who have wandered far away. His appeal is not to the high and mighty, to the rich, the learned, or the great, but to the poorest of the poor. Mr. Grubb’s mission is evidently a special one. Amongst fallen women, in districts where ragged-schools and churches are required, in corners of our land where no regular means of grace exist, he finds special charm and need. It is pleasant to see him supported by the good men and true of his own denomination and others. It is evident that at the Agricultural Hall – perhaps all the better for its not being professedly such – we have the true idea of an Evangelical Alliance, an alliance for Christian work rather than of Christian creed, an alliance practical, not speculative, not in form and dogma, but in life and love.

CHAPTER XII.

the moravians in fetter lane

What virtue there is in an if. Without going as far back as the Book of Genesis, and thinking what a different thing life would have been if the mother of us all had not plucked and eaten

“The fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world and all our woe,”

it is very obvious much depends upon the ifs. If Sir Robert Peel had encouraged the advances of Disraeli, how different would have been the state of politics in this country. If Louis Philippe had shot Louis Napoleon when he had the power to do so, the Orleanists might have been the rulers of France. If old George III. had had brains as well as self-esteem and a stubborn will, what untold horrors might have been averted from England and Ireland. If Balthazar Gerard had not fired his pistol at William the Silent, Belgium at this time would have been as intensely Protestant as it is now intensely Catholic. If John Wesley had perished in the fire at Epworth Parsonage, where would have been the Methodist Revival of the last century? And if Wesley himself had not broken from the little band who met in Fetter Lane, what sect in England would have equalled in numbers or usefulness that of the Moravians? Now, in this teeming London they have but one place of worship, and that but very indifferently filled. It does not even present the usual appearance of a place of worship, and thus attract notice; the stranger passes it by. Yet it is a place of surpassing interest, one of the hallowed spots of London, where sinners have wept, where souls have rejoiced, where the power and presence of God have been marvellously displayed. Let us go there; we pass along a passage till we come into a very old-fashioned meeting-house. There we shall find plenty of room. There are two hundred communicants, and at certain times they are all present, but they are scattered far and wide, and in general the place has a very deserted look. The benches – there are no pews – are most uncommonly hard to sit on. There are galleries, and in one of them there is an organ. The place is neat and clean. The service itself calls for no especial notice. It is much like that of other denominations. The liturgy is exclusively that of the Moravians. The preaching is such as you may hear elsewhere. Attached to the place is a skeleton Sunday-school. There is light about the place, but it is not very powerful. It suggests more that of the setting than of the rising sun. I confess I see no reason why this should be the case, why the Moravianism, so powerful in many places, so blessed in missionary efforts, should be so powerless here. Moravianism is older than Lutheranism. It has an apostolical descent more genuine than that of the English or the Romish Church. Pre-eminently it may claim to have followed the leadings of Providence. Nowhere is there a trace of the gradual elaboration of any plan dictated by human wisdom. The leading men in the Ancient Unity, the emigrant founders of Herrnhut, Count Zinzendorf himself, and those of his fellow-labourers who were instrumental in introducing the Church into England, were all led gradually and by a way which they knew not to results they had not contemplated. As an anonymous writer, one of their body, remarks, “What a striking proof is here afforded of the wisdom and faithfulness of God! Surely it well becomes the members of a community which has been so undeservedly favoured to inquire whether they, as individuals and collectively, have faithfully improved the privileges bestowed upon them.”

