CHAPTER II. ETON.
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ETON.
[1831--1841.]
IN May 1831, only four months after taking his degree, the continental ramblings came to an end, and more serious work began. Mr. Selwyn returned to Eton, which, in the words of Mr. Gladstone, "he loved with a love passing the love of Etonians," and acted as private tutor to the present Earl of Powis. He was one of many young graduates who held similar appointments: the mere fact of their being chosen for the work which they had to do proves them to have been men of more than common attainments; some of them had attained higher distinction at the University than himself, and yet, while he never assumed the leadership in anything, all his companions naturally regarded him as their leader, whether in study or in recreation; and not the least notable sign of the honour in which he was held, and of the conviction, almost prophetic, that there was a career before him which would one day lend a value to the records of each period of his life, is afforded by the fact that his sayings and doings were chronicled by more than one of his contemporaries, and that these pages are indebted to the carefully-preserved jottings of a friend who nearly half a century ago acted towards him the part of a Boswell.
From these records, and from the testimonies of his friends who survive, it is clear that he was, as one describes
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LIFE AS A PRIVATE TUTOR.
him, "the leading spirit of a happy circle." In all bodily exercises he was facile princeps: he delighted in the river, and was in great request as the "Charon" of ladies: he was wont to take prodigious walks, finding his way across country by the help of a pocket compass; and often when taking the daily constitutional he would run across a ploughed field "to improve his wind." On one occasion being the subject of some friendly banter because he had not kept a good place in the hunting-field, he privately hired horses and literally rode steeplechases, making his way in a straight line across country to some church or other given landmark, and allowing nothing to divert him; and this skill, so painfully acquired, did him good service, when, as in New Zealand, he had to travel much on horseback. It was to his perseverance in this respect that he owed the great kudos, which he acquired at Wellington, by riding a horse which a chief had lent to him. As he went along the beach he was hailed by every Maori, "Tena korua ho" ("There you go, you and buck-jumper!"); and on asking the reason of the unwonted salutation, he was told that he was riding the worst buck-jumper in the country.
Another instance of his skill, valueless in itself, but which witnesses to his indomitable patience, was the way in which he broke a vicious horse called by the Maoris Rona, or the Man in the Moon. For two long hours he tried in vain to put the pack-saddle on his back. At last, covering the horse's eyes with his pocket-handkerchief and holding up one fore leg with one hand he put the pack-saddle on with the other. His patience in all things, small or great, was indomitable. When Sir George Grey brought some zebras into the country and vain attempts were made to ride them, a native chief asked if the Bishop had ever tried to break them in. On being told that it was impossible to do so, he replied, "How so? He has broken us in and tamed the Maori heart, why not the zebra?"
As a swimmer, too, he accomplished feats which had never
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been performed before, and in all his pleasures there was a degree of earnestness and of order which made them serious matters. He was not content with taking a header over a bush, which to this day is known as "Selwyn's bush" with a perfectly horizontal body (for his maxim was "fancy yourself a dart") or with diving from Upper Hope to Middle Hope, but he was the President of a Society which was called "The Psychrolutic Club." The less ambitious members who bathed only under conditions that were agreeable, called themselves Philolutes, but those who had bathed five days in every week for a whole year were called "Psychrolutes," and were entitled to take the degree Phi Psi [Greek], which was conferred on them by the President in the Thames. His enthusiastic love of the river led him to accommodate Shakespeare to say
"Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues we drink in water."
To his care it is due that boating was no longer made a forbidden pastime to the Eton boys, and that at the same time that it was legitimatized it was robbed of its dangers. No rules are likely to restrain some hundreds of boys who live on the banks of a river from the pleasures of rowing. The interdicted amusement had been so commonly indulged in that the authorities could only connive at the irregularity, but the boys could not all swim and fatal accidents were of frequent occurrence. The influence of M. Selwyn, supported by the drawing-master, Mr. W. Evans, obtained the establishment of the "swimming system," by which no boy was allowed to boat until he had "passed" in swimming. Watermen were stationed in punts at the weir and the bathing-places who were ready with help in case of accident. These watermen were very much changed by coming under Mr. Selwyn's moral influence. He was conscious of his popularity with them, and he turned it, like his other gifts and opportunities, to the best account.
But this time was every day more and more becoming the great seed-time of his ministerial equipment. One of
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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES.
his friends says of him that his whole school and college career had made him loved and respected, had been full of excellence, and everything that was cheerful and manly, but that a man with less moral courage would probably have been led to be idle; there was no idleness, but much strenuous industry now; another of his friends records that "he seemed to be always preparing himself for some unrevealed future of usefulness." The early bathe was followed by an hour's study of Hebrew with some of his fellow private tutors. He read Hebrew and Italian with a Jew named Bolaffey who resided in Eton, and he arranged with his friends "the Eton cycle," according to which they studied certain things in turn and for a fixed portion of each year. The comparative leisure before ordination was devoted to a most careful study and analysis of such works as Pearson, Hooker, Barrow, and Butler. The two first he knew almost by heart, and he made a rule of reading Hooker through during the annual Christmas vacation which he spent with his pupil. His mother had thoroughly imbued him with the language and the spirit of the Holy Scriptures, and the wonderful power which he had of applying Scripture was noticeable in every sermon which he preached. About this time he wrote to one of his fellow-students: "When I was at home before Easter I hit upon a most agreeable way of reading the Scriptures with my mother; she took the English and I translated to her out of the Hebrew (without reading), and she corrected me, and supplied words when I did not know them. This plan is both quick and sociable, and pleased her by showing her the accuracy of the received version. At home, the great problem is to be co-operative without losing too much time. It is difficult, but I think it may be solved, at least where the rest of the family have any pursuits and feelings in common with your own. My sister is a Hebrew scholar, but she has grammaticized so exclusively that she can hardly read and knows very few words."
In 1833, on Trinity Sunday, June 9, he was ordained
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Deacon on his fellowship with letters dimissory from the Bishop of Ely to the Bishop of Carlisle (Percy), who held his ordination in St. George's, Hanover-square. Such was the fashion in which "things were done" half a century ago. As a labour of love, he took the curacy of Boveney, continuing his work as private tutor, and encouraging others to join him in theological studies. He took an active share in the work of Sunday-schools, and persuaded his friends to form themselves into a staff of district visitors, and to teach a certain number of hours of each week in the day-schools at Eton. He became secretary of the book club, and acted as auctioneer at the periodical sale of the books to the members; his remarks on each book as he offered it showed that he had thoroughly studied it, and knew its strong and weak points. On Trinity Sunday, 1834, he was ordained priest, as in the previous year, by Bishop Percy, in St. George's, Hanover-square. In the summer school-time of this year, his brother, Thomas Kynaston, died; Mr. Charles Selwyn, the youngest brother, was the only relative who was with him; they had come out of Wales and reached Chester, and there he had died. Letters had miscarried, and George, in going down to the funeral, passed on Hounslow Heath Mr. Charles Selwyn, who had just come from his brother's grave in Chester Cathedral. On the Sunday when he was lying dead, Mr. William Selwyn had preached a sermon written by George on the text "Thy brother shall rise again," and, in commemoration of this circumstance, anastisetai [Greek], is carved at the bottom of the epitaph in Trinity College Chapel at Cambridge.
