Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

-being prolonged, was the cause why St. James's life came so quickly to an end."

H." You mean that St. James's martyrdom was hastened by the discontent of the restless Jews, on their finding that St. Paul, by his appeal to Cæsar, had taken himself out of their reach."

B. "Yes; and I take pleasure in imagining what the two great Apostles must have felt, at such a time, towards one another-I mean St. Paul and St. James."

H."One fancies how St. Paul must sometimes have wished himself in St. James's situation; and St. James, how he must have rejoiced in being substituted for St. Paul, to bear that fiercest wrath of his countrymen."

B. "I have read somewhere, that perhaps the Epistle to the Hebrews was partly occasioned by St. James's death; especially that verse in it- Remember them that bear the rule over you, which have spoken unto you the Word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.'* As if he should say, Remember, and strive to copy, your departed Bishop.'"

6

H." And that Epistle, too, is all against going on with the Mosaic sacrifices, and forcing people to keep the Mosaic ceremonies; to which evil course, do you not think, many weak Christians might be driven by the persecution of St. James."

B. "Within a few verses of that which I just now mentioned, there is a caution against imagining that the heart could be established by the Judaical rules about meats, clean and unclean; whereas its only true strength would be in partaking of the Christian Altar, whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle.” ” †

6

[ocr errors]

H. "Who was Bishop of Jerusalem in St. James's stead? B. " Symeon, also one of those who were called brethren of our Lord, and therefore, it seems, St. James's own brother; who was martyred many years after, in extreme old age."

H. "How glad he must have been when that letter came from St. Paul!"

B." And how it must have strengthened his hands against the Judaizers! But not so very many months after, he would have the grief of hearing that St. Paul himself had been taken away."

H. " Pray do not go on to that. I must be gone; and I have already more to meditate upon than I can well take with me.” * Hebrews xiii. 7. † Hebrews xiii. 9, 10.

COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED.

WHAT IS THE USE OF OUR CATHEDRALS?

HUNDREDS of people have asked this question themselves, or have heard or read of others asking it in private or in public: and, as this is a day when men estimate the value of things very much by their utility, it will be well to see what sort of answer can be given to it. Not, indeed, that much higher ground cannot be taken in defending those magnificent piles which the faith and love of past ages reared to the glory of God; but that we believe we shall best enkindle the zeal of English Churchmen for their maintenance, if we can shew that Cathedrals have their uses-do serve to increase and strengthen practical religion, while in other ways they promote God's glory. We are far from saying that they might not, ought not, to do this in a much greater degree; but let us hope and be patient: Church work is proverbially slow work, but it is not the less sure on that account: something has been, more will be, done if you wait awhile. The following story will show one use at least of Cathedrals: it is we believe but one of hundreds which might be related for the comfort of some who often despond, as if their own glowing visions of what Cathedrals might do could never be realized,-for the satisfaction of many whose daily complaining would soon cease if they would but try to follow the examples which they will find recorded in

A SKETCH

IN THE POOR MAN'S CHURCH.
THE STRANGER.

...... the mighty sky-born Stream:-
Its living waters from above
All marr'd and broken seem,
No union and no love.

We that with eye too daring seek
To scan their course, all giddy turn:-
Not so the floweret meek,
Harebell or nodding fern:

They from the rocky wall's steep side
Lean without fear, and drink the
spray;

The torrents foaming pride

But keeps them green and gay.
And Christ hath lowly hearts, that rest
Amid fallen Salem's rush and strife:
The pure, peace-loving breast
Even here can find her rest.
Lyra Innocentium. "The Waterfall."

It has been well and wisely remarked, that one strong reason why the Houses of God should be rendered, as far as may bc, perfect in outward costliness and beauty, is because it is only in this way that the poor can share in those precious

things which He has bestowed upon our beautiful world-at least in any sense of personal interest or possession. They may indeed look upon shining heaps of gold and silverupon gems and pearls from the far East, but it is only to look upon them with a painful, perhaps with a fretful or grudging feeling, that these can never be theirs. But it is not thus in the Church; nothing is, or at least, nothing ought to be exclusive there: the "many members" of the "One Body" have a common share, a common right, in her ministers, her services (so gently and soothingly named the "Common Prayer"), and in the visible glories of her thousand shrines. And woe betide her whenever she shall forfeit her proudest title, "The Poor Man's Church!" Of all places, perhaps, these thoughts come uppermost in one's mind in a Cathedral Church, where the building itself is more magnificent, the services should be more majestic, (whilst, at the same time, attend

ance on both is more absolutely free) than in most other churches.

