Our Churches and Chapels - Atticus
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25
The meeting house is a quiet, secluded, well-made place; but it has
a poor entrance, which you would fancy led to nowhere. A stranger
passing along Friargate on an ordinary day, would never find the
Quakers' meeting house. He might notice at a certain point on the
north-eastern side of that undulating and bustling public
thoroughfare a grey looking gable, having a three-light-window
towards the head, with a large door below, and at its base two
washing pots and a long butter mug, belonging to an industrious
earthenware dealer next door; but he would never fancy that the
disciples of George Fox had a front entrance there to their meeting
house. Yet after passing through a dim broad passage here, and
mounting half a dozen substantial steps, you see a square, neat-
looking, five-windowed building, and this is the Quakers' meeting
house.
Over the passage there is a pretty large room, which is used by the
Friends for Sunday school purposes. The attendance at this school on
ordinary occasions is about 60; at special periods it is
considerably more. During the cotton famine, a few years ago, when
the Quakers were manifesting their proverbial charity--giving money,
food, and clothing--the attendance averaged 160; and if it was known
that they were going to give something extra tomorrow it would reach
that point again. Speaking of the charity of Quakers, it may not be
amiss to state that they keep all their own poor--do not allow any
one belonging their society ever to solicit aid from the parish, or
migrate in the dark hour of poverty to the workhouse. Reverting to
the meeting-house, we may observe that just within its front door
particular provision has been made for umbrellas. There is a long,
low stand, with a channel below it, and this will afford ample
accomodation for about 160 umbrellas. Taking into account the
average attendance at the meeting-house, we have come to the serious
conclusion that if every member carried two umbrellas on wet
Sundays, the said umbrellas could be legitimately provided for. It
is not a pleasant thing for a man to carry a couple of umbrellas,
and we believe it has been found very difficult for any one to put
up and use two at the same time; still it is satisfactory to know
that if ever the Friends of Preston decide upon such a course, there
will be plenty of provision for their umbrellas at the meeting
house.
The inside of the general building is severely plain. There is no
decoration of any description about it, and if the gas pipes running
along the side walls had not a slight Hogarthian line of beauty
touch in their form, everything would look absolutely horizontal and
perpendicular. The seats are plain and strong with open backs. A few
of them have got green cushions running the whole length of the
form. In some small cushions are dotted down here and there for
individual worshippers, who can at any time easily take them up, put
them under their arm, and move from one place to another if they
wish for a change of location. Over the front entrance there is a
gallery, but ordinarily it is empty. There is no pulpit in the
house, and no description of books--neither bibles, nor hymn-books,
nor prayer-books--can be seen anywhere. At the head of the place
there is an elevated strongly-fronted bench, running from one side
to the other, and below it an open form of similar length. The more
matured Quakers and Quakeresses generally gravitate hitherwards. The
males have separate places and so have the females. It is expected
that the former will always direct their steps to the seats on the
right-hand side; that the latter will occupy those on the left; and,
generally, you find them on opposite sides in strict accordance with
this idea. There is nothing to absolutely prevent an enraptured
swain from sitting at the elbow of his love, and basking in the
sunlight of her eyes, nor to stop an elderly man from nestling
peacefully under the wing of his spouse; but it is understood that
they will not do this, and will at least submit to a deed of
separation during hours of worship. In addition to the 70 actual
members of the society there are about 60 persons in Preston who pay
a sort of nominal homage at the shrine of George Fox.
They have two meetings every Sunday, morning and evening, and one
every Thursday--at half-past ten in the morning during winter
months, and at seven in the evening in summer. The average
attendance at each of the Sunday meetings is about 70. The character
of the services is quite unsettled. Throughout Christendom the rule
in religious edifices is to have a preliminary service, and then a
discourse; in Quaker meeting houses there is no such defined course
of action. Sometimes there is a prayer, then another, then an
"exhortation"--Quakers have no sermons; at other times an
exhortation without any prayer; now and then a prayer without any
exhortation; and occasionally they have neither the one nor the
other--they fall into a state of profound silence, keep
astonishingly quiet ever so long, with their eyes shut, and then
walk out. This is called silent meditation. If a pin drops whilst
this is going on you can hear it and tell in which part of the house
it is lying. You can feel the quietude, see the stillness; it is
"tranquil and herd-like--as in the pasture--'forty feeding like
one;'" it is sadly serene, placidly mysterous, like the
"uncommunicating muteness of fishes;" and you wonder how it is kept
up. To those who believe in solemn reticence--in motionless
communion with the "inner light,"--there is nothing curious in this;
it is, in fact, often a source of high spiritual ecstacy; but to an
unitiated spectator the business looks seriously funny, and its
continuance for any length of time causes the mind of such a one to
run in all kinds of dreadfully ludicrous grooves.