It needed not this sorrow, which was a very heavy one, to draw out his sympathy with others, for it is recorded by one who still survives that "if there were any misunderstanding among friends, he would not rest until they were reconciled; if pecuniary difficulty fell upon any one, he would make every endeavour to extricate him: if his friends were ill, he was their nurse and companion, if they
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SYMPATHY IN SORROW.
lost relations, or fell under any great sorrow, he was with them at any hour to console and uphold them. He was the friend, the adviser, the comforter, of all who would admit him to their confidence." (Guardian newspaper, April 24, 1878.) And these words were not lightly written: they were but the record of what had been the writer's own experience. In 1835 he had lost a very near relative who was drowned at Maidenhead weir. The parents were far away and were unable to come to Eton, but Selwyn took all arrangements on himself, comforting the living and caring for the dead. How difficult it is to say all of comfort and sympathy that we would wish to say at such times, every one has experienced who has made the effort; but probably the cause of such inability has never been more truly detected and exposed than in the following extract from a letter which he wrote to the sorrowing family.
"All our hearts require to be softened, and the most distressing evidence of their hardness is the imperfect sympathy which they display for the sorrow of others."
When all was over and his mourning friend was expressing to him his thanks he said "Nollem accidisset tempus in quo scires quanto te faciam," and he added that he had always thought that Cicero had in this passage beautifully expressed what one ought to feel on such occasions. There was yet another act to be performed, which testified both to his kindness of heart and to his unsuspected accomplishments. He went for several days to the spot, consecrated to the bereaved family by so many mournful memories, and at length he produced an artistic water-colour drawing of the fatal scene; until the occasion had called forth his powers, none of his friends knew that he was a painter; but in truth he was a born artist, and to anticipate events somewhat, it may be added that his earlier letters from New Zealand and Melanesia were enriched with very clever pen-and-ink drawings which he made for the enjoyment of his father, after whose death he
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abstained from sketching, lest it should prove a snare to him and engross too much of his time.
At the Advent Ember-tide of 1835 the ordination of a friend led to the following letter, a remarkable commentary on ministerial duty, coming as it did from one who had only been himself a few months in Holy Orders.
TO THE REV. C. B. DALTON.
POWIS CASTLE, WELSHPOOL,
Dec. 24th,1835.
* * * * * *
"Accept my most sincere and Christian congratulations on your admission into the ministry. It is the peculiar privilege of the young men of the present day to have their eyes opened to the real situation of the Church. It is the greatest folly to undertake the ministerial duties in the present time with the hope of temporal advantage. Of all professions, this will in future be the most laborious and the least lucrative. Yet still there are labourers enough; and this is the great ground of hope that the destruction of the Establishment is not yet at hand. So long as the Universities continue to send out annually hundreds of men of sound principles and well-directed zeal, of the best of whom at least one half enrol themselves as defenders of that which we believe to be the true Faith, we need not fear what man can do to us. The real danger of the Church was from within; but every year will reduce the number of those who endanger their own cause by their supineness. We ought to enter into a compact with one another to correct all those natural dispositions which stand in the way of the effective discharge of our duties; to admonish, and suggest whenever it may seem necessary, that so the mind of every one in our circle of acquaintance may be endued, not with its own simple strength, but with the aggregate steadfastness of many minds, all alike invigorated by the same power from above. We have peculiar advantages at Eton, as you justly observe. I have scarcely made a single acquaintance there from whom I have not derived some advantage. And now that more of our number have taken Orders, I think that our system of mutual assistance
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CO-OPERATION.
may be made even more effective. You will understand by one instance, what I think may be extended to a general practice. Your communication made to me with C---- on a passage in my Sermon is a most appropriate illustration of this. Whenever a shadow of a doubt occurs as to the truth or propriety of any action, sentiment, or mode of expression, let the objection be stated and freely discussed. It can always be done in a Christian spirit, if we establish one peremptory law (which can always be maintained by clergymen, as they are not subject to the absurd jurisdiction of the law of honour), viz., never to take offence. I have witnessed the want of this, in my own parish of ----, which is convulsed by the discord of two rival curates.
"We must endeavour to retain C---- in some way. I very much regret the failure of my attempt with L---- D----. It would have been a great delight to me to have had him in the same house, instead of a stranger. I dread the return to long dinners, and wine-drinking, and sitting after dinner, which I have discontinued so long that I have lost all inclination to resume them. C----'s habits would have been the same as my own; but possibly I shall be obliged to conform in many points to the wishes of the new-comer.
"I have certain misgivings about the Sunday-school, which are allayed solely by confidence in G----. I fear that at present He is the sole stay of the institution which, in its infancy, must of course be in a precarious state. Your nursling (a Windsor Infants' School) I think is safe. When I was at home for a day on December 9, I visited the Infants' School, and was further confirmed in the favourable opinion which I had formed from seeing similar establishments.
"The infusion of new associates into our Eton party will require some judgment. P---- by all accounts will be a valuable coadjutor. Of the Cambridge man who is coming to Mrs. V----'s I know nothing. If you and C---- will undertake to bring out P---- I will do my best to associate the Cantab. But I should particularly wish that no reference should at any time be made to me, as in any way the Coryphaeus of the party, because when circumstances prevent the influence of our actual
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Lead from being much felt, the only way to preserve unity is to discountenance the assumption of any nominal precedency. The origin of the dispute between our two curates was the old question, which should be the greater, and there was no resident vicar to silence the disputants. In the same way many men quarrel with those who wish, not to lead, but to co-operate with them, upon the same grounds as those gentlemen whom you told me of, who objected to be 'tied to the chariot-wheels of Mr. W----.' I believe that, as clergymen, we ought on the contrary to be willing to be tied like furze-bushes to a donkey's tail, if we can thereby do any good by stimulating what is lazy and quickening what is slow. In many cases more good may be done by submitting to be led than by attempting to lead; at least where good is the object of both parties. From report, I think Mr. ---- may be rather a difficult man to manage; but if he has all the agreeable qualities for which he is famed, we cannot well fail to agree.
"Many thanks for the Oxford paper. I was much amused with the offended dignity of the Oxonian Press. In future, however, I shall know what Philological Professor means. I have proposed a plan for attaching the Hebrew Professorship at Eton to the Conductship, which I hope H---- will take into consideration. I see no other way of getting a respectable teacher of Hebrew resident in the place. Between the Conduct's stipend, and the Hebrew pupils, and the prospect of a living, the situation would be very good for a young man, and now there are Hebrew Scholarships at the Universities there would be no lack of Candidates when P---- goes.