But about the chapel. Turn to Baxter’s Diary, and we find the place mentioned there. He writes: “On January the 24th, 1672–3, I began a Tuesday Lecture at Mr. Turner’s church in New Street, near Fetter Lane, with great convenience and God’s encouraging blessing.” It is, writes Mr. Orme, that between Nevill’s Court and New Street, now occupied by the Moravians. It appears to have existed, though perhaps in a different form, before the Fire of London. Turner, who was the first minister, was a very active man during the Plague. He was ejected from Sunbury, in Middlesex, and continued to preach in Fetter Lane till towards the end of the reign of Charles II., when he removed to Leather Lane. Baxter carried on the morning week-day lecture till the 24th of August, 1682. The church which then met in it was under the care of Mr. Lobb, whose predecessors had been Dr. Thomas Goodwin and Thankful Owen. This church still exists, but on the opposite side of the way, under the care of the Rev. J. Spurgeon. The Moravians came into possession of the building in 1740. They had previously met in Fetter Lane, but in a smaller room. The present chapel was then known as the Great Meeting-house, or Bradbury’s Meeting-house. Tradition says that the place was once used as a saw-pit, and as a place of asylum when the State Church was busy at the work in which it has ever been untiring, no matter how remiss in other matters – that of enforcing its rights real or fancied, and disregarding those of other men. Tradition also says that the place was built, for the same reason, with two modes of egress, that the good men in the pulpit might have an additional chance of safety. It was in the meeting that Emmanuel Swedenborg was for a time accustomed to worship. It was in the old place that Whitefield and Wesley attended, and where, as Southey writes, “they encouraged each other in excesses of devotion which, if they found the mind sane, were not likely long to leave it so,” but of which Wesley writes in very different language. Let us hear what he says. “About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement we broke out with one voice, ‘We praise Thee, O God! we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.’” “It was a Pentecostal season indeed,” wrote Whitefield. Let me add that it was there, and not in the present meeting, that Wesley stood up and read from a written paper such of their doctrines as he contemned, especially that of there being no degrees of faith short of perfect assurance. He had learnt much from the Moravians. They had found him a mere Ritualist, they had left him a converted man, but he had outgrown his teachers, the mild and loving and placid Germans of Fetter Lane. “I have borne with you long,” said he at the end of his discourse, “hoping you would turn; but, as I find you more and more confirmed in the errors of your ways, nothing now remains but that I should give you up to God. You that are of the same judgment, follow me.” When he had thus spoken he withdrew. This breach was never healed, and from that day to this Moravianism has never in this country, and especially in London, recovered from the blow.

It may also be said that the impulse given to the religious life of England by the Moravians has tended naturally to their decrease. Their speciality was to preach the atonement made for sin by the blood of Jesus, and happiness in communion with Him. In the dark days, when they came over, this doctrine was far less commonly believed than now, and in proportion as it has been preached by Churchmen and Dissenters has there been a decline of Moravian influence. In reality, what they came here to do has been done by others who had learned how to do it from them. All Evangelical sects teach now what they teach, and even where they now break fresh ground it is found those whom they have influenced prefer to take part with churches of a more native origin or British character. As regards London the position of their chapel is very much against them. An out-of-the-way situation is as undesirable in a spiritual, as in a commercial point of view. In their church government they are Episcopalian, and meet at certain great occasions in synod. At one time they much favoured the lot, but now that is rarely used, and their marriages are not arranged by it as was formerly the case. A bishop is an elder appointed by the synod to ordain ministers of the church. The latter are sent to a congregation, but it exercises a veto. The congregation is ruled by a committee chosen by the communicants. They claim not to be Dissenters; it was the opinion of Archbishop Potter they were not. They trace their pedigree from Zinzendorf to Huss, from Huss to the Greek monks, Theodorus and Cyril, who in the ninth century introduced Christianity into Moravia and Bohemia. But after all they chiefly glory in the fact of preaching, to use one of their own hymns —

“That whoe’er believeth in Christ’s redemption
May find free grace and a complete exemption
From serving sin.”

CHAPTER XIII.

the swedenborgians

If the reader be told that there exists in this enlightened age a sect who believe that the day of judgment is passed, that it took place nearly a hundred years ago, that the Christian dispensation is at an end, that Emmanuel Swedenborg daily visited the spiritual world, and made acquaintance with its inhabitants, that he was directly appointed by God to describe to men the scenery of heaven and hell, and the world of spirits, and the lives of their inhabitants, and that through him the Lord Jesus Christ makes his second advent for the institution of a new Church described in the Apocalypse under the figure of the New Jerusalem, at once you exclaim, this is “one of the things no fellah can understand.” Nevertheless, such actually is the fact – nay more, it may be observed, that the number of Swedenborgians is on the increase; that they have a hundred chapels in England, and a larger number in America, and that this sect, while it has excited the rude laugh of ignorant folly, has attracted to itself some of the greatest intellects of the day. Emerson claims for Swedenborg that he was a “colossal soul;” and Mr. Kingsley speaks of him, though not very correctly, as a “sound and severe and scientific labourer, to whom our modern physical science is most deeply indebted.” The Swedenborgians, says Theodore Parker, have a calm and religious beauty in their lives, which is much to be admired. I should fancy the artist Blake was a Swedenborgian. Amongst the active Swedenborgians of the past I find such names as John Flaxman, sculptor; William Sharpe, engraver; the Rev. Joseph Gilpin, curate to Fletcher of Madely; and James Hindmarsh, one of Wesley’s preachers; Charles Augustus Tulk, a friend of Joseph Hume, and M.P. for Sudbury in 1821; Samuel Crompton, the inventor of the spinning-mule, of whom it was truly remarked by his biographer, “Few men, perhaps, have ever conferred so great a benefit on their country and reaped so little profit for themselves.” In our time Swedenborgianism was represented in Parliament by Mr. Richard Malins, now Sir Richard, and a Vice-Chancellor. Mr. Hiram Power, the American sculptor, is a zealous missionary of the Swedenborgian faith. The chief of the living Swedenborgian literati in this country are Dr. Garth Wilkinson, and the Rev. Augustus Clissold, formerly of Exeter College, Oxford. Other well-known names in connexion with the sect are Mr. Isaac Pitman and Mr. George Hartly Grindon.