Quakers don't believe in singing, and have no faith in sacred music
of any kind. Neither the harp, nor the sackbut, nor the psaltery,
nor the dulcimer will they have; neither organs nor bass fiddles
will they countenance; neither vocalists nor instrumentalists, nor
tune forks of any size or weight, will they patronise. They permit
one another to enter and remain in their meeting house with the hat
on or off, and with the hands either in the pockets or out of them.
They have no regular ministers, and allow either men or women to
speak. None, except Quakers and Ranters--the two most extreme
sections of the religious community, so far as quietude and noise
are concerned--permit this; and it is a good thing for the world
that the system is not extended beyond their circles. If women were
allowed to speak at some places of worship they would all be talking
at once--all be growing eloquent, voluble, and strong minded in two
minutes--and an articulative mystification, much more chaotic than
that which once took place at Babel, would ensue. At the meeting
house in Friargate it is taken for granted that on Sundays the
morning service lasts for an hour and a half, and the evening one an
hour and a quarter; but practically the time is regulated by the
feelings of the worshippers--they come and go as they are "moved,"
and that is a liberal sort of measure harmonising well with human
nature and its varied requirements.
We have paid more than one visit to this meeting house. The other
Sunday evening we were there. The congregation at that time numbered
just thirty-two--fifteen men, twelve women, two boys, and three
girls. This was rather a small assemblage for a place which will
hold between 500 and 600 persons; but it might be gratifying to the
shades of its chemistry-loving, cubic-feet-of-air-admiring
designers, for they would at any rate have the lively satisfaction
of knowing that none of the famous 32 would suffer through want of
breathing space. The members of the congregation came in at various
times; four were there at half-past six; the remainder had got
safely seated, in every instance, by ten minutes to seven. All the
males made their appearance with their hats on; some pulled them off
the moment they got seated; two or three seemed to get their
convictions gradually intensified on the subject, and in about ten
minutes came to the conclusion that they could do without their
hats; some who had cast aside their castors at an early period
reinstated them; whilst odd ones kept on their head coverings during
the entire meeting. For 45 minutes, not the least effort in any
lingual direction was made; no one said a word for three-quarters of
an hour. There was a good deal of stirring on the forms, and
creaking sounds were periodically heard; the whole indicating that
the sitting posture had become uneasy, and that the paint, through
warmth, had got tenacious. There was, however, neither talking nor
whispering indulged in. The elderly Quakers, with their broad-
brimmed, substantial hats, and white neckcloths, kept their eyes
closed for a season, then opened them and looked ahead pensively,
then shut them serenely again,--just
As men of inward light are wont
To turn their optics to upon 't.
The Quakeresses on the other side followed a similar programme. We
saw only three of them in the olden dress--only three with narrow-
barrelled high crowned bonnets, made of brown silk and garnished
with white silk strings. The younger branches of Quakerdom seemed
more conventional than their ancestors in general dress. There was a
slight dash of antiquity in their style; but their hats and bonnets,
their coats and shawls had evidently been made for ornament as well
as use. Originally Quakers were peculiarly stringent in respect to
the plainness of their clothes; what they wore was always good,
always made out of something which could not be beaten for its
excellence of quality; but it was always simple, always out of the
line of shoddy and bespanglement. But Quakerism is neither
immaculate nor invincible; time is changing its simplicity, its
quaint old fashioned solidity of dress; "civilisation" is quietly
eating away its rigidity; and the day is coming when Quakerism will
don the same suit as the rest of the world. For the first ten
minutes we were in the chapel silence was not to us so much of a
singularity; but when the Town Hall clock struck seven, when the
machinery in the dim steeple of Trinity Church, which adjoins, gave
a slow confirmation of it, and when all the little clocks in the
neighbouring houses--for you could hear them on account of the
general silence--chirped out sharply the same thing, one began to
feel dubious and mystified. But the Quakers took all quietly, and
even the children present sat still. The chime of another hour
quarter came in due order; still there was no sign of action. Two
minutes afterwards, an elderly gentleman, whose eyes had been kept
close during the greater part of the time which had passed, suddenly
leaned forward; the "congregation" followed his example in a crack,
and for ten minutes they prayed, the elderly gentleman leading the
way in a rather high-keyed voice, which he singularly modulated. But
there was not much of "the old Foxian orgasm" manifested by him; he
was serene, did not shake, was not agonised. He finished as he began
without any warning; the general assemblage was seated in a second;
and for seven minutes there was another reign of taciturnity. When
that time had elapsed the same elderly party gave an exhortation,
simple in language, kindly in tone, and free from both bewilderment
and fierceness. Mr. Jesper--the person to whom we have been
alluding--is one of the principal speakers at this meeting house.
