All the Year Round 1 October
1859
OUR
EYE-WITNESS AT CHURCH.
This is our Eye-witness's report of a visit to St. George's-in-the-East.
'No
Popery', written in large characters by some enthusiastic worshipper
upon the woodwork of the first pew which the E.W. was shown into.
'No Popery' on all the blank walls in the neighbourhood of the church;
also handbills inviting householders to meet in vestry rooms and talk;
handbills inviting young men, apparentlv not householders, to meet in
school-rooms and talk.
More handbills — red handbills, green
handbills, prismatic handbills — handbills inviting the offending
clergy to come and be argued with on platforms, handbills imploring
anybody to come and argue anywhere, handbills challenging discussion,
and some of a more truculent kind still, informing the local public
that their liberties were in danger, and suggesting that they should
take the matter into their own hands: in short, there were addresses in
every imaginable form and of every conceivable colour: invitations full
of rich argumentative promise, showing that the whole neighbourhood was
reeking with eloquence and wisdom, and that any amateur of these
qualities would do well to frequent the purlieus of St.
George's-in-the-East.
But where is St. George's-in-the-East? How is it approached? What sort
of a building is the church to look at?
St.
George's-in-the-East is in the east, with a vengeance, and very much
more towards that point of the compass than the Eye-witness had at all
bargained for. He had found, by reference to the Post-office Directory,
that this Temple of Discord was in Cannon-street, and, determined to be
in good time, he entered that imposing thoroughfare at half-past ten on
a fine September Sunday morning. After investigating all the churches
that lay in little back courts on each side of the street; after
peeping into some of them, and finding them perfectly empty; after
rendering certain aged pew-openers (who took him for the congregation)
mad with joy by his appearance, and then plunging them into despair by
his withdrawal; after wondering at the perversity which hinders the
removal of these useless buildings to other sites where they are so
much wanted; — after these things, the Eyewitness found himself at the
eastern end of Cannon-street without having made the discovery he was
bent upon, and quite at sea as to where to look next for St.
George's-in-the-East.
It is best to ask a policeman in these
cases. The officer to whom the Eye-witness applied for advice turned
instinctively upon his solid heels towards the east, and waving his
hand in that direction, after the manner of one who was requesting the
metropolis generally to move on, intimated that he did not know exactly
where the church was situated, but that it was somewhere in the
neighbourhood of Tower Hill.
To the east did the next policeman
turn. The Eye-witness consulted him when he had got to the Tower. 'St.
George's-in-the-Heast', he said, 'was close to Ratcliff-'ighway'. 'And
Ratcliff-highway?' inquired the Eye-witness. The policeman pointed to
the east.
When the Eye-witness had consulted one more member of
our constabulary, and had found him to know nothing about the subject
at all, he became weary of the force, and determined to apply next to a
civilian; so, seeing a baker standing at the open door of his shop,
waiting for the neighbourhood's Sunday dinners, the E. W. approached
him and asked the old question once more in a low voice, for ho was
ashamed of it. The baker was deaf, and the Eye-witness had to repeat
his inquiry at the top ot his voice three times, before he got an
answer. The little boys who accumulated at the rate of four to each
repetition of the demand, amounted to quite a train as they followed
the E. W. during the rest of his journey, which was, happily, not a
much longer one, though still to the east.
To the credit of the
Post-office Directory, let it be said that the church of St. George is
in Cannon-street after all; not, indeed in the well-known thoroughfare
of that name, but in one in the immediate neighbourhood of the Thames
Tunnel. The building itself is set back from the street a considerable
distance. It is approached by a flight of steps, and is a large and
melancholy edifice of about the period of Sir Christopher Wren, with a
high tower surrounded by eight flat pilasters, on the summit of each of
which is a dwarf column with festoons around its capital, and forming
as ugly a top to a tower as you will find anywhere. There were few
people standing about outside the church, and, to the writer's
surprise, but a very small congregation when he got within it.