The Society shows signs of life. In Islington there is a college for the education of young men for the ministry. Mr. W. White, no friendly witness, – he was driven from the community on the question of spiritualism, – writes on the testimony of Her Majesty’s inspectors: – “There are no better schools of their class in England than those maintained by the Swedenborgians of Manchester and Salford, in which about fourteen hundred children are educated.” The Swedenborgians have besides a national missionary institution, with a very limited income, and two societies for the production of tracts, one in London and the other in Manchester. The London Missionary and Tract Society of the New Church had in 1865 an income of 209l., and circulated 32,000 tracts. The Manchester New Jerusalem Tract Society had the same year an income of 154l., and circulated 100,000 tracts; their chief society is that for printing and publishing the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, established in London in the year 1810. “For half a century,” writes Mr. White, “this society was the happy meeting place of all who had any lively interest in Swedenborg, whether citizens of Hindmarsh’s New Jerusalem, or Churchmen like Clowes, or Quakers like Harrison, or unattached like Tulk.” In 1845 the Swedenborg Association was formed in London to promote the sale of Swedenborg’s writings, which were translated by Dr. Wilkinson, the Rev. Augustus Clissold, and Mr. Strull. In 1854 it was thought advisable that the Society should establish a book depôt of its own. Accordingly the Rev. Augustus Clissold subscribed 3000l. for the purchase of suitable premises. A house was taken in Bloomsbury Street. In 1865 there were 3016 volumes disposed of, valued at 217l., and the income of the Society from subscriptions and donations was in that year 205l. The operations of the Society are not, however, confined to its sales. Swedenborg’s works are kept in print, and often are given away to libraries and to persons of eminence at home and abroad. It does not appear that Swedenborg’s writings have ever been very popular. The first volume of the “Arcana Cœlestia” was published in 1749, and was completed in 1756, in eight quartos. The book fell stillborn from the press. In his “Spiritual Diary” Swedenborg describes the fact, and thus accounts for it: – “I have received letters informing me that not more than four copies have been sold in the space of two months. I communicated this to the angels. They were surprised, but they said it must be left to the Lord’s providence; that His providence is of such a nature that it compels no one; and that it is not fitting others should read the ‘Arcana Cœlestia’ before those who are in the faith.”

I hasten on to finish what I have to say as to the Swedenborg organization. There are many of his admirers who believe that the attempt to form a separate sect was not a wise one; certainly Swedenborg himself did nothing of the kind. Fletcher of Madely, who read “Heaven and Hell,” and used to declare that he regarded Swedenborg’s writings “as a magnificent feast set out with many dainties, but that he had not an appetite for every dish,” when asked why he did not preach the new doctrines, candidly confessed, “Because my congregation is not in a fit state to receive them;” and so, in the opinion of many, people might be Swedenborgians, as members of other churches, without setting up a new denomination. Such was the opinion of the chief apostle of Swedenborgianism in England, the Rev. John Clowes, for the extraordinary term of sixty-two years rector of St. John’s, Manchester. A complaint was laid before his Bishop, Dr. Porteus, charging him with the denial of the Trinity and the Atonement, and with holding heretical opinions. The Bishop summoned him to Chester, “read to him the several charges, heard patiently his reply to each, made his remarks (which discovered plainly that he was by no means dissatisfied or displeased with his opinions), and dismissed him with a friendly caution to be on his guard against his adversaries, who seemed disposed to do him mischief.” And no wonder. Swedenborg took almost as great liberties with the Pentateuch as Bishop Colenso himself.