"Believe me, your sincere friend,
"G. A. SELWYN.
"P.S.--Since I last wrote, I have thought that some parts of my letter must have been unintelligible to you; as you were not at Eton when the miserable feuds were raging among the private tutors. It was that circumstance which first led me to think whether it was not possible that a body of men engaged in the same employment, should associate constantly without ill-will. You cannot conceive how I value the unity of the last two years after
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SYSTEM OF STUDY.
the warfare of the preceding. We must try to preserve it, whenever our society receives accessions of force by new arrivals. Pray let me know what I can do for you at Eton. The books I shall send out as a matter of course. I have no fears of being detained beyond my day, as I intend to leave this place on Saturday next, to meet B----, at D----'s, at Middleton.
"I look forward to the daily Hebrew meeting as a new and most useful plan for promoting religious intercourse. I propose that we should meet by weeks at each other's rooms. I have begun the Hebrew Scriptures with the New Year, and proceed at the rate of three chapters per diem, which, with the omission of Sundays, will, I hope, bring me to the end of Malachi before the conclusion of the year. This will not interfere with the other plan. I find that keeping a clerical calendar is a check to idleness, and strongly recommend you to enter all your services. You will have the satisfaction of beginning well.
"The return to your morning calls will be most agreeable to me, for I have grown very lazy and opsamatis [Greek]; it is now almost 1 A.M. and I am seldom earlier in retiring. This of course involves a corresponding idleness in the morning. I am taking leave of my friends in this neighbourhood, as I have quite decided not to devote any more holidays to secular employments. Whether I shall stay at Eton after my present engagement ends, i.e. after next election, is still uncertain; but I think that it will end in my remaining for a time upon a new basis of agreement."
It was about this time that the town of Windsor was thrown into a fierce controversy on the subject of education, a subject less fruitful of strife then than now. Some Nonconformists presented a memorial to Lord J. Russell, praying for help to the British and Foreign Schools on the ground that there were 800 children in the town whom the existing schools could not receive. Selwyn doubted the accuracy of these figures, and all the more so when he found that the statement which contained them had been drawn up by an agent from London, who sat in a room in an inn and was interviewed by all and sundry that chose
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to come to him with their allegations. Accordingly he incited his fellow private tutors to join with him in taking a census of the whole town; they divided the place into districts, and between them they visited every house and took down the numbers and names of the children and the schools which they attended, and they finished their labours by presenting a report of 80 instead of 800 children unprovided with, or unable to avail themselves of, existing schools.
It is incorrect to say that their labours ended here, for the deficiency thus revealed led to an infant school--an institution very rarely found forty years ago--being built in Windsor. Mr. Selwyn was foremost in the work of building, as he was afterwards in the task of superintending and teaching in the school. He visited newly-established infant schools in London during his vacation, and with characteristic thoroughness lost no opportunity of studying the results of other persons' experiments.
He gave up the charge of Boveney and became the duly licensed curate of Windsor. The then vicar lived at Datchet, the living of which parish he held as well as that of Windsor. Mr. Selwyn was therefore practically in sole charge, for the vicar had full confidence in him and left everything in his hands. The parish was in a very unsatisfactory condition: a debt of 3,000l. had been incurred by the churchwardens on pulling down an old and building a new church: two years and a half had elapsed and neither principal nor interest had been paid: the creditor had obtained a mandamus from the Court of Queen's Bench commanding the churchwardens to raise the necessary sum (3,300l.) by a rate on the inhabitants. A vestry meeting was summoned and assembled, with a certain degree of fitness, at the workhouse, for a rate of six shillings in the pound would have pauperised the parish: after much recrimination it was proposed to raise a subscription, not to pay the debt but to indemnify and defend all who might be proceeded against for refusing to pay the
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PAROCHIAL WORK.
rate: one proposal pointed to that accustomed remedy for sloth and parsimony, a system of pew-rents, varying from 2l. 2s. to 5l. 5s. per seat per annum, which sanguine arithmeticians thought would bring in 500l.
Mr. Selwyn asked permission to address the meeting, as one who took a great interest in the parish, though not a ratepayer. In calm and measured language he pointed out that the parish did owe 3,000l. to the lady who had generously lent that sum on the security of the rates, that the Queen's Bench was determined to enforce the payment, and that the only question was how the sum was to be raised. He showed that to resist the Queen's Bench would lead to suits in the Ecclesiastical Court and then to suits in the Court of Chancery, and that this indefinite legislation would not only cost vast sums of money but would destroy all good feeling in the parish for many years. He suggested therefore that a vigorous effort should be made to free the parish from the burden, and he would follow up that suggestion, in order to commend it to others, by promising cheerfully to perform his duties as curate for two years without receiving any remuneration. By thus relinquishing a stipend of 150l. per annum for two years he would be able to relieve the parish of a tithe of its obligation.
The offer took the meeting wholly by surprise, but made as it was distinctly "as a peace-offering to the parish," it was irresistible, and within a month the sum of more than 3,000l. was raised, the creditor giving up, under Mr. Selwyn's advice, her claim for interest, and thus practically making a donation equal to his own.
Peace being thus restored to the parish the curate could carry out his schemes for its welfare with some better hope of success: he set on foot soup-kitchens, mothers'-meetings, and those numerous parochial organizations, now so common, but then so rare; he was not satisfied with the education that was given in the middle-class schools in Windsor, and he endeavoured to improve it by instituting public
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examinations and by giving prizes to the successful candidates. While the National Society was, in a tentative manner, providing inspection of the schools in certain dioceses, he had arranged a complete system of inspection and of tabulating the results over a considerable area, of which Windsor was the centre.
The collection made for wiping out the debt had left a surplus, and this was set aside as a nest-egg for a new church which would meet the wants of the growing population of Windsor, and serve also as a church for the soldiers. Hitherto a chaplain had always been appointed to minister to the regiments both of cavalry and infantry quartered in Windsor. Prayers were said in the barrack-yard or in the riding-school, the men standing under arms. The nest-egg grew, and soon Mr. Selwyn hoped that he saw his way to building the church: it was expected that the War Department and Horse Guards would contribute liberally: but Lord Hill was "a little afraid of religion among soldiers, because two majors had lately committed some acts of insubordination in preaching, &c." Mr. Selwyn suggested that their "very exuberance of zeal might be attributed to the soldiers having so little that was doctrinal in their own religious services." He went to Mr. Macaulay, then Secretary-at-War, who thought 1,300l. a sufficient contribution. He wanted, and hoped for 2,000l., because as the whole cost, including endowment, would be 6,000l., and the church at one of the three Sunday services would be given up to the soldiers, it was fair that they should contribute one-third. Among other objections Macaulay urged that perhaps the time might come when the Queen would not reside at Windsor, and when consequently so many troops would not be quartered there. Selwyn said he felt inclined to suggest to him that this was not thought of when 70,000l. was spent on the stables!