Just
as your Eye-witness takes off his hat on entering a sacred building, so
now, as he speaks briefly of what took place inside the church of St.
George's-in-the-East, he desires to lay aside any such lightness of
expression as might even seem to savour of irreverence. And, indeed, he
saw (though not at first) much that shocked and disgusted liim, and not
more of the ludicrous than mixes inevitably with all that is gravest
and saddest in the world.
So much has been written in
description of the services as carried on at St. George's, that it is
unnecessary to say more than, that there seemed little difference
between the manner of their celebration there, and that adopted at the
principal High Church places of worship at the more western extremity
of the metropolis. The officiating clergyman had so arranged his Master
of Arts hood as to show more perhaps of the red lining than ordinarily
appears, and there was a more frequent turning to the cast than would
be found at St. Barnabas or the church in Wells-street. The attempts at
decoration of the chancel and communion-table were poor and paltry in
the extreme.
Throughout the morning service the conduct of the
very small congregation was perfectly orderly, and no allusion whatever
was made in the sermon to the subject which was doubtless in
everybody's mind. The Eye-witness left the building, supposing that the
riots at St. George's-in-the-East were at an end.
Having made up
his mind to do what he did thoroughly, the Eye-witness had resolved to
"stand off and on" at his post all day. He had plenty of leisure now
before the afternoon lecture to examine the neighbourhood in which he
found himself, and with which he (as is probably the case with the
reader) was little familiar.
A wonderful neighbourhood — fishy,
tarry, inexpressibly dirty, and so nautical that the very weathercock
upon its principal church partook of the spirit of the place and
represented a frigate under full sail, with a union jack to show the
quarter of the wind.
A wonderful neighbourhood, to be sure. You
hardly know that you are in London at all as you walk through the
streets. Many of the shops kept bv Jews are open though it is Sunday,
the Jews and Jewesses sitting at the open doors, fat, cheerful,
affectionate, and jewelled. It is a neighbourhood perfectly nautical in
all its habits. It is decidedly a low neighbourhood, but redeemed from
being of the lowest by that very nautical element. Let the reader
compare Ratcliff-highway with the New Cut, Lambeth, and he will
understand this. It is a neighbourhood of canvas trousers, and
sou'-wester hats, of sextants and the boxing of compasses. It abounds,
too, in negroes, gay in their clothing, and more gay in their
countenances. It abounds in American skippers with iron and lantern
jaws, thin and tough and tawny. It abounds in mysterious seamen, too,
who wear black satin waistcoats and have worked fronts to their shirts
and ear-rings in their ears, There are herrings, too, in this region,
and life belts, and block-makers' warehouses, and awful idvertisements
published by the Trinity House concerning wrecks, and buoys, and
light-ships in remote and lonely places far away at sea. Cranes, too,
and bales of goods such as are brought in in pantomimes, and, being
slapped, turn to other things. The bales of goods are not swinging from
the cranes, because it is Sunday, but one catches sight of them through
open warehouse doors, and in passing great stores that smell of
turmeric, and many other drugs and goodly spices.
Such was the
neighbourhood through which the Eye-witness wandered, a not displeased
observer of all these new and characteristic circumstances. It was in
this neighbourhood that he partook of such a modest luncheon as might
it him for the fatigues of the day, and all the items of which were
flavoured with the herrings with which it has been already said (as
with other salt fish) the native kites are fatted.
When the
Eye-witness returned in the afternoon to the church of St.
George's-in-the-East, there was a mob in the street in front of the
church, a mob upon the steps, and such crowds in all the approaches to
the interior of the building, and in the aisles and about the doors,
that for a long time he was unable to form any notion of what was going
on. Having at length, with great difficulty, got inside one of the
entrances of the church, the Eye-witness found that the afternoon
lecturer, put in by the Low Church party, was in the midst of his
discourse, which was to be succeeded by that celebration of the Litany
which had given so much offence to the parishioners ot St. George's.
