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Harry Jones (Rector 1873-82)

Family, and early ministry
Born in 1823, his parents [left in 1866] were Charles, Vicar of Pakenham in Suffolk, and Mary, the only daughter of Thomas Quayle, from a notable Manx family (a member of which, Daniel Quayle, served his title at St George-in-the-East when Harry was Rector). His younger brother Charles succeeded their father as Vicar of Packenham. Mary's family home there was Barton Mere [right], which Harry later inherited. On his death it passed to Sir William Hollingworth Quayle Jones JP, former Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, who divorced his wife Lady Claire for adultery in 1905, attracting some press coverage.

After Cambridge, Harry served curacies in Baddow, Essex (then in Rochester diocese) and Drinkstone, Suffolk before moving to London, where he was curate of St Mark North Audley Street from 1852-57, and then briefly at St Mary Marylebone, before becoming Vicar of St Luke Berwick Street in 1858. His early publications include Church of England and Common Sense, Holiday Papers, The Perfect Man, and a collection of sermons Life in the World (Rivingtons 1865). He came here in 1873, following John Lockhart Ross as Rector; as the following shows, the Bryan King legacy lived on:


Harry Jones & Bryan King compared 
part of an article from the Sydney Morning Herald, 11 January 1876

In the wake of the Ritualism Riots St George-in-the-East, it seems, was still being watched worldwide. Here is part of an article comparing Harry Jones with Bryan King, from the Australian press (where King's son was working as a convict chaplain). It depends heavily on The Times'  partisan view of King. Describing Jones as a clergyman of some literary pretensions and subdued Ritualistic proclivities, it claims that his services were little different from those of King, but that they were acceptable because of his pastoral acumen. This may be unfair, as it ignores a generation of religious cultural change (see, for instance, King's comments in 1879 about the new east end mosaics); but Harry Jones was certainly media-savvy.

...Another question, closely connected with religious ceremonial, is that connected with the adoption of Ritualistic practices in churches where the congregations have been accustomed to simpler forms of worship. The Ritualistic clergy seem to have gained wisdom from experience. They no longer commence by forcing their doctrines and practices upon unwilling churchmen. They begin by making themselves popular as earnest workers in the cause of moral and social improvement, and thus prepare the way for inserting the thin end of the wedge. Hence the comparatively rapid progress made by them during the last few years. Moreover, their work is indirectly aided by many of the Evangelical clergy. who have adopted a modified form of Ritualism, as if half ashamed of the primitive simplicity of services to which many have been so long accustomed.

This will serve to explain the marked subsidence of popular feeling against the Ritualists, especially in the metropolitan parish of St. George's-in-the-East, formerly the great battle-ground on which the Ritualists and their opponents met in angry combat. The Rev. Harry Jones, a clergyman of some literary pretensions and subdued Ritualistic proclivities, seems to have become as popular with the residents of the district, as his predecessor, the Rev. Bryan King, was the reverse. Only those who dwelt in the parish some fifteen or twenty years ago can properly appreciate the altered conditions of ecclesiastical affairs therein. As The Times informs its readers:-

Fifteen years ago St George's-in-the-East was the scandal of the Church of England. The parish church and its clerical authorities seemed only to exist for the purpose of bringing religion itself, at all events the Anglican system, into disrepute. The rector had introduced some of the practices since known as Ritualistic into the services of the church in defiance of strong local opposition, and a contest commenced, which was soon carried to extremes, which must have been as offensive to all respectable residents in the parish as they were scandalous to all reasonable people elsewhere. The church on Sundays was taken possession of by a howling and often blasphemous mob, who insulted not merely the clergy, but the service and the sacred building. These disgraceful riots were, of course, maintained by reckless outsiders who  cared as little for St. George's-in-the-East as for the Church of England; but they had their origin and their occasion in the discord which had been introduced into the parish by the Ritualistic innovations of the rector. He stood upon his legal right, and, as of course he imagined, his ecclesiastical duty, to force a certain ceremonial upon his parishioners. The ceremonial itself was obnoxious to them, and the fact that it should be forced on them perhaps still more so, and peace at length was only secured by the rector's withdrawal.

[The article goes on to describe the St George's Gardens project - see here for this part of the article - before continuing....]