His popularity did not always serve him: who, indeed, that does his duty, can be always and with all persons popular? He used to tell a story of the churchwardens and
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SUBORDINATION.
himself being outvoted and outwitted by the Dissenters at a vestry meeting: they assembled at the proper vestry-room which would hold a dozen people; a hundred crowded round, evidently bent on mischief; a loud voice proposed an adjournment to the schoolroom, which was at once filled: the same voice proposed an adjournment to the town-hall, which was filled: the churchwardens proposed their unpalatable scheme, countenanced and supported by the presence at least of the curate, and they had to walk out of the town-hall and through the streets amidst roars of laughter and loud hisses, being a minority of about five to 100. The story used to be told by him many years afterwards, and the great point was that all along he did not agree with the policy of the churchwardens, but as curate he felt bound to be loyal to the vicar and to the authorities. "This," says one who was always in his confidence, "was his principle throughout his life. He deeply regretted the passing of Public Worship Regulation Act, but would not oppose the heads of the Church and State who were bent on bringing it in, and he took his share of the unpopularity of the bishops in general."
It was a subject of comment and admiration when persons observed the relations of the vicar, Rev. Isaac Gosset, who put everything in Windsor into his hands, and the curate who kept himself carefully to the background. Windsor was rapidly taking the lead among the parishes of the neighbourhood and when any new organization was spoken of to the vicar in terms of praise he used to say, "It's all Selwyn's doing," and Selwyn on his part referred everything to the vicar. Never did man more thoroughly and conscientiously put into action (what he used afterwards as bishop to impress on deacons and curates) the promise of his ordination, reverently to obey [not only] the ordinary and other chief ministers of the church [but also] them to whom the charge and government over him was committed.
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In 1838 the recent action of the Cathedral Commissioners called forth from Mr. Selwyn a powerful defence, not of cathedrals as they were, but of cathedrals as they would be, if the intentions of their founders, as revealed by their statutes, were carried out. The pamphlet was not originally published, but was circulated privately among friends whose criticisms were freely invited. By some the suggestions were laughed at as visionary; others accepted portions and proposed alterations and modifications; these were carefully considered: in a letter to a friend who had taken exception to one expression, the author wrote: "Your objection has been confirmed by Manning, a friend of Gladstone's, and I must reconsider the whole of that part." Probably forty years ago those persons were not to be lightly blamed who thought the author's views Utopian: but on a small scale, with no endowments, with no past on which to build but with everything to be done by himself and under his own direction, the author was permitted in New Zealand to carry out in detail every portion of the scheme which he had elaborated for the full utilization of the old and wealthy foundations, and subsequently at Lichfield he year by year adapted the resources of the chapter to the needs of his vast diocese, and succeeded in obtaining an amended set of statutes, feats of patience and zeal, incredible to those who know the difficulty of moving by moral suasion a large body of men with separate interests, who have inherited traditions of a different state of things. To one friendly critic he wrote, "I do not consider any of my remarks very Utopian if only right principles could entirely get the better of private interests, which perhaps you will say is the most Utopian supposition of all."
When he contended against the diversion of cathedral revenues to parochial endowments, it was not for the sake of the revenue itself, for he wrote, "No amount of income can dignify an inefficient minister," but he claimed the
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CATHEDRAL REFORM.
retention of temporal endowments in order to secure that "effectual organization which the clergy are more in need of than of money; for their character rests not on the possession of wealth but on the due performance of their duties." The cathedral was, in his opinion, "supplementary to the parochial system," a sort of 'bank of supply' upon which the great body of the clergy might draw for almost every kind of clerical assistance."
When he observed "so strange an agreement in opinion between bishops of the Church of England and ministers of the British Government, and senators of different political parties, on the propriety of curtailing the revenues and privileges of the chapters," he could only account for such a phenomenon by the hypothesis that "they had all taken it for granted that the cathedral canon is a less useful minister of Christ than the parish priest," and what was his remedy? He wrote as follows:--"The only clear course of action open to the chapters, therefore, is to claim from the rulers both of Church and State the privilege of a more extended and diffusive usefulness, the power of developing the capabilities of their holy office and of restoring their order to the efficient exercise of its legitimate functions."
In the opinion of our author, "a cycle of canonical visitation by ministers selected for their piety, learning, and eloquence, would meet those cases in which religion suffers relapses where the resident minister, either from age or other circumstances is inefficient in the discharge of his duty," and if the prebendaries "were always judiciously selected," he conceived that "no clergyman would consider such visits intrusive." He deprecated the fashion still prevalent in some places by which the clergy of a given locality exchange pulpits according to a definite cycle, "for," he wrote, "a parochial minister is out of place everywhere except in his own church and parish: the effort of his exertions here depends mainly upon their continuity and upon the concentration of all his energies upon one definite
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object: he departs from his character when he becomes a home missionary."
In the divinity schools of the cathedrals where, as in some cases divinity lecturers are endowed, students should, he thought, be trained for the ministry, and a class of deacons kept on probation, employed wherever needed and sent forth as curates when sufficiently trained. Of the students thus under education some might be taken from the humblest ranks of society. The resolution adopted by most of the English bishops at this time [1838], of ordaining no one who was not a member of an English university debarred from the ministry many deserving men who were unable to meet the expense of an academical course, but the cathedral funds could supply scholarships by which the most promising members of this class might be maintained at the university. "My fervent prayer," he wrote, "is that the ministry of the Church may take root downwards: that many a rustic mother may feel an honest pride in the profession of her son, and bless the Church which has adopted him into her service. But these must not be 'Jeroboam's ministers,' 'the lowest of the people,' but men, who by their talents and virtues have proved themselves worthy of a higher station. If sufficient caution be used in selecting ministers from the great body of the people, the Church must be strengthened and cannot be degraded. It seems to be essential to the permanent efficiency of all orders of men that they should be recruited from time to time by well-chosen reinforcements from the ranks below them. The cathedral institutions have the means of providing such a course of probation in youth, and such a system of encouragement to the deserving in after life as might be sufficient, under the blessing of God, to ensure the good conduct of their students at the universities; and thus, without injury to the character or efficiency of the ministry, they might become the avenues by which the poorest man of merit might arrive at academical distinction and pass on to the highest offices in the Church."
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TRAINED TEACHERS.
Forty years ago no normal school existed for the training of schoolmasters: they learned the mechanical routine of the system by attending for a month or two at some central school which "made them drill-sergeants and nothing more." "The degenerate free-schools which are at present attached to some cathedrals, do not realize the intentions of their founder, who required the scholars to come already prepared with a knowledge of reading, writing and grammar." It was the evident design of the founder that they should be trained for higher service, and it was part of Mr. Selwyn's scheme that the more promising pupils of national schools should be received into the cathedral schools and there be trained to teach, and in cases of exceptional ability become chapter scholars at the university.