At
the conclusion of the lecture — and it is only fair to the preacher to
say that he exhorted his hearers most earnestly to disperse quietly,
and to leave the affair in the hands of the bishop — only a portion of
the congregation left the building; by far the greater mass remaining
behind, evidently with a hostile feeling towards the anticipated
service. The conduct of many of these persons was, throughout, very
unseemly. They talked in their ordinary tones. They crowded into the
pews which commanded a good view of what was going on in numbers such
as the seats were never intended to contain. They stood upon the
benches, and they completely blocked up the aisles and the chancel of
the church in front of the communion rails. Nor was this all. About
twenty or five-and-twenty minutes having elapsed after the conclusion
of the lecture, and the moment of the commencement of the Litany having
arrived, the entrance of the clergyman was saluted by a storm of
hissing and groaning very painful to hear anywhere; but especially so
in a church. About this mob, too, there seemed to be something stupid.
There they stood, contented with blocking up the place, but not
stopping the service. There, too, they stood when the Litany was
concluded, and while the organist, who appeared to have selected the
longest and noisiest voluntary from his collection, endeavoured to play
them out. They were not to be played out, however, and evidently seemed
to think it excellent sport to stand there howling out words of their
own to the tune played upon the organ.
Now surely it must be
obvious to every one that such a state of things as this ought to be,
under any circumstances, impossible. If, on the one hand, as is
assuredly the case, a grave responsibility is on the shoulders of any
person who can be so inconceivably and supernaturally weak as to offend
and outrage a congregation among whom his ministrations might be
useful, for the sake of paltry trifles, unimpressive and foolish in the
last degree, and wholly without value — if it is monstrous in an
educated man, as indeed it is, to persist in saying one sentence with
his face to the east, and. another with his face to the west, and to
twist his honest Master of Arts hood into the nearest attainable
resemblance to the back view of a chasuble, when he knows he is giving
offence to many persons, besides exposing his own fatuity — if these
things are preposterous and childish, and even, under the
circumstances, wicked, does the blame stop here?
Does none
attach, in such a case, to the parish authorities? Ought these
disgraceful scenes to be possible in a church under any conceivable
circumstances? Is not this a case in which the police should act as
they would in other buildings? Surely where there is plenty of room to
sit down, and an abundance of empty pews, people have no right to fill
the aisles and the chancel of the church, to their complete blocking
up. Surely, when a pew is made to hold six persons, and twelve are
found in it, half that number are subject to removal. Surely persons
standing on benches in a church may be made to sit down, and those who
hiss and groan and talk loudly may be taken out. If this question could
not have been settled by a mere handful of policemen in plain clothes,
then would it not have been right, until it is finally decided what
form of worship shall be adopted in this unhappy church, and who shall
be listened to and who not, that St. Gcorge's-in-the-East should be
shut up, and so this scandal avoided?
In this particular case
the worst is now over, but such difficulties may arise again (through
the similar folly or obstinacy of one person) in other parishes, and
there may be a recurrence of such scenes.
The Eye-witness, tired
out and disgusted, left that great and foolish crowd still standing and
mocking up the church long after the organ (which had been for half an
hour roaring at the top of its strength to drown their noise) had
ceased to play. The din of this instrument, and the heat produced by
the mass of people inside the church, made the E. W. only too glad to
get out, though it was to find himself in a fresh mob. This mob
appeared to be engaged in discussing theology.