The Times
  does not, however, mention what, after all, forms the most curious feature of the whole affair, namely that the forms of ceremonial adopted by Mr. Jones in connection with the religious services held in the parish church differ very little from those which excited such disfavour when conducted by the Rev. Bryan King. But then although we may drive a horse to the water, we cannot make him drink. So with English church-goers. The Rev. Harry Jones does not force his service upon the congregation. He says he is their minister, that he is a man of peace, and that there must be mutual concessions on both sides. This forms the secret of the whole matter.

[The article returns to the issue of the Gardens for its final comments.]

Harry Jones' own take on this is spelled out in various parts of East and West London. He mentions the welcome he received on arriving in the parish, including from Nonconformists and non-churchgoers, simply because St George's was the parish church. This is part of his argument against parochial subdivision and the creation of district churches which have no distinct identity in the community: he goes on - aware, as he says, that he is treading on thin ice - to assert that district churches are too liable to extremes, such as ritualism, because the normal checks and balances are not in place. (He does not specifically apply this to the district churches that had been created in this parish, which were of varying traditions, but he is clear that extreme forms of worship are inappropriate for long-established parish churches.) As for the style of worship, his comments here include the assertion (in line with the above report) I made very little change in the form and conduct of the services which I found here, except that, with the ready consent of the churchwardens, I relinquished such pew-rents as there were, and made the church wholly free. I also changed the hymn book, and introduced early celebrations of the Holy Communion, and Daily Service. These had perhaps lapsed since Bryan King's time; and see below for comments on the hymnal. He also says In respect to those who choose to come, I am glad to say that the congregation joins very heartily in the services, and is as intelligently attentive to the sermon as any I ever preached to. The number of our communicants has also grown. They are very few in proportion to our population, but their number increases. Last Easter Day we had about 100. In our ministrations we are happily much helped by the fact that the acoustic properties of the church are excellent. Every syllable is perfectly heard from the desk, communion table, and pulpit.


Bishop Walsham How's sonnet
William Walsham How, whose story as Bishop of Bedford is told here, was a good friend of Harry Jones, and it seems that their friendship was not marred by events in 1882 when How was nominated as a member of Convocation (the church's 'parliament' - now General Synod) but the 'Broad Church constituency' also put up Harry Jones. How felt it would be 'unseemly' for there to be a contested election between a bishop and one of his clergy (and was mindful of comments made, in letters to The Times and elsewhere, about a bishop pulling rank), so stood down. [Nowadays there is a separate constituency for suffragan bishops.] See below for their shared enthusiasm for providing English churches in Switzerland.
How wrote a number of sonnets about local clergy, and this one picks up Harry Jones' commitment to the East End despite his having a country home, his love of travel, and his cheerful manner:

The previous sonnet in this series was about Charles Lowder, Rector of St Peter London Dock.
The genial friend, the ever-welcome guest,
Of keenly flashing wit and strenuous mien,
With home ancestral in the woodlands green
Courting to rural joys and leisured rest;
Yet this the dwelling-place he chose as best,
Where all the wild sea-life of many a coast
Flings on our river-marge its motley host
To swell the surge of sin and strife unblest.
What though from land to land he loves to roam
Keen-eyed and eager-hearted as a boy,
Yet evermore his heart is in his home;
And there he rules with strong but gracious sway,
And sad men catch the infection of his joy
As cheery-voiced he greets them on their way.


The Curates Clerical Society
The mid-19th century saw the founding of many local clubs and societies for clergy, for sharing books or reading papers, usually in the context of a meal. This was part of the growing 'professional' identity of the clergy. (The present Rector was a member of the Manchester Clerical Book Society, founded in 1831 with twelve members who bought, shared, read and discussed books, auctioning them at the year's end, in the context of gossipy lunches - its minutes make interesting reading!)