Robert Hindmarsh, a printer, in Clerkenwell Close, the founder of the sect of “the New Church signified by New Jerusalem in the Revelation,” was not of the same way of thinking as Clowes or Fletcher. In 1783 he held meetings at his own house; he had an audience of two. In 1784 he was joined by others; chambers were rented in New Court, Middle Temple, under the title of “The Theosophical Society, instituted for the purpose of promoting the heavenly doctrine of the New Jerusalem, by translating, printing, and publishing the Theological Writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg.” Meetings were held on Sundays and Thursdays, at which portions of Swedenborg’s writings were read and discussed. In 1787 a chapel was opened at Great Eastcheap. In 1797 Proud came to Cross Street, Hatton Garden, a place built expressly for him; and very large congregations for some years attended on his ministry. In time the chapel became deserted, the preacher ceased to draw. In 1812 it was sold to the managers of the Caledonian Asylum, and then for a time Irving blazed in it, the comet of a season; and then once more it came back to the Swedenborgians; and now, at any rate of a Sunday night, it is a sad, lonely spot. Proud was succeeded by Noble, an engraver, who commenced his ministry in 1819, and continued it till 1853, when he closed it by his death in his seventy-fifth year. One of the blessings promised in the Old Testament to those who keep the Commandments seems to be pre-eminently enjoyed by the Swedenborgians, and that is length of days. Swedenborg himself lived to be eighty-four.

From the Wesleyans the Swedenborgians got the idea of a conference which was to govern the new Church. As represented in conference, the Swedenborgians form a congregation of 3605 members, divided into fifty-five societies. In London there are four societies, containing, says Mr. White, 566 members. In 1807 one was held, at which they decreed no one should act as minister who had not received their ordination, and recommended all who would enter the New Jerusalem to receive baptism at their hands. Since 1815, conferences have been held regularly in various towns. Conference has for its organ the Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine.

The faith of the new Church is briefly this: —

“That there is one eternal, self-existent God, who is Infinite Love and Wisdom, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

“In the fulness of time and for the redemption of man, He took upon Him human nature by birth of a virgin, and became God manifest in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

“The Lord Jesus Christ is the one only true object of Christian faith and worship, and in Him is centred the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The divinity of the Father being the soul of the Son, and the humanity of the Son being the body of the Father, whence proceeds the Holy Spirit to regenerate and save mankind.

“The Lord became our Redeemer by subduing the infernal hosts, and glorifying His humanity, without which no man could have been saved, and by which all men are capable of being saved by belief in Him; such belief implying a faithful obedience to the Divine laws, as the means of receiving the gifts of salvation.

“The Sacred Scripture is the Word of God, and contains within its external or literal sense an internal or spiritual sense, being thus Divine.

“On the death of the natural body, man rises again in a spiritual body, and according to the quality of his life here, lives in happiness or in misery hereafter.

“Now is the time of the Lord’s second coming, not in person, but in the power and great glory of His Holy Word, to establish a new and permanent Church, testified in the Revelation by the holy city – New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven.”

As a philosophy Swedenborgianism is the exact opposite of Materialism. Everything in nature, Swedenborg tells us, exists first in spirit. “We are created by the Lord, so that during our life in the body we may converse with spirits and angels, as indeed was the habit of the people of the most ancient times.” During his worldly life “he (man) is not seen in spirit, because he is immersed in nature.” God is in everything – is the life of everything. In heaven all is love – in hell all is selfishness. There is besides a spiritual world.

There are four Swedenborgian congregations in London. The principal one is that in Argyle Square, King’s Cross, at which preaches the Rev. Dr. Bayley – a tall, pleasant gentleman, in the prime of life. Outside, the place presents the appearance of a well-built, superior sort of chapel; inside, the massive pillars give it almost a cathedral appearance. It holds about 700 people; there are no galleries, and it is generally well filled. The people have a respectable appearance, and some of them have arrived at the dignity of “carriage folk.” The preacher is attentively listened to, and if passages of Scripture are referred to in the course of the sermon, there is at once an appeal to innumerable Bibles. There is service twice a day; and in the afternoon there is a conversation class, at which the Sunday-school teachers meet and take tea together. In the course of the week there is a theological class; and then, in connexion with the chapel, there are societies of a friendly and philanthropic character; there is also a lending library, and a day as well as a Sunday school. At either school the average attendance is the same – about three hundred.