The outside crowd
showed no inclination to disperse. It was cut up into little knots, and
here was very manifest the advantage possessed by the talking members
of the mob over the silent members; these last surrounding the first,
and looking on in open-mouthed admiration, which was never the least
diminished, but rather increased, by their inability to understand what
it was all about. There was one very curious characteristic of this
scene. The different orators by no means confined themselves to the
subject of the day. Indeed, the disturbances in the church appeared to
be quite lost sight of; the speakers having seized this as a good
opportunity for hearing themselves talk, and for promulgating their own
theories, whatever they might nappen to be. Approaching one group, the
Eye-witness finds a stout gentleman discoursing on church-rates, while
the centre of the next mass of listeners is holding forth upon the
unjust division of property; and, to judge by his appearance, it must
doubtless seem to him to be very unjust indeed, uncommonly little
having fallen to his share. The muscular gentleman in black, with the
hymn-book in his hand, is limiting the number of those who hold the
truth to some half a dozen (self included); while the very ill-looking
man with the pale lips and the passionate face, with the scar on his
forehead and with the alpaca coat, is enforcing an argument on
teetotalism with a ship's steward, mid who appears to enjoy the
confidence of the bystanders to a very great extent, and (if fat is
worth) to deserve it.
The argument did not originate with the
fat steward and the evil-faced man, but with this last and a thin,
small-headed man. But the steward, cutting into the discourse, was at
once encouraged to represent the constituency, and the man with the
small face was tacitly invited to retire and accept the Chiltern
Hundreds.
'You're discussing this here question wrong', broke in the steward;
'just let me have a word or two'.
'Hear him!' said a fat and silent auditor.
'You will allow me to remark', said the evil-faced man, the hand which
he lifted in deprecation trembling violently with anger, 'that I am
arguing with this gentleman' (pointing to him of the small
countenance), 'and not with you'.
'He can't make nothing of
it', the steward interposed, 'so you just have it out with me, and
don't be in a rage about it. Look how your hand's a shaking. That ain't
a sign of being in the right. It's a sign of a weak mind, that's what
that is.'
The evil-faced man put his hand into the opening of
his waistcoat, but he couldn't hide the quivering of his lips, or get
any colour into his face.
'Now the arguing of this here question is simple enough.'
'Hear him!' remarked the fat man, looking round as if he were the
proprietor of the steward, and were proud of him.
'This
here',continued the steward, 'is a question of right and wrong. One of
us is right and the other's wrong. Very well. Now the question is,
which is right and which is wrong?'
'Ah!' sighed the fat man; 'he's got him there.'
'Very
well', the steward proceeded. 'Now we'll suppose two people standing
talking, as it might be here; one on 'em says, as it might be me, which
it is easy to suppose we are in a county contigious to this, and that
the 'op gardens is all surrounding us, and the 'op poles a bending with
their weight.'
'You are wandering from the point', says he of the evil face and the
alpaca coat.
'He
looks around him', proceeded the other, with a graceful wave of the
hand, and heedless, in the fervency of his eloquence, of all
interruption — 'he looks around him in all directions. And he says,
leastways I says', continued the steward, suddenly abandoning his
metaphor, 'and why are all these 'ere 'ops, I says, unless for beer?'
'Ah, why indeed?' echoes the fat man, smacking his lips. 'He's got him
again.'
'Unless
for beer', repeated the steward, fearful lest if he paused the
evil-faced man should get a chance, 'why these crops of malt?'
'Malt does not grow in crops', interposed the evil-faced tetootaler,
'it is made by man's wickedness from barley.'
'Do
you suppose I don't know that?' the other answered, 'when my own uncle
on the mother's side keeps the Barley Mow at Cobham, and as well a
conducted house as any in the county! Talk about malt, why!'
'Come', interposes the deep voice of a policeman, 'you must get out of
this. Don't you see you're obstructing the way. Come.'
And
thus this instructive argument was brought to an untimely end: to the
great annoyance of your Eye-witness and of two (he will not say other)
old women who were listening in the crowd.
'I likes to hear them talk', said the first of these ladies.
'And so do I', replied the other, 'they scorns to explain it like.
Don't they?'
The
other groups of talkers were soon similarly dispersed by the strong arm
of the law; and, as the church was by this time cleared too, it was not
long before the Eye-witness found himself standing quite alone, in the
dark, before the closed gates of St. George's-in-the-East.
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