Our author observed that a request had recently been made to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to allow the cathedral to be open to the public, "as a means of purifying the taste and exciting the emulation of the people by the sight of the memorials which it contained of departed genius and virtue." But he claimed a higher destiny for our cathedrals than to become walhallas: with their doors always opened he conceived that they would offer all the day long those opportunities for private prayer which were then only to be enjoyed in "the solemn and still interval which occurs between the opening of the doors of the cathedral and the commencement of the service, when the minster has the privacy of a chamber without the adaptation to the purposes of every-day life, and becomes, as it were, a domestic oriel, invested with the dignity of its own sacred and awful character as the House of God." Besides purifying the taste and exciting the emulation, he wished to employ the cathedral in developing the spiritual energies of the nation: he hoped "that the enlightened judgment which values it as a monument of human genius will uphold it still more earnestly as a place of divine worship: that they who acknowledge its effect
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upon the mind of men, will desire to extend its influence over their spirit, and that they who would teach the nation how Nelson did his duty to his country, will think it a far higher object to teach them to know what God demands of them as the Christian conquerors of so large a portion of the unconverted world."
After running the gauntlet of private criticism from many friends at the Universities the pamphlet was published and dedicated to Mr. Gladstone, "who," the author said, "suggested the whole idea in a paragraph of a letter to me."
Having shown in something of detail how the various needs of a diocese might be met by the organization and ministry of a chapter, Mr. Selwyn drew a sketch of a Cathedral Institution, "rather as an aid to reflection on the subject than as an exemplar of what such an institution ought to be." It is so complete a sketch, and is so striking an evidence of the author's power of organization, that it would be impossible to exclude it from these pages.
"The Cathedral Church of ---- was founded in the year 1539 by Henry VIII. for the diffusion of religious knowledge and works of piety of every kind throughout the diocese of ---- to the Glory of Almighty God and the general welfare of his Majesty's subjects. The cathedral establishment consists of the bishop, the dean, the canons, the minor canons, the divinity lecturer, the upper and lower masters of the cathedral school, the probationary deacons, the theological scholars, the cathedral university scholars, the scholars of the cathedral school, the organist, the lay clerks, and other inferior officers.
"The Bishop is the spiritual head of the whole cathedral establishment, the president of the cathedral council, and the visitor, empowered to require obedience to the cathedral statutes from every member of the body.
The Dean and Canons are men selected for their learning and piety. They are all distinguished as eloquent interpreters of the word of God, as powerful advocates of the cause of charity, and as active promoters of the spiritual welfare of mankind. They form the council of the bishop,
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MODEL OF CATHEDRAL STATUTES.
and act as his advisers in all questions of difficulty, as his examining chaplains, and as his supporters on all public occasions. They reside in their prebendal houses the greater part of the year, and hold no living with their cathedral preferment.
"The Diocese is divided into as many districts as there are canons in the cathedral, and every canon is considered responsible to the bishop for the effectual diffusion of the word of God in his own district. For this purpose he arranges a cycle of visitation, including all the places in which the aid of a powerful and impressive preacher is most needed; and endeavours, by frequent visits, to awaken his hearers to a sense of the blessings of the Gospel, to refute errors of doctrine, and to explain and enforce such Christian ordinances as may be endangered by the spirit of the times.
"The Parochial Clergy are far from considering this as an intrusion, because the canon is in all other ways their friend and coadjutor. If they are in want of a schoolroom, or a chapel, they have only to apply to him; and he is willing, both by preaching and by exerting his influence in the diocese, to forward their plan to the utmost of his power.
"The Canons are also secretaries of the great societies of the Church, the S.P.G., the S.P.C.K., the Society for Building and Enlarging Churches and Chapels, the National Society for the Education of the Poor, &c. By their preaching, the principles and operations of those societies are effectually made known throughout the diocese, and liberal contributions obtained. The effect of these frequent visits of the canons to the parish churches in the districts is seen in the improvement of the general tone of preaching throughout the diocese.
"The Chapter meet once every fortnight as a Clergy Aid Society to inquire into the spiritual wants of the diocese. At this board all applications for clerical assistance and clerical employment are received. In some cases one of the probationary deacons is sent as a regular assistant to an aged minister in a populous parish; another is sent to take the duty of a clergyman during a temporary illness; a third is appointed to officiate for an incumbent during a short and unavoidable absence. These are supported by the chapter
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or incumbent, according to circumstances. Many of the probationary deacons become curates in the diocese upon the recommendation of the chapter--sometimes, when the population of a parish has increased so much as to require an additional church, the influence of the chapter is exerted to procure the sum requisite for the building, and a deacon is appointed to do the duty till a sufficient income has been raised for a regular incumbent. The lectures of the divinity lecturer are attended by as many of the probationary deacons as are not employed in other parts of the diocese, by the students in the missionary class, and by the theological students who have completed their university education, but have not yet been admitted to orders. Many other students not on the foundation are admitted into the class of the professor on sufficient recommendation, and prepare themselves for orders under his direction.
"A general examination is held annually by the dean and chapter, with the assistance of the divinity lecturer and the masters of the cathedral school. At this time the theological students are examined, and the best selected to be presented to the bishop for ordination. After this they become probationary deacons. At the same time the cathedral university scholars present their testimonials from the colleges in which they have graduated, and request to be re-admitted upon the cathedral foundation as theological students. The missionary scholars also present their certificates of having completed the required course. The scholars of the cathedral free school are also examined, and the most promising are chosen to fill the vacancies among the cathedral university scholars. A second class is selected for the service of foreign missions. Those of inferior talent but of equally good general character are recommended by the examiners as qualified to be masters of parochial schools. Of the remainder, some are apprenticed by the chapter, others become lay clerks of the choir, and others obtain situations as parish clerks, on account of their skill in music. It very rarely happens that any scholar is expelled. The examination of candidates for admission into the cathedral school comes next in order. They are required to be poor and for the most part destitute of friends, and to come
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CATHEDRAL PATRONAGE.
prepared with a knowledge of reading and writing. The greater number of the candidates are sent up from the national schools of the diocese with testimonials from their clergyman and schoolmaster. Some are the orphan children of clergymen and other professional men. The best proficients in the knowledge and application of scripture are admitted into the trial class, but their election is not confirmed till the examination of the following year.
"When a cathedral living is vacant, the dean and chapter meet to appoint a new incumbent. The names of the minor canons and of the probationary deacons (whether employed in curacies or resident at the cathedral) are read over, and the appointment is made with due consideration of the peculiar circumstances of the parish and of the merits of the candidates. If the living is given to a minor canon, one of the probationary deacons is elected at the same meeting to fill his place. Livings which are not accepted by any member of the cathedral body are given to the most deserving of the diocesan schoolmasters, who are admitted into holy orders by the bishop upon special recommendation of the clergy, and serve as curates of the vacant benefices during their year of deacon's orders.