Harry Jones and other Broad Church curates in London formed such a society in the 1850s, and he was elected President, and much later (1895) wrote about it in Fifty Years: Or, Dead Leaves and Living Seeds. It kept its name long after they had all moved to more senior posts. Among its members or regular speakers at various times were Brooke Lambert and John Llewelyn Davies, Vicars of St Mark Whitechapel, and Charles Anderson, once a curate in that parish who became Vicar of St John Limehouse; Isaac Taylor (1829-1901), scholar of linguistics, who was a curate in Bethnal Green and later Dean of York; the noted preacher Stopford Augustus Brooke (1832-1916), who became a Unitarian in 1880; and the historian and Librarian of Lambeth John Richard Green, who said of Harry Jones he is a parson of the Charles Kingsley school, with a sort of forced muddy-boot originality about him ...  Harry Jones, for his part, said of Kingsley's Tractarian abhorrence the sight of red edges on a hymnbook [a mark of Catholic content] would produce a deep inarticulate groaning. He made the same claim of the congregation at St George-in-the-East: Another phase of resentment I found to be associated with a certain red-edged book on the desk of the reader of the prayers. I think it was the hymn book. I know that when I took it up in my hand, and thus showed its scarlet rim, there was at once a deep inarticulate growl from all parts of the building. I remember that I several times tested the connection between this and the sight of the book; for when I lifted it up, apropos to nothing in the service, the growl came as surely as sound follows the laying of the hand on the keys of an organ in full wind.

Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison MauriceFrederic William Farrar (whose son was later a curate at St George-in-the-East) and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (Dean of Westminsterwere among those who read papers.


A posthumous tribute to Harry Jones' time at St George-in-the-East

In 1912 Mary Steer, who ran the non-denominational Bridge of Hope 'rescue' mission in Betts Street, wrote of him, in Opals from Sand (p41)

He was a broad-minded, generous man, big and strong, and of imposing appearance, and he was also a man of peace. I shall never forget his kindness to me and the welcome he gave me into his parish; indeed, throughout his Rectorship I experienced nothing but extreme kindness and consideration from him..... Whether he was at home or not, I was always welcome to get what books I wanted from his valuable and miscellaneous library, and scarcely any one of interest ever visited the parish but there came a note inviting me to meet them at lunch. When he left I felt I had lost a father.

There is a legend in St. George's which is so characteristic of Mr. Harry Jones that it must be true. One day he was discovered gazing intently at a blank brick wall which divided the churchyard from the burying-ground of the Wesleyan Methodists. The result of the Rector's cogitation was, that the wall speedily came down and there arose the pretty recreation-ground of St. George's, a bright spot in the midst of dreary surroundings. Mr. Jones was evidently haunted by a vision of things to come.

For many years he always presided at our Council meetings; and even after he left chiefly on account of Mrs. Jones' ill-health...frequently came up to London to attend them. One little bit of work in St. George's which he said he could not give up was the chairmanship of the Bridge of Hope Council.... Wherever he went he always sent me the Easter offering from his church.


Harry Jones' ministry after St George-in-the-East
In 1882 Harry Jones' wife Emily had a serious accident, and soon after he left the parish. After a spell at Barton Mere they returned to London, to St Philip Regent Street (formerly Hanover Chapel, a chapel of ease of St James Piccadilly, closed 1903 and demolished), though for the rest of his life Suffolk remained 'home'.  In 1890, he reported in a pastoral letter Human Tide, that he had had the number of omnibuses and other vehicles which pass Piccadilly Circus in a day, and also the foot-passengers, counted. The results were: omnibuses, 13.401; other vehicles, 60,820; people on foot, 255,130. Making an allowance for the passengers in the vehicles, he concluded that we find that 571,600 a day, or 3,429,600 people a week, come within the boundaries of the Circus alone.

In Fifty Years: Or, Dead Leaves and Living Seeds (1895) he wrote

I had daily service at St George's, but when I began it at St Philip's (where I now am) not a soul attended, and once my colleague was stopped by a stranger who came in for private meditation and said it interrupted him.

In this work he also expressed his aversion to parochial missions (while at St George-in-the-East, he had protested against the major diocesan mission of 1874 - see this report of some of its activities); he could not explain exactly why, and recognised that they could do good, but they were not his way: he was chary of insistent domestic visitation.... importunate religious pressure... exceptional strain.... whipping up attendances.

He became a Prebendary of St Paul's (though didn't like using the title) and a Chaplain to the Queen. He was widely admired - on social, sanitary and municipal questions he was eminently wise and successful, said one commentator, reflecting the priorities of the day: Henry Scott Holland, Canon of St Paul's at the time and founder of the Christian Social Union in 1889, is reported as saying The more you believe in the Incarnation, the more you care about drains (though this quotation, in variant versions, has been attributed to others). Harry Jones entered the fray on railway policy, arguing that the system should narrow the huge gap between what farmers received and what consumers paid (Our Farmers in Chains, 1890).