His colleague in talking is Mrs. Abbatt, a very worthy lady, who has
often the afflatus upon her, and who can hold forth with a good deal
of earnestness and perspicuity. Although Mr. Jesper and Mrs. Abbatt
do the greatest portion of the talking and praying, others break
through the ring fence of Quakerdom's silence periodically. One
little gentleman has often small outbursts; but he is not very
exhilerating. All the "members" attending the meeting house are very
decorous, respectable, middle-class people--substantial well-pursed
folk, who can afford to be independent, and take life easily--men
and women who dislike shoddy and cant as much as they condemn
spangles and lackered gentility.
The aggregate of the people connected with the place are calm,
steady-going beings. We have a large respect for Quakerism. Its
professors are made of strong, enduring, practical metal. They never
neglect business for religion, nor religion for business. They
believe in paying their way and in being paid; in moral rectitude
and yard wands not the millionth part of an inch too long; in yea
and nay; in good trade, good purses, good clothes, and good
language; in clear-headed, cool calculations; in cash, discounts,
sobriety, and clean shirts; in calmness and close bargain driving;
in getting as much as they can, in sticking to it a long while, and
yet in behaving well to the poor. The influence of the creed they
profess has made their uprightness and humanity proverbial. Their
home influence has been powerful; their views in the outer world are
becoming more fully realised every day. Nations have smiled
contemptuously at them as they have gone forth on lonely missions of
freedom and peace; but the inner beatings of the world's great heart
today are in favour of liberty of thought and quietness. The Quakers
have been amongst life's pioneers in the long, hard battle for human
freedom and human peace. Quakerism may be a quaint, hat-loving,
silence-revering concern in its meeting-houses; its Uriahs, and
Abimelechs, and Deborahs, and Abigails, may look curious creatures
in their collarless coats and long drawn bonnets; but they belong to
a race of men and women who have kept the lamp of freedom burning;
who have set a higher price upon conscience than gold; who have
struggled to make everything free--the body, the religion, the bread
and butter, and the trade of the nations; who are now by their
doctrines slowly lifting humanity out of the red track of war, and
teaching it how grand a triumph can be made all the world over by
absolute Peace and Honesty.
ST. PETER'S CHURCH.
Upon a high piece of enclosed land, adjoining Fylde-road, stands St.
Peter's Church. Portions of its precincts are covered with
gravestones; the remainder has been "considerably damaged" of late,
according to the belief of one of the churchwardens, by the vicious
scratching of a number of irreverent hens, whose owners will be
prosecuted if they do not look better after them. The other Sunday,
we saw a notice posted at the front of the church relative to the
great hen-scratching question. It is said that some of these tame
and reclaimed birds have penetrated a foot or two into the ground
for the purpose of lying, not laying, therein; and on this account
it is important that their proprietors should look more
(h)energetically after them. The foundation stone of St. Peter's
Church was laid by Mr. Justice Park, one of the old recorders of
Preston, in 1822; Rickman, an able Birmingham architect, designed
the place; and the edifice (sans steeple, which was built in 1852,
out of money left by the late Thomas German, Esq.), was erected at a
cost of 6,900 pounds, provided by the Commissioners for the building
of new churches. St. Peter's has a lofty, commanding appearance.
Learned people say it is built in the florid Gothic style of
architecture, and we are not inclined to dispute their definition.
It has a very churchly look, and if the steeple were at the other
end, it would be equally orthodox. The world, as a rule, fixes its
steeples westward; but St. Peter's, following a few others we could
name, rises in the opposite direction, and, like a good Mussulman,
turns to the East. There is nothing in its graveyard calling for
special comment. Neither monuments nor lofty tombs relieve it. All
round it has a flat dull aspect, and good arrangements have been
made for walking over the tombstones and obliterating their
inscriptions. There are two ways into the church at the western end;
both are near each other; but one has advantages which the other
does not possess. Passing through the larger you immediately face
the pulpit and the congregation; entering by the other you can hang
your harp on several preliminary willows--sit just sideways and hear
what's going on, stay behind the screen until a point arrives when a
move forward can be made without many people catching your "mould of
form," or inquire who's present and who isn't, and glide out if
nothing suitable is observed.