"At all times of the year the dean and chapter devote themselves to the duties of hospitality. The cathedral library is open to all clergymen resident in the diocese. The parochial clergy look upon the canons as their advisers in all doubtful cases, and the probationary deacons, after they have passed into permanent employment, return with delight from time to time to draw from them fresh stores of spiritual wisdom.
"Among this variety of employments the daily service of the cathedral is not neglected. The value of that divine ordinance is never forgotten. God is glorified by the daily prayers of His ministers and people; intercession is made for the sins of the nation and of all mankind; the book of the revealed word of God is read day by day, the song of praise and thanksgiving continually ascends to Heaven as a morning and evening sacrifice.
"The above sketch of cathedral institutions, acting, as it is presumed, in accordance with the intentions of the
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founder, may serve to show that there are important benefits which the chapters may confer on the parochial clergy, without any improper alienation of revenues or violation of statutes. The plan proposed by the commissioners, has not yet passed into law; and there is still hope that the cathedrals may be spared. If it should please God to inspire the rulers of our nation with a deeper sense of what is due to His glory and what is necessary for the spiritual welfare of His people, we may still hope to see the institutions of our ancestors restored to their ancient dignity, and fulfilling the intentions of their founders. We may still hope to see every cathedral acting as the spiritual heart of the diocese, diffusing its episcopal and pastoral influence into every parish, promoting all works of charity and piety, publishing the glad tidings of salvation by the mouth of its chosen ministers, distributing the scriptures into every cottage, building and enlarging the houses of God, propagating the gospel in foreign parts, and educating the children of the poor at home. The chapters may then become the foster-fathers of the friendless and orphan, the patrons of that order from which Jesus chose His disciples, the guardians of every humble soul in which Christ has quickened the seed of holiness and faith. And being thus in favour both with God and man, the cathedral clergy may be encouraged to carry on their good and useful work, to minister to the increasing wants of the people, to supply the deficiencies of sick and aged clergymen, to ensure regularity in the performance of divine service throughout the country, to furnish the parochial schools with a more enlightened class of instructors, and to fill every parish church with the melody of harmonious voices praising God. And as they may be the friends of the people generally, so also may they be the guides and counsellors of the parochial clergy, the connecting link between the hierarchy and the ministry, the spiritual hosts and patrons of the young and inexperienced deacon. And, finally, in their own proper and local priesthood they may be reverenced as the ministers of the eternal God, while they offer to Him their daily tribute of prayer and thanksgiving in the noblest temples that were ever consecrated to His worship and honour."
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CRITICISMS ON SCHEME.
The action of the Cathedral Commissioners and of the Government had caused so much excitement that every contribution to the subject was certain to attract attention. Mr. Selwyn's pamphlet distinctly challenged criticism, and it was promptly considered by persons in high position. The author thus deals with the strictures of Bishop Blomfield, of London, in a letter to his brother, the Rev. W. Selwyn:--
[Post-mark, March 8th, 1838.]
MY DEAR WILLIAM,
I send you the address of Mr. Richard Cobbett, which will speak for itself in language which seems as if it had been curtatus inaequali tonsore. I believe him to be a respectable man and creditable tonsor.
1 have received from J. F. the strictures of the Bishop of London on my pamphlet. The following are his remarks as stated by J. F.:--
"1. His first objection was that in your plan you would put prebendaries in the bishops' places, or rather make them quite independent of bishops.
"2. That it would be impossible to give them such large charges, and to keep them in at the same time.
"3. That it would not do to put them to preach in parochial pulpits.
"4. That it could not be their business to preach charity sermons consistently with giving the parochial minister leave to ask the aid of others.
"5. That it would be undesirable that such men as So and so and So and so, should be the only persons whom a clergyman might go to for such purposes.
"6. That the thing had been tried and failed; that prebendaries would never consent to be prebendaries without other offices and emoluments."
I confess that these seem to be mere objections of detail, founded upon a mistaken view of the object of my remarks. The main question seems to be, yes, or no, shall the cathedrals be influential in the dioceses? My remarks were nothing more than a classification of such duties as prebendaries might perform consistently with their statutes. Does not No. 6 neutralize Nos. 1 and 2. Would No. 6 be
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the case if anything approaching to Nos. 1 and 2 were to be the case?
3. The answer seems to be that they do so already, wherever they can be procured. Clergymen are too happy to catch a prebendary, which is not very easy, as they have livings of their own.
4 and 5 object to an exclusive privilege which I never hinted at. I never said that prebendaries only should preach.
Gladstone speaks very favourably, and has sent for some more copies in addition to those which I first sent. Rivington has had twenty-five. Gladstone's names are: The Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Pusey, Manning, Sir E. Inglis, Lord Ashley, W. B. Baring, T. D. Acland, Viscount Mahon, Mathison.
Meanwhile in the Houses of Parliament things were improving, owing, in some degree, probably to the trenchant criticism of the opponents of the commissioners and in the following letter Mr. Selwyn made known his strategy and his hopes:--
TO THE REV. W. SELWYN.
ETON, May 21st, 1838.
MY DEAR WILLIAM,
The cause of cathedrals seems to be slowly gaining ground. The most important advantage gained is the abandonment of the principle of the Commissioners in the Church Leases Bill brought in lately by ministers. The Bishop of Lincoln says, p. 38 of his letter, that "this measure is directly at variance with the recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners." This, is a good wedge to be driven home, because the Cathedral Bill will not pass the House of Lords on any other credit than the sanction of the episcopal members of the commission. Lord John Russell has shown that he uses the commission only so far as he thinks it useful, and dispenses with its recommendations as soon as he pleases. This frees the clergy from all deference to the Episcopal Commissioners, because it is clear that in the end the bill will be the bill of the Whig ministers, and not a measure of the Tory bishops. Many persons still cling to the bill for the bishops' sake, but this will open their eyes.
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LEGISLATURE MORE FAVOURABLE.
The next point in favour of cathedrals is that the parochial clergy are beginning to petition.
Manning, the author of a letter to the Bishop of Chichester against the principle of the commission, writes thus:--
"We are petitioning the Queen and the two Houses of Parliament against the Cathedral Bill, and our petition will I hope receive the signatures of a large majority of the clergy beneficed or resident in the archdeaconry of Chichester, with the archdeacon at our head. It is very short, taking the ground of the sacredness of bequests, and injustice of defeating the intention of founders, &c."
Copleston, Fellow of Exeter College, and now of Exeter city, writes:--
"You will be glad to hear that on the very day on which I received your letter, the day of our archdeacon's visitation, we signed two petitions to both Houses, one deprecating the adoption of the 4th Report of the E. C. as unjust in principle, and ultimately subversive of the main object of cathedral institutions. The other petition attacks the commission on the ground so nobly taken and maintained by Manning, as unchurch-like and unconstitutional in principle, a violation of the Bill of Rights. This example will, no doubt, be followed by other archdeaconries, for this county is by no means slack in such matters."