As shown here, in the 1870s he had supported the creation of Board Schools, and was content with the provision that religious education in them should be non-denominational. He returned to this issue in 1893, following ongoing discussions at the London School Board, with an article in the Educational Review on 'Religious Education: Ways and Means' on which The Tablet of 28 October in that year commented
[His article] intended to suggest two or three escapes from a total eclipse of the Bible in Board schools. To obviate the difficulty arising out of entrusting the religious education to agnostic or unbelieving masters, he suggests the adoption of an 'in-and-out' arrangement, whereby such teachers might be relieved by accredited persons who should be ready to take their places when the hour for religious instruction arrived, and would take the position of a visiting master in a Secondary school. Another plan suggested is to drop the religious lesson altogether where a teacher has a conscientious objection to giving it in a way satisfactory to the managers. A third course would be to exempt all Board teachers from the giving of any religious instruction, and to supply it through the ministers of the religious bodies to which the scholars belonged. Prebendary Harry Jones does not commit himself to the advocacy of any one of these courses on the ground of its excellence over the arrangement hitherto prevailing, with which he appears well satisfied. The least objectionable of his alternative courses is that which is identical with the Bishop of Salisbury's proposal—namely, the giving permission to the ministers of religion to give definite teaching to those children in a Board school who belong to their own community. The difficulty of providing teachers Prebendary Harry Jones would meet by employing assistant curates and by the revival or extension of 'minor orders'. It would not be easy, however, to find laymen who would be able to spare from their ordinary duties one of the most valuable hours of the forenoon. If we are to have a training order like the Christian Brothers, provision would have to be made for utilizing the whole of their time in educational or other practical work.

In 1897 he became the incumbent of St Vedast Foster Lane in the City, succeeding Dr Sparrow Simpson, librettist of Stainer's Crucifixion, until his death just three years later. Here he replicated his achievement at St George-in-the-East by creating a churchyard garden: he claimed it had the only grown-up tree in the City of London.


The travel writer

Harry Jones was a keen traveller, and published Holiday Papers (1864), The Regular Swiss Round - in Three Trips (1865) - in a brisk and pointed style, said one reviewer. In a rather contemporary touch, he expresses concern over the ignorant behaviour of other British tourists and advises on the correct way to visit the Alps so as not to be confused with idlers and the gamblers, who travel for luxurious pleasure or evil gain. In the Engadine valley, he stayed at the Kulm Hotel in St Moritz, and was active in setting up the committee that built St John's Church there, on land given by the hotel's owners. He also stayed at the Krone [now Kronenhof] in Pontresina - now owned by the same family as the Kulm - where in 1882 Holy Trinity Church was consecrated by his friend Bishop Walsham How.

There followed Letters from America (1870, for private circulation), To San Francisco and Back by a London Parson (SPCK 1871) and Past and Present in the East (1880), which offers both theological and practical insights on visiting the Holy Land. (Here he describes how the draft of R.H. Hadden's history of St George-in-the-East accompanied him on that journey.) In 1888 he contributed 'A Look at Norway'  to William Barnes In the Leisure Hour.

In the summer of 1884 (his wife had presumably recovered sufficiently for him to leave her at home) he joined a group from the British Association for the Advancement of Science as guests of the Canadian Pacific Railway, to travel westward to the end of the newly-built track, at their expense,  to view the potential of the land. There was no set timetable, so the party could stop when and where it wished for a closer inspection of the country: as one of them said, even when the train stops to take on water, all our botanists jump out to reap, and our entomologists to whisk after small prey with green gauze nets. A special train with three Pullman cars was placed at the disposal of the 70 members of the party; he was somewhat surprised to find three young ladies in the next berth, one of them a liberated scientist from Aberdeen.....This is all very delightful at present, but promises to be embarrassing as there is no specially select ladies’ compartment.

When they reached the Prairies, he wrote Nothing was to be seen one hundred miles after another but the same level horizon ... and after a while this ceased to be notched by farm buildings and haystacks of the settlers ...The prairie alone remains, but by the everlasting track of the railway which runs straight through it as thin as a thread. He commented on the countless buffalo runs, well-trodden paths about a foot wide which covered the Prairies and seemed to be cut at right angles by the railway, and the bleached buffalo skulls that were everywhere. The group inspected the test farms set up every 50 miles along the line, which were proving very productive, and they commented on the quality of the air, comparing it with that of Switzerland (perhaps because of the fragrance of the wild mint); they attended a pow-pow at Medicine Hat. Harry Jones clearly enjoyed the trip, but commented that the emerging towns along the route looked like  hodgepodges of discarded wooden boxes.