At the far end, as you enter, there are two desks or pulpits, one for the minister and another for the assistant reader. The minister is in the one on the right-hand side. Between them is the communion-table. Both the minister and the assistant are dressed alike, in white robes – typical, we may suppose, of the doctrine and the life.

The service begins with a hymn, followed by certain passages from the Bible, in which all the congregation join, with the help of an efficient organ and choir. Then the minister reads, while the congregation kneel, a prayer of confession and supplication, ending with a prayer to “our Father who art in the heavens.” Then the congregation stand while the minister reads the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes. Again passages from the Psalms are sung, and there is another prayer, varied according to its being the first, or second, or third, or fourth Sunday – a variation deserving to be imitated if ever we have a reformed Book of Common Prayer. In these prayers there is a scrupulous avoidance of evangelical formulas. Of course we hear nothing of the blood of Christ to wash away the stain of sin; and if terms are used common to other denominations, they are carefully toned down. Instead, praise and adoration are offered “for the establishment of a church upon earth as the means of raising us to heaven, and may it be increasingly receptive of those exalted principles which constitute Thy spiritual Zion; and may it speedily advance to that glorious state which is the subject of prophetic promise. Grant that the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending from Thee out of heaven, may be more and more extensively welcomed; and that all who are enabled to perceive its heavenly nature may show forth the knowledge of Thy truth by a life in agreement with its dictates.” Hymns, more philosophical than theological, are sung, and sacred anthems. No reference is made to other churches, or to other bodies of Christians. Amongst the special services we find Christ is thanked for His victory over the hells. God is, we are told, one in essence and in person; and in Him is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The partaker of “the Holy Supper,” as it is called, is required “to acknowledge that the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the only God of heaven, and that His humanity is divine.” In the Marriage Service we are told, “Love truly conjugal is the union of two minds, which is a spiritual union, and all spiritual union descends from heaven. Hence love truly conjugal comes from heaven, and its origin, from the marriage of goodness and truth there.” But while we have been looking through the liturgy, the preacher has read a short prayer, and has commenced his sermon, the text of which, you may be sure, is taken from the Old Testament. Let us listen. I have said it is sure to be taken from the Old Testament. The reason is, Swedenborg rejects the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, or, rather, declares that they have no “internal sense.”

Once upon a time, as the story goes, an aged minister was asked the reason why he abounded in expositions in preference to regular sermons. His reply was, because when he was persecuted in one text he could flee unto another. Swedenborgian preachers need no such excuse. According to their master, Scripture has a threefold sense —the celestial, the spiritual, and the literal or natural. In this Swedenborg was not original. He recognised a threefold sense in Scripture corresponding to the threefold nature of man – as body, soul, and spirit. This idea was undoubtedly suggested to him by the threefold division of mankind according to the Gnostic system. “The celestial sense,” writes the Rev. Mr. Clowes, “according to Baron Swedenborg, involves in it whatsoever relates to the Divine love, and whatsoever has a tendency to excite that love in the will and affections of the devout reader. The spiritual sense, again, involves in it whatsoever relates to the Divine wisdom, and whatsoever is communicative of that wisdom to the devout reader’s understanding and thought. And lastly, the natural or literal sense involves in it whatsoever relates to the expressions of the Divine love and wisdom, and is best adapted to convey those heavenly principles to the reader’s mind, and to impress them on his life.” According to this method, then, the Swedenborgian has a fulness and a liberty which, in the pulpit, should give him a power of amplification denied to those whose Biblical exegesis is of a more old-fashioned character. If, for instance, as Swedenborg says, the history of the Creation in Genesis means the rise of the most ancient church – if by Noah is meant the ancient church in general – if Shem typifies true internal worship, Ham corrupt internal worship, Japheth true external worship, and Canaan corrupt external worship – it seems to such as the writer the Swedenborgian preacher may do what he likes, and in his flights of rhetoric may leave his brethren of other denominations far behind. Take, for instance, the plague of frogs. An ordinary preacher could make but little of it; but a Swedenborgian will tell you that frogs mean false doctrines, and then what room you have for expansion! Again, if I take the word Egypt in the Old Testament to mean the “natural principle,” how much more can I say than he who means by Egypt – Egypt and nothing else! At the same time this very liberty seems to hamper and confine the Swedenborgians. There is something narrow and pedantic about their preaching. As Swedenborg studied the Bible and read no other book, so they seem to confine themselves exclusively to Swedenborg; and as they have none of them his genius, or his fulness, or his power, the result is something very far-fetched and tame and second-hand. You feel that in accordance with their own system of interpretation they might do much more than they actually do. “It is unquestionably true,” however (writes Mr. George Bush, late Professor of Hebrew in the University of New York), “that the piety inculcated by the doctrines of the New Church is of a more genial and cheerful stamp than that which is usually found under the auspices of the prevailing creeds, because the doctrines impart a higher and sublimer view of the infinite love and benignity of the Lord towards the human race, as willing the salvation of all, and ordering every event of His providence with a view to eternal ends of mercy in regard to each individual, and incessantly aiming to withhold him from hell, so far as it can ‘be done consistently with his moral freedom.’” When Tennyson writes: —