Oxford University Convocation agreed to a most capital address on the 5th of May. I quote one sentence:--
"That the cathedral institutions are an integral branch of the establishment, tracing their origin to the first planting of Christianity among our Saxon ancestors, and many of them revived and re-established, with the most comprehensive views of the general well-being of the Church by the great authors of the Reformation."
I have a copy, which I will reprint if I find that the petitions do not get on for want of models. I do not know how my little book has sold. P---- is rather slow, or R---- rather sulky, for no copies are to be had at the latter place. Perhaps he is angry that he did not publish after distributing privately.
I have had a letter from your bishop in acknowledgment of my large-paper copy, in which he says:--"I hope that you will excuse me adding that it was upon the principles
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laid down in the eighth chapter (i.e. of the pamphlet) that I performed my residence for more than thirty years in Westminster Abbey, with only one mulct for absence, owing to illness, during that long period."
That no stone might be left unturned, Mr. Selwyn drew up the following petition to the House of Lords:--
"TO THE LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
"The humble petition of the undersigned clergymen of the Church of England showeth:
"That your petitioners have seen with very deep concern, that a Bill has passed the House of Commons, having for its object the suppression of many offices and dignities in the cathedral foundations of the Church of England.
"That, while they abstain from expressing an opinion on the alienation of the revenues of the chapters, they deprecate in the most earnest manner the abolition of any office dedicated, by the piety of our forefathers, to the perpetual service of Almighty God.
"That your petitioners therefore pray your Lordships to respect the spiritual character of the cathedral dignities themselves, which they believe to be in itself a sufficient inducement to men of piety and learning to undertake the duties of those offices, even without any revenue or emolument whatever.
"That the cathedral dignities, even without an endowment, would be highly valuable, as affording the means of giving to the examining chaplains, and other diocesan officers, that official connexion with their bishop which is required by the canons ecclesiastical, and recognised by the charter and statutes of many of the cathedral foundations.
"That your petitioners therefore pray your Lordships to preserve the framework of our cathedral bodies in their present integrity; and even if it should be finally determined to alienate any portion of the chapter revenues, they would still entreat that their lordships the bishops may be empowered to appoint to the unendowed stalls, at their discretion, such clergymen as may be found willing to discharge the duties of those offices freely and gratuitously,
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SCRIPTURE READERS.
for the service of their respective dioceses, and for the spiritual welfare of the Church."
It was while his mind was fully occupied with these practical matters that he wrote the following letter to one who had for long been his alter ego, but from whom he had by circumstances been separated for some years. No man had been more zealous than he in the work of district-visiting, and he had induced his fellow-tutors and some of the Eton masters to combine in this unwonted duty, but the scheme of hired lay missionaries and Scripture readers did not commend itself to his judgment, and he set forth his reasons very freely and fully:--
LETTER TO THE LATE REV. JOHN FRERE.
ETON, May 10th, 1837.
MY DEAR JOHN,
I think that there are few things more pleasing than to find, on renewing an acquaintance with an old friend, that your mind and his have been steering the same course, and that the intercourse can be resumed upon the old basis of similar opinions and habits. You and I, I find, have come to the same conclusion about the Clerical Aid Society. The principle already is in existence, and doing as much good as can reasonably be expected of it, by means of district-visiting societies, &c.; but it works much better as a voluntary than as a stipendiary system. As long as the service rendered to the minister is purely voluntary, numbers of tradesmen and others will be willing to devote their spare time to the Christian work of ameliorating the condition of their poorer neighbours. But is it likely that they will equally respect a function which is discharged by a person, perhaps inferior in station and acquirements to themselves, for the wages of a day labourer? And can the services of one paid agent be an equivalent for the voluntary assistance of many who are willing to work in the same way for the pure love of God?
But if the persons employed as assistants are in orders their services are then performed as their bounden duty rather than as their stipulated work. It cannot be said
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that the curate is paid for his duty by the 80l. which he receives; and therefore the motive which urges him to an active discharge of the duties of his ministry must be a professional and not a pecuniary obligation. A clergyman dedicates himself to God, and is bound to work, as it may happen, for much, or little, or even for no worldly remuneration. He cannot measure the degree of exertion required of him by the amount of his stipend. For this reason I think that clerical agents will be certainly more efficient than lay agents, and probably not less cheap.
But if a question arise, from what source is this additional demand for ordained ministers to be supplied? I answer, from that class from which Christ selected His apostles--from the poor. Let the Church take root downwards. Let every peasant in the country have an interest in the Establishment in the person of a son, or brother, or cousin. We have the best materials for the formation of a plebeian ministry that ever were possessed by any nation. We have a peasantry who have grown up under the fostering care of the Parochial Church system, and have been trained in religious principles by a sound and scriptural course of instruction. Our national schools are sending out from year to year supplies of talent improved to a certain point, but under the present system to be improved no further. Our national schoolmaster at Windsor sighs over the constant loss of his best and most promising boys, whom he sees passing off to places where the master discourages religion in the servant, lest he should become better than himself. The Clerical Aid Society may draw upon this bank to any amount, upon a very simple plan:
1. A school to collect the elite of the national schools from fourteen years old and upwards.
2. A committee to examine the above scholars at the age of eighteen, and determine from their proficiency whether they could be advantageously sent to the university as sizars, &c., with a view to future ordination. The inferior scholars might be immediately employed as schoolmasters in national or other schools.
Normal schools upon the present plan are most ridiculous. A man of little or no education goes for two months to a good national school, where he is occupied solely in teaching and putting boys through their manoeuvres, and
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SERMONS.
then he is pronounced fit to be a schoolmaster. But he can never open their minds, because his own has not been opened. Then people complain, and with truth, of the cramped and irrational system of our national schools.
It was part of Mr. Selwyn's plan for securing the utmost efficiency of the clergy that they should invite each other's friendly criticisms on their sayings and doings, with a view to mutual improvement; and in days when sermons were too exclusively regarded as the test of clerical ability, it was natural that these should be among the first subjects of such criticisms. On one occasion Mr. Selwyn preached a sermon on Church Building, of which a friend asked permission to borrow the plan, and even to make extracts if it were not intended for publication. The following reply not only gave the permission sought, but also entered at some length into the general question of sermon writing and other matters:--
LETTER TO REV. C. B. DALTON.
ETON, March 5th, 1838.
MY DEAR DALTON,
I can assure you that I have no present intention of publishing sermons, as I believe the world to be already overstocked with that commodity, and that every new publication which is not likely to achieve immortality, is only forming one of a tribe, which is thrusting our immortal ancestors into the corner. All therefore that I have which you think would in any way interest your audience, is entirely at your service, to adopt either the plan or the words, as you may think fit. When I have more sermons to write than I can well manage, I may claim my right of reciprocity.