Theological writings
In addition to his popular journalism (eg
East & West London in 1875)
Harry Jones was a prolific writer and preacher. Here are five examples from various periods of his life.

(1) A collection of lectures (from St Luke, Berwick Street) on The Perfect Man; or, Jesus as an Example of Godly Life (1869) - and see here for a sermon collection from this period.

(2) Remarks that could describe present-day 'pick and mix' spirituality, from The Clergyman's Magazine in February 1882:

Now every eye is becoming an ear, the printed page has been erected into a popular pulpit, and the whole communty forms an enormous congregation. The notion that spiritual influences flow only through ecclesiastical pipes is not to be held. People help themselves in the formation of their opinions, the conduct of their lives, and in the getting of comfort to their souls, out of the manifold streams and rivulets of truth... The age of comfortable unquestioning religious acquiescence is passed, if it ever existed. The spirit of inquiry, free trade in speculation, easy access to the writing of sceptics, has led many, in many instances too hurriedly, to discard what they conceive to have been accepted only because of the supposed darkness of the past.... Yet we must remember that Christ, in his parables, struck the highest notes of truth, needing the largest and quickest powers of receptivity in those whom he addressed. He spoke to universal sense, to universal human experience, and wants... Christ recognized no classes in his sermon on the mount, but set before the people great truths....

(3) But here is a traditionalist, and somewhat arch, line on women (as with his Canadian trip above, and also his naïveté over the local name 'Tiger Bay') in Plain Words on Courtship and Marriage (James Nisbet 1890): women, he argues, can find in the Bible those stories of romance which they so desire for themselves, such as that of Abraham and Sarah. But the true position of woman, the best estimate of matrimony, may have been unperceived and undeveloped by the writers of the Old Testament. In keeping with his belief that a single woman's ultimate role is that of a wife, he advises them not succumb to the mysteriously blind influence of love, and seek to marry a handsome man who may not be a desirable spouse. Men, on the other hand, should seek a woman of good temper and homely thrift. Here, and in various other publications, he argued strongly for temperance, rather than total abstinence, as the ideal economy in the home.

(4) A sermon on Barabbas, on which The Tablet of 19 July 1890 commented

...It has occurred to Prebendary Harry Jones to devote a sermon to explaining that all through the ages the world has been doing a great injustice to Barabbas. The large leisure of an Anglican dignitary has enabled the Prebendary to consider Barabbas in quite a new light. He recalls to his congregation that it is recorded of Barabbas that: For a certain sedition made by him in the City, and for murder, he had been cast into prison. But then that is just what might be expected to happen to a pure-minded and high-souled patriot. Murder and sedition, whether at first or second hand, have always been recognised as part of the stock-in-trade of a patriot, and Prebendary Harry Jones finds it very natural that the eager jews should have hailed Barabbas as a popular hero; and even that, when contrasting a man who had dared to draw the sword with One who must have seemed a dreamer, they should have shouted their loud preference for the courageous and public-spirited Barabbas. We observe that the Guardian speaks of this novel view of Barabbas as interesting. For ourselves we should be more impressed if we could forget one very simple sentence in the account of Barabbas in the sacred narrative which the studies of the Prebendary seem to have led him to overlook. We read: Now Barabbas was a robber. It must sadly be admitted that there have been patriots who have had souls for thieving, but then not even the Rev. Harry Jones shall persuade us that such a patriot can rightly be described as public spirited.

(5) A sermon on Christian Charity, from a course on 'social subjects' organised by the London Branch of the Christian Social Union and preached on weekdays, 'mainly to businessmen', in the churches of St Edmund, Lombard Street and St Mary-le-Strand during Lent 1895, and published as A Lent in London (Longmans, Green & Co 1895). Henry Scott Holland (Canon Precentor of St Paul's, whose words Death is nothing at all... are today given the exact opposite meaning of what he intended) was the Chairman, and the liturgist Percy Dearmer (then living at Duke Street, Manchester Square) the Secretary.

The Union consisted of Members of the Church of England who had the following objects at heart :
1. To claim for the Christian Law the ultimate authority to rule social practice.
2. To study in common how to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties of the present time.
3. To present Christ in practical life as the living Master and King, the Enemy of wrong and selfishness, the Power of righteousness and love.