“Behold we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last – far off – at last to all,
And every winter change to spring.

“That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete” —

he merely reproduces Swedenborgianism. Again, the Swedenborgians claim for their system an active philanthropy superior to that of any other sect. If heaven and hell are in us – if, as we develop the good we arrive at heaven, or as we develop the bad we sink into a deeper hell – no sects have greater provocatives to a godly life, and we might expect in their preaching a glowing sympathy with human right and popular progress, which assuredly in their pulpits in England finds but little utterance. Swedenborg teaches, in the strongest manner, that no man can lead a spiritual life apart from civil and moral life. Again and again he argues that the life which leads to heaven “is not a life of retirement from the world, but of action in the world. A life of charity, which consists in acting sincerely and justly in every situation, engagement, and work, in obedience to the Divine law, is not difficult; but a life of piety alone is difficult, and such a pious life leads away from heaven as much as it is vulgarly believed to lead to heaven.” The Christianity of his day he proclaims again and again to be worthless. It was founded on opinion, not on conduct. He who believes otherwise than the Church teaches is cast out of its communion; “but he who thieves, if he does not do so flagrantly, lies, betrays, and commits adultery, if only he frequents a place of worship and talks piously, passes as a religious man.” When a great abuse has to be attacked – when a hoary wrong in Church and State has to be swept away – when help is to be given to the wretched and the perishing, have we ever seen the Swedenborgian minister coming to the front as a leader? On the contrary, you will find him in his New Jerusalem ignoring humanity altogether, and torturing with tedious complacency Genesis and Revelation alike. If I were a preacher of any denomination, I would have Swedenborg’s works by me. They should be the fruitful source of many an argument to illustrate or arouse; but if in the future the pulpit is to maintain its place and power, the Swedenborgians, unless they turn over a new leaf, must retire into the background. Look at Cross Street, Hatton Garden, for instance, on a Sunday night; you will not find thirty people there; yet it stands in the midst of a teeming population, where the devil preaches to a crowded congregation every day and every hour. Let it not be supposed, however, that Swedenborgianism is perishing for lack of new blood. It was only a few days since I heard of a clergyman of the Church of England, who had resigned his living in consequence of his joining the Swedenborgians. Of the fancies of Swedenborg let me say there are those to whom they suggest much – reveal much. According to the man’s own statement, he was sent from God, and saw and revealed the secrets of the invisible world. Sometimes his revelations are very indecorous. Here is one. “Spiritual angels dislike butter, which was made clear to me from this circumstance: that although I am fond of butter I did not for a long while, even for some months, desire any, and during which time I was in association with them; and when I had tasted butter I found it had lost the pleasant flavour it once had to me. That the spiritual angels caused this aversion was plain from the fact that when a celestial angel was with me, and I was impelled to eat some good butter, the spiritual angels caused an odour of butter to rise from my mouth to my nostrils by way of reproach; still, however, they are much delighted with milk, and when I partook of some the relish was more grateful than I can describe. Milk belongs to the spiritual, as butter does to the celestial angels – not that they delight therein as food, but on account of their correspondence.” I should have said Swedenborg divides all angels into two orders – the celestial angels are the angels of love or the will, the spiritual angels are those of truth or the intellect. Angels, according to Swedenborg, are poor guides in worldly matters; “they only regard the good intention, and can be adduced to affirm anything which promises to advance it.”