St. Peter's Church, internally, looks dirty. If cleanliness be next
to godliness, a good cleaning would do it good and improve its
affinities. Whitewash, paint, floorcloths, dusters, wash leathers,
and sundry other articles in the curriculum of scrubbers,
renovators, and purifiers are needed. The walls want mundifying, so
does the ceiling, so do the floors; the Ten Commandments need
improving; the Apostles' Creed isn't plain enough; the spirit of a
time worn grimness requires ostracising from the place. All is
substantial; but there is an ancient unwashed dulness about the
general establishment, which needs transforming into cleanness and
brightness. The pews are high, and on the average they will hold six
persons each. Seven might get into them on a pinch; but if the
number were much extended beyond that point, either abraison or blue
places through violent pressure would be the consequence. Two or
three pews at the top end will hold twelve each; but that apostolic
number is not very often observed in them. The price of a single
sitting in the middle aisle is 10s. per annum; the cost of a side
seat is equal to three civil half-crowns. The long side seats are
free; so are the galleries, excepting that portion of them in front
of the organ. Often the church is not much more than half filled on
a Sunday; but it is said that many sittings, calculated to
accommodate nearly a full congregation, are let. Viewed from the
copperhead standpoint this is right; but taking a higher ground it
would be more satisfactory if even fewer pews were let and more folk
attended. The church is not well arranged for people occupying side
seats. In looking ahead the pillars of the nave constantly intercept
their vision if they care about seeing who is reading or preaching.
Wherever the pulpit were put it would blush unseen, so far as many
are concerned. At present it is fixed on the south-eastern side, and
only about one-fourth of those seated under the galleries can see
either it or the preacher. Some of them at times complain
considerably of sequestration; others feel it a little occasionally;
a few think it a rather snug thing to be out of sight. A large five-
light stained glass window occupies the chancel end; but there is
nothing very entrancing in its appearance. The greater portion of it
has a bright, amber-coloured, monotonous flashiness about it, which
flares the eyes if gazed at long, and makes other things, if looked
at directly afterwards, yellow-hued; and it is surmounted with a
number of minor designs, reminding one of the big oddities in a
mammoth keleidoscope. But the congregation have got used to the
window, and will neither break it nor permit others to do so. Six
spaces for tablet inscriptions occupy the base of the window. Two of
them are blank; two have a great mass of letters packed into them;
and two are but moderately filled in with words. At a distance
nobody can see what is said upon them. It is reported that they
contain the Decalogue and the Apostles' Creed; and if this be so,
the incumbent, the curate, and the clerk must have been the parties
for whose delight they were put up, for they are the nearest to, and
can consequently best read, them. There are the full compliment of
sacred enclosures and resting places at the higher end of the
church--a chair for the ease of the incumbent or curate; a desk for
the prayer reader; a box for the clerk; a lectern for the lesson
reader; and a stout pulpit for the preacher.
The congregation of St. Peter's Church, as we have said, is small.
We cannot tell whether the collections terrify folk; probably they
do; for it is estimated that there are between 30 and 40 of them
annually, and sometimes they come in an unbroken line for several
Sundays together. A plan like this is enough to make people shy in
their attendance,--is certain to make ordinarily generous beings
cover what they give with their finger ends, or slip their gifts
sharply into the boxes and get them instantly mixed up with the
rest, so that nobody can tell whether they have contributed a simple
copper, a roguish little threepenny piece, or a respectable looking
shilling. There are voluntary contribution boxes at the doors, but
they never get very heavy. Those attending the church are mainly
working people. With the exception of about five, all have to fight
briskly for a living. A greater work has been done outside than
within the church. There are many schools and classes belonging, the
place. In Cold Bath-street there is a large school for girls and
infants, and it is very well attended. In Fylde-road there is a club
for working men, open every day; and on Sundays several of the
"wives and mothers of Britain" attend a class in the same building.
In Brook-street there is a regular day school. On Sunday afternoons
the members of an adult male class meet in it. The average
attendance of these members is about 160, and their ages range from
20 to 70. The district has been well worked up; and there are many
of both sexes in it prepared to either pray or fight for St.