Members were expected to pray for the well-being of the Union at Holy Communion, more particularly on or about the following days
The Feast of the Epiphany : The Feast of the Ascension : The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels


Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor....and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.  I Cor. xiii. 3


There are many words which bear a double sense. Two are attached to 'charity'. St. Paul, in my text, speaks of one which prevailed in his own time, and has survived to ours, often to the exclusion of any other, viz. the bestowal of alms, in the shape of money, food, or clothing. This is the popular meaning given to the word now. It appears in such terms as 'charitable institution', 'charity school', 'charity blankets' and 'charity sermon', which is an appeal for money to help the 'poor'. Indeed, so widely is this sense of the word accepted, that we have a 'Charity Organization Society' (an excellent one, by the way) formed for the purpose of enabling generous people to relieve such as are in real distress. The Bible has much to say about this kind of charity. Some of it appears in sentences read from the Old Testament before a collection of the offertory in church, and we hear of it plainly from the lips of our Lord Himself. No one denies the value of material donations to the needy, nor the duty of making them, especially by those who (as people say) are 'blessed' with the good things of this world.

But St. Paul, in an exhaustive definition of charity, takes an extreme case, and puts the popular meaning of this word on one side, as imperfect. He gives another sense to it. The bountiful donor, imagined by him, who lacked charity, would hardly be welcomed by the Judge in the day of Doom.

The Apostle, indeed, be it remarked, does not decry a bodily helping of the poor. He himself laboured with his own hands that he might minister, not merely to his own necessities, but to those of such as were with him. But he looks at the motive of the giver; and surely this must involve a perception of the best way in which we may benefit the receiver. Thus we may come to apprehend the nature of  'Christian charity'. The love of God is not shared by the donor unless his help be given 'cheerfully', without grudging complaint at being asked to give, or protest against the exacting troublesomeness of the poor as being to blame for their poverty. He must help with some exercise of His spirit Who knows what things we have need of before we ask Him.

Now in inquiring how we should give, several thoughts suggest themselves. Let me dispose of at least one. All allow that sometimes help has unavoidably to be given openly, or on a large scale, when contributions are invited towards the support of some good work which ignorance of details, or want of personal opportunities, prevents a man from helping in private. In this case, moreover, he may receive praise of men, without forfeiting his right to be acting with true charity. This was recognized when distribution was made to the needy at Jerusalem, and givers laid their money at the Apostles' feet. The donation, e.g., of Joses, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus (they called him, indeed, the 'son of consolation'), was openly made, and specially acknowledged by the Church. Nevertheless, in most cases, the rule of Jesus must be remembered, and how He said,  “When thou doest an alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” This secrecy has a double use. It bars an appetite for praise in the donor, and spares the self-respect of the recipient, who is led to look on the gift as the act of a friend, not that of a patron. Moreover, it is advisable, as checking greedy clamour for alms, and thwarting a concourse of beggars.

But, in the face of permanent destitution, very little good seems to be done by the most generous of donations, whether made in public or private. This is a stale admission. Some people, however, have gone on filling the sieve of beggary, in the kindliest spirit, to find it empty again. Others have used discriminating schemes of distribution, and relied on the practical discernment of the Charity Organization Society. Thus, indeed, they may feel to be protected from encouraging imposture, and that certain of the 'deserving poor' are helped by their gifts. This is well, so far. Many of the most needy are thus aided. But (as my old friend Hansard used to say) you cannot organize the Holy Ghost. When all is said and done towards saving the most hopeful sufferers from the slough of pauperism, close above its surface there is a film of poverty which the implement of the direct money-giver is unable to skim off. How does Christian charity, even if joined with the bestowal of all a man's goods to feed the poor, suffice to remove or dissipate this layer of industrial privation, and the mass of penury beneath it?

Does the example of St. Martin, who divided his cloak with the beggar, help us? Or are we sufficiently warned by the fate of Dives, who allowed a pauper to live on the crumbs from his table, till the angels intervened? It was not unkind of him to let a menial-fed dependent lie at his gate. We may be sure that another Lazarus filled the coveted vacancy before Dives was buried. And an army of St. Martins would have been needed to gratify the swarm which must have envied the good fortune of their comrade. Can Christian charity such as that of this one saint solve the problem before Christians now?

