we have heard much of the broad church for many years, till the designation is almost as familiar to our ears as that of the high church or of the low church; but the broad church of former times,—some twenty years ago, we will say, when the ecclesiastical world was all on fire because the then prime minister was minded to give a mitre to a certain professor of divinity at oxford,—held doctrines very far indeed behind those to which the liberal parsons of these days have made progress. the ordinary broad church clergyman of that era was one who showed himself to be broad by his tolerance of the doubts of others, rather than by the expression of doubts of his{120} own. he was not uncomfortably shocked at finding himself in company with one who was weak in faith as to the old testament miracles, and listened with placid equanimity to discussions which went on around him to show that our ancient bible chronology was defective. but now we have got much beyond that. the liberal clergyman of the church of england has long since given up bible chronology, has given up many of the miracles, and is venturing forward into questions the very asking of which would have made the hairs to stand on end on the head of the broadest of the broad in the old days, twenty years since. there are bishops still living, and others have lately died, who must have been astonished to find how quickly their teaching has had its results, how soon the tree has produced its fruit.
the free-thinking clergyman of the present time is to be found more often in london than in the provinces, and more frequently in the towns than in country parishes. they are not many in number, as compared with the numbers of all parsondom in these realms; but they are men of whom we hear much, and they are sufficiently numerous to leaven{121} the whole. there are many things, gone recently altogether out of date, which the meek old-world clergyman dares no longer teach, though he knows not why,—the placid, easy-minded clergyman who would be so well satisfied to teach all that his father taught before him,—the actual six days for instance, the actual and needed rest on the seventh; but the placid clergyman dares not teach them, not knowing why he dares not. he has been leavened unconsciously by the free-thinking of his liberal brother, and his teaching comes forth conformed in some degree to the new doctrines, although, to himself, the feeling is simply that the ground is being cut from under him, and that that special bit of ground,—the actual six days,—has slid away altogether from the touch of his feet.
in london and in the large towns, where they most abound, these new teachers have their own circles, their own flocks, their own churches, and their admirers who have become familiar with them. and it is when so placed, no doubt, that they are most efficacious in operating on the education of laymen and of other clergymen. but it is when{122} such a one finds himself placed as a parson in a country parish, out, as it were, alone among the things of another day, that he calls upon himself the greatest attention. he has around him antediluvian rectors and pietistic vicars, who regard him not only as a bird of prey who has got into a community of domestic poultry, but, worse still, as a bird that is fouling its own nest. they hate his teaching, as all teachers must hate doctrines which are subversive of their own—which, however, they can themselves neither subvert nor approve. but they hate more intensely that want of professional thoroughness, that absence of esprit de corps, which these gentlemen seem to them to exhibit. “he has taken orders,” says the antediluvian rector, speaking of his free-thinking neighbour to his confidential friend, “simply to upset the church! he believes in nothing; nothing in heaven, nothing on earth,—nothing under the earth. he told his people yesterday that the book of exodus is an old woman’s story. and the worst of it is, we cannot do anything to get rid of him;—no, by heaven, not anything!” to which the rector’s confidential friend replies that the rector{123} has still the power left of preaching his own doctrine. “psha!” says the rector, “preach, indeed! preach the devil as he does, and you can fill a church any day! what i want to know is how a man like that can bring himself to take four hundred a year out of the church, when he doesn’t believe one of the articles he has sworn to?” now the special offence of the liberal preacher on this occasion was a hint conveyed in a sermon that the fourth commandment in its entirety is hardly compatible with the life of an englishman in the nineteenth century. and the laymen around are astounded by the man, feeling a great interest in him, not unmixed with awe. has he come to them from heaven or from hell? are these new teachings, which are not without their comfort, promptings direct from the evil one, who is ever roaring for their souls, and who may thus have come to roar in their own parish? there is mystery as well as danger in the matter; and as mystery, and danger also when not too near, are both pleasant, the new man is not altogether unwelcome, in spite of the anathemas of the neighbouring rector. what if the new teaching should be true? so the{124} men begin to speculate, and the women quake, and the neighbouring parsons are full of wrath, and the bishop’s table groans with letters which he knows not how to answer, or how to leave unanswered. the free-thinking clergyman of whom we are speaking still creates much of this excitement in the country; but in the town he is encountered on easier terms, and in london he finds his own set, and has no special weight beyond that which his talents and his energy can give him.