We suppose almost every body is aware, that a "Cathedral Church" is really the Mother Church of a Diocese, having the Bishop of that Diocese for its chief pastor, with its Dean and several Clergy to divide amongst them its daily services; for these churches are open, not only on Sundays, but twice every day, so that in the places in which they are, the House of God is not shut from Sunday to Sunday against the mourner, who would there open his griefs, nor to the happier ones, who would there find a key-note of praise in the rich chants of the Psalms or the majestic Te Deum.

Yet, as our Cathedral Churches,

or "6

Minsters," are for the most part situated in old, rather than in populous cities, we will hazard a few remarks on some of their more striking peculiarities, for the sake of such readers as may not have visited any one of them.

Picture to yourselves, then, a solemn grey pile, covering the space of at least four modern churches, with perhaps as many massive towers, standing out in a sort of shadowy solitude only interrupted by the cawing of the rooks that have built their nests in the tall old trees that stand all round it, and looking down like a silent witness on the crimes of the generations, past and present, who have lived, and sinned, and died under its unchanging shadow.

Then, if you enter by the old porch, it is hard to say whether your first impressions will be those of greatness, or of beauty-probably a mixture of both, for pillared aisle, and lofty arch, and stately column will carry the eye upward till it is lost in the mazes of the wondrous roof, its branches and bosses, like a forest of stonework, knotted with briar-roses; and yet

the glance will be hurried downward, and almost fastened there by the carven oak, and fairy embroidery, and variegated marbles shed in rich abundance on its very pavement, and, above all, by the subdued, hallowed light which pours upon that pavement through each deep-stained lattice, in rich tints of scarlets, and emeralds, and lilacs.

From various unfortunate causes, which need not here be mentioned, the Eastern portion, or Choir, as it is called, is now commonly set apart for divine service, being mostly separated from the Nave, or larger Western portion, by a close screen of wood or stone (overtopped by the Grand Organ, towering towards the roof), thus effectually shutting in the congregation, but, unhappily, encouraging too often in the Nave without a set of irreverent loiterers, who, if there were only an open and light screen which did not separate them from sights and sounds, might be awed into reverence, perhaps drawn to devotion.

It was one glorious summer evening, as I was passing through the Nave to attend prayers in one of our Cathedrals, that I noticed a very poor, but very happy looking young woman, with two little black-eyed girls at her side, who was peering at the old monuments with all the unmistakeable wonderment of a stranger. Now I am sorry to say that I did not at that time give the poor credit for that good taste in Church matters which they really possess. Not but that I know that many of the peculiar features of a Cathedral service,the breathless hush, interrupted only by the mighty peal from the organ, like the voice of a great thunder,the company of priests, singing men and singing children, wearing the white robe, and joining in the flood of harmony, which is set as it were to the great key-note, "Day by day

I think it related to the beauty of the church, for I remember she said, with a little rosy blush at being noticed, that she had seen quite as pretty churches in London, and then the young mother curtsied and looked pleased too (just as people do when they are in a strange place, where they have no one to speak a kind word to them), and said they had come from London a

we magnify Thee";-the crumbling monuments of those who have gone before us with the Sign of Faith, and rest in the sleep of Peace; the triumphant forms of glorified Saints, that gleam upon us from each lofty pane, and cast their bright mantles in rainbow tints over us, as if in token to bid us follow them, as they followed Christ;-all this, I was aware, must affect the dullest imagination, and, for the time at least, warm the coldest heart. But I did not at that time think that the poor were quick to take up the lesson which all this is intended to teach, --the lesson that we have all wellnigh forgot, that we are, at this very moment, all of us, living or departed, rich and poor, old and young, "knit together in One Communion and Fellowship," that we

that I

painful

to the

then, as her own

few days ago. Of course, I concluded that they had popped in to see the Minster, as everybody does, because it is one of the "lions" of the place, and so I never expected to see them again, least of all there. However, in a day or two, as I came out of the Choir, I espied the comely countenance of my new friend; she was sitting all alone on a long bench close beside the screen in the Nave, where, by listening close, you can manage to follow the service pretty well. She looked quite happy and at home, and by the little well-worn Prayer-book she held in her hand, I guessed she had been going along with us in our prayers indeed, when I asked her, -not till then, she said she had been doing so, adding, with much simplicity, that she did the same "most days."