Without finding in its impossibility an excuse for shutting the purse and buttoning the pocket, must we not perceive that charity means far more than a giving to the poor of that which satisfies bodily hunger?

Was Jesus pleased when the multitude sought Him because they ate of the loaves and were filled?

He fed them, indeed, and we may thus learn of Him in times of extremity ; but He looked for a better appetite in them than that which He had quenched. In this, too, He surely teaches us, still more.

Should we not think of what the poor ought to desire for themselves? Should we not do all we can to encourage a wish in them for something beyond 'loaves and fishes'?

Have not these very words, indeed, been used, in contempt, by the best among the necessitous, as when they sneer at such as profess religion for what they can get in the shape of tickets and doles?

Some philanthropists have come to see the truth of this, and sought to promote 'thrift', and a more refined appreciation of human enjoyment than comes through the bodily senses. They have looked beyond the beneficence of hospitals, which train the rich man's doctor while they unquestionably heal the sick poor, and they have promoted 'provident dispensaries'. They have also set up Polytechnics and the like. They have encouraged the spread of elevating literature, technical education, and hailed the arrival of parish councils. All this, especially the last, indicates a wholesome growing perception that the real wants of the 'masses' are not met by a permanent distribution of alms, however generous and devoutly given, or by gifts of food, fire, and clothing specially needed at times of acute general distress. The unemployed cry for work, not bread without employment. Moreover, beyond a limited appreciation of such philanthropical instructive institutions as I have referred to, even these are felt, somehow, by many, to be outside the deeper needs of those whom they are designed to benefit. They are excellent in their way, and deserve liberal support, especially as they tend to encourage more self-reliance among the careless. There is, however, a growing desire among the best of those roughly designated as the 'poor' for something which has no flavour of  'charity', as commonly understood. It is a feeling after such  relief or elevation as arises from within themselves, and does not approach them from without, however kind the motives of those who would bring and bestow it. Something like the sap of creation, which lifts the tree whose seed is in itself, and rises, so to speak, with automatic growth.

The most intelligently aspiring members of the 'working class' crave for that action to be encouraged which shall recognize more fully their claim as citizens to better the laws under which, unhappily, the present evil condition of so many among the 'industrial population' has come about. There are, indeed, not a few who can work, but are not ashamed to beg. And there are some who subject themselves to capricious restrictions when they might fairly earn their bread.

But the most self-respecting among those I am thinking of would almost rather starve than be suppliants for alms. They resent sheer donative charity with profound repugnance, and ask for remedial measures, constitutionally inaugurated, some of which startle political economists. I do not here examine, or indeed plead for, any of the special proposals which are thus made, but (merely as an illustration of the fact that they aim at superseding so-called popular charity, and without any decrying of material generosity, personally shown by friends) I might point to a sign of the times seen in the popularity of a work lately published, and, with severe significance, called 'Merrie England'. It faces the 'problem of life'. The book contains more than two hundred pages, is written in a vivid scholarly style, and divided into chapters headed with quotations from Ruskin, Browning, Matthew Arnold, Mill, Adam Smith, and, repeatedly, the Prophet Isaiah.

Well, this aggressive but scholarly volume costs only a penny, and already, it is announced, several hundred thousand copies of it have been bought, mainly by 'working men'.

This is more than a 'straw' in the wind that has brought the social revolution through which we are passing. And I now refer to it in so far as it involves an utterance pointedly discarding the interpretation long given to the word 'charity'.

And without committing himself to an approval of what this book recommends, for it is in the profoundest degree revolutionary, I would ask every Christian to consider well whether St. Paul's plea for that which hopeth, beareth, and believeth all things, should not lead him to look, with a tolerant eye, at any repudiation by the 'poor' of the patronizing sense which has been given to the word 'charity', even though their resentment of it be accompanied by statements and proposals referring to matters outside the region of almsgiving.

Meanwhile, without attempting to forecast the eventual result of any effort by the working classes to benefit the needy through some legislative action (not by any means necessarily subversive of existing order), we cannot selfishly abstain from giving direct help to such as are in obvious distress. But "he that is spiritual judgeth all things", and it is not for the true Christian to turn with final contemptuous distaste from any genuine movement among the masses to elevate themselves; however crude it may be, and however little he may esteem the nature of the requirements they put forth.