Peter's.
The music at the church is good. It costs about 30 pounds a year,
and a rather strong effort is sometimes required to raise that sum.
The organist immediately preceding the present one used to play for
nothing; get one or two collections annually for the choir; and make
up out of his own pocket any financial deficiency there might be.
The gentleman who now operates upon the organ, likewise gives his
services gratuitously; he also has collections for the choir; but if
those said collections come short of the sum required, he is
seriously impressed with the idea that the deficiency ought to come
out of other people's purses, and not his. And so it does. The
organist has considerable musical ability; he plays the instrument
in his care with precision; but he throws too much force into its
effusions--believes too much in high pressure--and the general
boiler of its melody may burst some day, kill the blower instantly,
and dash the choir into space. The internal service arrangements at
St. Peter's are worked by an incumbent, a curate, and a clerk. The
last named gentleman has been a long time at his post; he is a dry,
orthodox, careful man; never mistook a three-penny for a fourpenny
piece in his life; doesn't like slippery sixpences; and he gets for
his general services at the church 15 pounds a year. Nobody hardly
ever hears him; the responses of the choir materially swamp the
music of his voice; but his lips move, and that is at least a sign
of life.
The incumbent is the Rev. D. F. Chapman. He has been at the place a
few years, and receives about 400 pounds a-year for his trouble. Mr.
Chapman is a powerfully-constructed gentleman; is somewhat inclined
to oleaginousness; has contracted a marine swing in his walk; is
heavily clerical in countenance and cloth; believes in keeping his
hair broad at the sides; has a strong will and an enormous opinion
of the incumbent of St. Peter's; will fume if crossed; will crush if
touched; can't be convinced; has his mind made up and rivetted down
on everything; must have his way; thinks every antagonist mistaken;
is washy, windy, ponderous; has a clear notion that each of his
postulates is worth a couple of demonstrations, that all his
theories are tantamount to axioms; and, finally, has quarelled more
with his churchwardens than any other live parson in Preston. He
once fought for weeks, day and night, with a warden as to the
position of a small gas-pipe, because he couldn't get his way about
it. He is well educated, but his erudition is not fairly utilised;
he can read with moderate precision; but there is a lack of
elocutionary finish in his tone; he can talk a long while, and now
and then can say a good thing; he preaches with considerable force,
makes good use of his arms, sometimes rants a little, at intervals
has to pull back his sentences half an inch to get hold of the right
word, talks straight out occasionally, telling the congregation what
they are doing and what they ought to do; but there is much in his
sermons which neither gods nor men will care about digesting, and
there is a theological dogmatism in them which ordinary sinners like
ourselves will never swallow. We are rather inclined to admire the
gentleman who, until lately, officiated as his curate--the Rev. E.
Lee,--and who, after preaching his last sermon, was next day made
the recipient of that most fashionable and threadbare of all things,
a presentation. Originally he indulged in odd pranks, said strange
things, was laughably eccentric, and did for a period appear to be,
in an ecclesiastical sense, what the kangaroo of Artemus Ward was in
a zoological one--"the most amoozin little cuss ever introduced to a
discriminatin public." He has still some of the "amoozin" traits
about him; but during his curacy in St. Peters district he showed
that he could work hard, visit often, look after the poor, be
generous, get up good classes, and never tire of his duty. His
salary was about 120 pounds a year, and he was benevolent with it.
He has a stronger pair of lungs than any parson in Preston, and he
can use them longer than most men without feeling tired. His sermons
are of a practical type; he believes largely in telling people what
he thinks; and never hesitates to hit rich and poor alike in his
discourses. He has been transplanted to the Parish Church, and he
will stir up a few of the respectable otiose souls there if he has
an opportunity. There is a good deal of swagger about him; he
believes in carry a stick and turning it; in admiring himself and
letting other people know that he is of a cypher; there is much
conceit and ever so much bombast about him; he likes giving
historical lectures; thinks he is an authority on everything
appertaining to Elizabeth, Mary, the Prince of Orange, &c.; is fond
of attacking Bishop Goss, and getting into a groove of garrulous
declamation concerning Papists; still he is a determined worker, has
been a laborious curate, has troubled himself more than many people
in looking after those whom parsons are so fond of calling sinners
and so indifferent about visiting. He was well liked in St. Peter's
district, and we hope that in the new one he has gone to he will
gather friends, increase his usefulness, get married, and give fewer
polemical lectures.