"One Fold under One Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord."

are

Ma'am,

come to

[blocks in formation]

"But do come inside next time," I said, "there is plenty of room, and you know we ought all to pray together."

Oh, we need not teach the poor the difference that there is between our earthly lot and theirs! They feel that too well already, and sometimes our unkindness or selfishness makes the sense of it enter like iron into their very soul: rather let us teach them, having first learnt it ourselves, that in the sight of our One Father, which is in Heaven, in the eyes of our One Mother, the Church on earth, we not only shall one day be,- -we are even now, equals,-only like servants, or like children at school, we have different tasks, different services to perform, for that One Master and Father. This is no poetic dream, it is simple reality; for what saith Holy Scripture:- "As the Body is one, and hath many members, and all the members, being many, are one body, so also is Christ."

66

In fact

Martha w

in this

ne

barest ment: for already c little ones

Yes, Ma'am, and so we ought, and you may depend upon it I shall too, when I have had time to get cleaned up a bit;"- -a simple, but striking way of expressing her notion of the outward reverence we all of us owe to holy places and things.

But to resume. Some dim idea, that if the poor did not feel in this way, it was not their fault, led me to address a chance remark to one of the pretty children I spoke of.

additional

band (an

quently

01

employme his family

And she was as good as her word, for every evening afterwards, fair weather or wet, she and her little Prayer-book made their appearance in the Choir, although her clothes were so patched and threadbare

unsettled

following

railway w

told me, a

ere as she

leave her

trict, Lon

had been

est-born told me,

stranger,

notice or great city

so I som indeed, I

except"

thrilled t that mos when I

It remin

same pr everythin

was at o

It was th

when I
I thin
evening

that I am sure it must have been painful to her thus to expose them to the observation of others; but then, as she one day said to me, in her own child-like way,- "You see Ma'am, my husband don't like to come to Church, till he can get better clothes to come in; but I'm sure, if I was to wait for that time, I should never get there at all.” Who shall tell what the one gained -the other lost by their opposite conduct in this respect?

In fact, I soon found that poor Martha was never likely to attain in this world, to more than the barest necessaries of food and raiment; for, besides that her family already consisted of four hungry little ones, she was subject to this additional drawback, that her husband (an iron-worker) was frequently out of work, whilst for the employment he did obtain, he and his family were obliged to lead an unsettled, vagrant sort of life, in following the course of the various railway works. It was for this, she told me, and a tear stood in her blue eye as she told it, that she had had to leave her home in the Poplar District, London, where her little ones had been baptized, and her youngest-born was buried and then she told me, with the full heart of a stranger, that she had no one to notice or to speak to her in all the great city she had come to. "And so I sometimes feel very desolate, indeed, I never feel at home here, except" (and oh, how my heart thrilled to hear that most blessed, that most just exception,) "except when I come to this old Church. It reminds me of home. It is the same prayers, the same words, everything just the same like as it was at our Parish Church at home. It was there I used to go every day when I was at home."

I think I shall never forget that evening; we stood beside the grey

granite tower, with the evergreen ivy climbing on its basement, and its battlements cutting the deep blue sky; the old dial shewed the approach of sun-down, and the summer breeze sighed among the limes, and the sheep were lying down to rest under the sacred shadow; everything around us and above us spake of loveliness and peace. But it was another, a still holier feeling that thrilled through my frame, at that moment, as my humble companion laid her hand on my arm, and said in a low solemn tone, Yes, it is all the same here as there, for we are all the children of One Father."

66

"One communion and fellowship." That fact has dwelt with me ever since, like music playing in my ears. Some may be like the the lofty turrets that cut the sky, others like the lowly ivy plant that draws its scanty nourishment from the clefts of the lowest stone of yonder tower; yet still, all one, for " now are we many members, yet but One Body."

It was soon after this that I paid a visit to Martha's present abode, which consisted only of a couple of upper rooms in one of those unhealthy lodging-houses for the poor, too common in our large towns, into each of which from twelve to twenty families are sometimes packed, without pure air, and almost without the pleasant light of the sun.

The one which Martha lived in was not quite so bad as this, and yet it was bad enough, for to get to it, you had first to thread a narrow lane, and afterwards a noisome court, both of them crowded with human beings as wretchedlooking as filth and effluvia could make them; and then, at last, we had to climb up several flights of rickety wooden stairs, with scarce a ray of light to help us to feel our way. Really, thought I, "cleanli

« AnteriorContinuar »