When we see symptoms of a desire among the 'needy' for something better than 'doles', or even usefully instructive philanthropical institutions, we ought to hail it as a sign of social health. There is such a thing as 'righteous discontent' which breeds wholesome self-reliance in a nation, though its growth may be mistaken by, and repugnant to, some who look for immediate thanks whenever they do a kindness after their own choosing.

He who exercises far-seeing Christian charity, though (as things are) he will gladly give to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and warm the cold, must, indeed, be prepared often to have his vital motives misunderstood by the poor with whom he is brought into contact, and to have pleas for their ultimate good ungraciously heard by many who rely upon the virtue of almsgiving. Nevertheless, he will not hide his head in the sand, shrinking from a sight of the fact that thousands of those who form the social stratum above pauperism are being deeply moved with a desire to raise themselves by some legislative remedy, out of that state which causes so many of them to look for relief through external charity. This mostly lowers the recipient, instead of raising him, however sincerely and unselfishly it may be applied.

The far-seeing friend of man will realize all this in a true Christian spirit. He will do what he can to give unformulated and exaggerated hopes a right direction, and be fair all round, remembering that Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple of Christ as well as Peter the fisherman of Galilee. Above all, when he has read St. Paul's definition of charity, he will remember that 'love' is a name of God, and be enabled to recognize a true flavour of faith and hope in some of His children whom others think to be too self-asserting, and too ignorant to discern what they really need, but are his brethren in Christ; and, so far as in him lies, to be brought into touch with that Spirit which He promised to guide us into all truth.

Not all the preachers in this series were signed-up members of the CSU, though they can be assumed to have been in sympathy with its aims. All the sermons can be read here. The titles and preachers were as follows:
PART I: OUR MOTHER
A National Church
  - The Archbishop of Canterbury

Social Union and Church Unity
  - Rev Edmund McClure

The Political Office of the Church
  - Rev T. Hancock

The Church and the People
-   Rev R.R. Dolling
PART II - OUR BROTHER MEN
Party Politics - Revd Wilfrid Richmond
Christian Patriotism - Rev H. Russell Wakefield
Peace and War - Rev J. Llewelyn Davies
The Colonies - Rev Bernard Wilson
Country Life - Rev J. Charles Cox
Clerk-Life - Rev H.C. Shuttleworth

Civic Duties
- Rev Canon Barnett

What the Church might do for London
- Rev Stewart Headlam

Christian Charity - Rev Prebendary Harry Jones
Over-Population - Rev G. Sarson

Art and Life - Rev Percy Dearmer
PART III  - OUR SELVES
A Social Consicence - Rev Canon Henry Scott Holland
Character - Rev E.F. Russell
The Social Aspect of Sin - Rev W.C.G. Lang
Personality - Rev A. Chandler
Losing their Soul to save it - Rev Prebendary Eyton
Christ the Social Reconciler - Rev T.C. Fry
Democracy and Government - Rev A. L. Lilley
The Christian Sense of Beauty -   - Rev W.C. Gordon Lang
Dogma a Social Force - Rev Canon Henry Scott Holland




Children's books
Finally, Harry Jones also wrote children's books! Prince Boohoo and Little Smuts (Gardner Darton 1896, with illustrations by Gordon Browne - right) was described by The Spectator as really good nonsense, not at all copied from Mr Lewis Carroll; admirably fresh, and inspired by a quite delightful insousiance. The World said it will charm the more qualified critical reader by its mingled gravity and whimsicality. It is not all sugar plums; there are nice little bits of satire in which the Rev. Harry Jones is easily recognisable. The Prince was the only son of King Starzungarturs and Queen Kizzimforwotteveredid.....

More overtly moralistic in tone was Field and Street, or Boys with a Difference (SPCK 1893), which tells of a city lad whose life went astray but who made good in the country, as a result of memories of a childhood holiday. Harry Jones was a supporter of the Children's Country Holidays Fund, set up in 1884 to provide fresh air for ailing London children by arranging boarding with local 'cottagers' within a 50-mile radius of London for not less than two weeks, funded by the society with a small parental contribution. It is still in existence.



For more about Harry Jones, see Brian Heeney 'Harry Jones and the Broad Church Pastoral Tradition in London' in ed. P.T. Phillips The View from the Pulpit: Victorian Ministers and Society (1978), and also his friend Henrietta Barnett's comments on the Jones' household in her biography of her husband Canon Barnett: His Life, Work and Friends (1919) vol 1, p224.


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