it is very hard to come at the actual belief of any man. indeed how should we hope to do so when we find it so very hard to come at our own? how many are there among us who, in this matter of our religion, which of all things is the most important to us, could take pen in hand and write down even for their own information exactly what they themselves believe? not very many clergymen even, if so pressed, would insert boldly and plainly the fulminating clause of the athanasian creed; and yet each clergyman declares aloud that he believes it a dozen times every year of his life. most men who call themselves christians would say that they believed{125} the bible, not knowing what they meant, never having attempted,—and very wisely having refrained from attempting amidst the multiplicity of their worldly concerns,—to separate historical record from inspired teaching. but when a liberal-minded clergyman does come among us,—come among us, that is, as our pastor,—we feel not unnaturally a desire to know what it is, at any rate, that he disbelieves. on what is he unsound, according to the orthodoxy of our old friend the neighbouring rector? and are we prepared to be unsound with him? we know that there are some things which we do not like in the teaching to which we have been hitherto subjected;—that fulminating clause, for instance, which tells us that nobody can be saved unless he believes a great deal which we find it impossible to understand; the ceremonial sabbath which we know that we do not observe, though we go on professing that its observance is a thing necessary for us;—the incompatibility of the teaching of old testament records with the new teachings of the rocks and stones. is it within our power to get over our difficulties by squaring our belief with that of this new parson whom we acknowledge{126} at any rate to be a clever fellow? before we can do so we must at any rate know what is the belief,—or the unbelief,—that he has in him.
but this is exactly what we never can do. the old rector was ready enough with his belief. there were the three creeds, and the thirty-nine articles; and, above all, there was the bible,—to be taken entire, unmutilated, and unquestioned. his task was easy enough, and he believed that he believed what he said that he believed. but the new parson has by no means so glib an answer ready to such a question. he is not ready with his answer because he is ever thinking of it. the other man was ready because he did not think. our new friend, however, is debonair and pleasant to us, with something of a subrisive smile in which we rather feel than know that there is a touch of irony latent. the question asked troubles him inwardly, but he is well aware that he should show no outward trouble. so he is debonair and kind,—still with that subrisive smile,—and bids us say our prayers, and love our god, and trust our saviour. the advice is good, but still we want to know whether we are to pray god to help us{127} to keep the fourth commandment, or only pretend so to pray,—and whether, when the fulminating clause is used, we are to try to believe it or to disbelieve it. we can only observe our new rector, and find out from his words and his acts how his own mind works on these subjects.
it is soon manifest to us that he has accepted the teaching of the rocks and stones, and that we may give up the actual six days, and give up also the deluge as a drowning of all the world. indeed, we had almost come to fancy that even the old rector had become hazy on these points. and gradually there leak out to us, as to the falling of manna from heaven, and as to the position of jonah within the whale, and as to the speaking of balaam’s ass, certain doubts, not expressed indeed, but which are made manifest to us as existing by the absence of expressions of belief. in the intercourse of social life we see something of a smile cross our new friend’s face when the thirty-nine articles are brought down beneath his nose. then he has read the essays and reviews, and will not declare his opinion that the writers of them should be unfrocked and sent away{128} into chaos;—nay, we find that he is on terms of personal intimacy with one at least among the number of those writers. and, lastly, there comes out a subscription list for bishop colenso, and we find our new rector’s name down for a five-pound note! that we regard as the sign, to be recognized by us as the most certain of all signs, that he has cut the rope which bound his barque to the old shore, and that he is going out to sea in quest of a better land. shall we go with him, or shall we stay where we are?
if one could stay, if one could only have a choice in the matter, if one could really believe that the old shore is best, who would leave it? who would not wish to be secure if he knew where security lay? but this new teacher, who has come among us with his ill-defined doctrines and his subrisive smile,—he and they who have taught him,—have made it impossible for us to stay. with hands outstretched towards the old places, with sorrowing hearts,—with hearts which still love the old teachings which the mind will no longer accept,—we, too, cut our ropes, and go out in our little boats, and search for a land that will be new to us, though how far new,—new in how{129} many things, we do not know. who would not stay behind if it were possible to him?
but our business at present is with the teacher, and not with the taught. of him we may declare that he is, almost always, a true man,—true in spite of that subrisive smile and ill-defined doctrine. he is one who, without believing, cannot bring himself to think that he believes, or to say that he believes that which he disbelieves without grievous suffering to himself. he has to say it, and does suffer. there are the formulas which must be repeated, or he must abandon his ministry altogether,—his ministry, and his adopted work, and the public utility which it is his ambition to achieve. debonair though he be, and smile though he may, he has through it all some terrible heart-struggles, in which he is often tempted to give way and to acknowledge that he is too weak for the work he has taken in hand. when he resolved that he must give that five pounds to the colenso fund,—or rather when he resolved that he must have his name printed in the public list, for an anonymous giving of his money would have been nothing,—he knew that his rope was indeed cut, and that his boat{130} was in truth upon the wide waters. after that it will serve him little to say that such an act on his part implies no agreement with the teaching of the african bishop. he had, by the subscription, attached himself to the broad church with the newest broad principles, and must expect henceforth to be regarded as little better than an infidel,—certainly as an enemy in the camp,—by the majority of his brethren of the day. “why does he not give up his tithes? why does he stick to his temporalities?” says the old-fashioned, wrathful parson of the neighbouring parish; and the sneer, which is repeated from day to day and from month to month, is not slow to reach the new man’s ear. it is an accusation hard to be borne; but it has to be borne,—among other things,—by the clergyman who subscribes for colenso.