I congratulate you most heartily on the success of your Early Service; for I call any congregation above twenty very satisfactory, and I should not feel solitary with ten. I hope that you will never be reduced to the situation of Elijah. When I think of the danger of losing sermons, I always think of the dialogue between Barrow and a rich friend, when they were travelling together and expected to be robbed. Barrow showed some uneasiness
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about losing his portmanteau, which was stuffed with sermons. His friend readily offered to guarantee the safety of his portmanteau, on condition that Barrow should be answerable for his pocket-book, which was full of banknotes. I have therefore sent the sermon to share the fate of all other parcels.
I like your text, but think that your divisions involve too much matter. Such texts as "Our life is hid with God" are sermons in themselves, and require a great length of explanation, which withdraws the mind from the principal subject. I think one rule good, and that is, never to quote a text in support of an argument which requires itself to be explained. The original argument is lost sight of in the parenthetical explanation.
Your first sentence suggests one objection which I will call a parallelistic objection. "Immoral men, who seek excuse, and men of narrow enthusiasm, are apt to think that there is less religion in the world than there is."
Parallelize this sentence with the text.
1. Elijah thought that there was less religion, &c.
2. Immoral men think " " &c. &c.
3. Men of narrow enthusiasm " &c. &c.
Ergo: either Elijah was an immoral man or the other kind, or the text does not lead out to appropriate conclusions; at least if my parallelistic objection be just.
Try the contrary, as an illustration:--
Elijah thought, &c.
Holy men under similar circumstances think, &c.
Holy men in solitude think, &c.
Single good men in ungodly situations think, &c.
Consequence.
Elijah was inclined to despond.
Some good men are, &c. &c.
Contrast.
All good men are not so inclined to despond.
The seraph Abdiel faithful among the faithless.
Abraham " &c &c.
Noah " &c. &c.
There are other texts which are more appropriate to the reproof of loose Christians who plead in excuse the general depravity. As Eccl. vii. 10.
Again you say:
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CHURCH UNION.
"True religion is naturally unobtrusive." This again implies that true religion though unobtrusive was still sufficiently abundant. Was this the case? God does not speak of the abundance of true religion in Israel, but says that there was more of it than Elijah thought. It seems to me a topic of encouragement to Elijah in his fancied loneliness, rather than an expression of satisfaction at the state of Israel.
Besides: the unobtrusiveness of the 7,000 was owing to the state of the times rather than to a right principle. A Jew's religion was essentially public; and could not be rightly performed in private except in great emergencies. Therefore the parallelism again fails.
1. True religion is naturally unobtrusive, in the same manner as
2. The 7,000 Jews were unobtrusive; therefore
3. True Judaism is unobtrusive, and therefore private.
But the principle of unobtrusiveness is different in the two cases.
I send you these remarks because I think that you like this sort of free communication; and shall be very glad if you will retaliate in kind. 'Fungar vice cotis, &c.' Do not think that I pretend to have arrived at the power of writing according to my own ideas of how things ought to be written. The specimens of translation in Tytler's Essay on that subject are bitterly bad. So you will take me, as I wish to be taken, as a monitor multum ipse monendus.
There would seem to have been complete reciprocity in the friendly criticism of each other's works, for in a letter only a week later in date than the above there occurs the following passage:--
"I have not thanked you for your discovery of Sternhold and Hopkins in my sermon, which is a gross fault in style."
In 1838 Mr. Selwyn was able to accomplish a scheme that had long been in his mind, and had been discussed by him whenever he could persuade his friends to criticise his
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proposals. The scheme, which he called tetragonon [Greek], was a "Church Union" combining the work of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the National Society, and the Church Building Society. This plan he thought might be extended all over England; and that the system of working for all at once would be far preferable to the present plan, whereby some people took up one work and some another; the Additional Curates' Fund he thought should be "strictly and solely diocesan." His scheme contemplated the "housing" of these four societies under one roof, and at the head of the whole group would be placed "a chaplain of the archbishop, or some influential clergyman such as Mr. Lonsdale, who would have been peculiarly qualified, if he had not King's College--as having been an archbishop's chaplain, as having a good income from his stall, and as being connected by his preachership at Lincoln's Inn with a large body of laymen. "Over each of the four departments he would place as Secretary a prebendary or canon--the archbishop would be president--all the bishops would be members of the committee, which should be a general committee over the whole organization, with a special committee to each department: similar committees would be formed in each cathedral town with one of the canons for secretary, and archidiaconal and ruri-decanal branches in correspondence with the Diocesan Boards throughout the country. "The canonries at St. Paul's," he said, "would soon be worth 40,000l. a year, and these if properly managed might conduct all the machinery of the four Church societies, one canon being placed over each, but he much feared that the Bishop of London designed to seize upon these funds and appropriate them to the endowment of his churches."
On the principle of doing "what he could" in his own sphere, and of leaving others to follow the example, he succeeded in establishing the Windsor and Eton Church
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SYMPATHY WITH MISSIONARY WORK.
Union Society, which was inaugurated at a public meeting on November 5, 1838, the Bishop of Winchester having preached in the church of New Windsor on the Sunday previous. The object of the Union was one which was always present to the founder's mind, "Co-operation," the uniting of the clergy of a given locality in a general system of mutual help and support, and the "combining all orders of the clergy and the laity in the union and fellowship of the Church of Christ, that they may work together for the good of all men, in the fear of God." This was the germ of action which produced so great results in the other hemisphere. Co-operation and union, in labour and in the Faith, these were the things at which he always aimed, in the belief that only by these could he build up the church on a wide and enduring basis, and fill it with a spirit of self-help and self-reliance in things temporal.
Here and there is apparent in his earliest correspondence after his ordination a sense of the duty of sharing in missionary work: it was perhaps chiefly for the sake of the Church abroad that he established the Windsor Church Union, and everywhere in his plans for the development of Cathedral Institutions his range of thought included the edifying of the Church in distant lands. The following letter shows his satisfaction at having at length secured for Eton and the College an opportunity of taking part in these works of love and mercy:--
LETTER TO REV. C. B. DALTON.
ETON, Nov. 21st, 1838.
MY DEAR DALTON,
You are probably aware that Eton has long laboured under the disadvantage of being a Peculiar, and has therefore been exempted from all Queen's Letters, and other incentives to charity. The ice has been broken as far as regards the little chapel; for the Provost sent for me a few days ago, and in the most civil and complimentary manner expressed his wish that I would procure a preacher for
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the Church Union Society in that chapel. I of course assented, and immediately turned over the selection to P----, who is not a little pleased. Now for the College Chapel. I was too cautious to risk my credit by asking too much, and therefore I held my tongue on that subject; but I had in my heart the great advantage which the boys would derive from occasionally hearing some account of the great missionary operations of the Church; and being thereby excited to the exercise of practical charity. Will not Mr. Lonsdale feel this even more strongly than I do, and feeling it, make an offer to the Provost and Fellows to preach a sermon in aid of our quadruple alliance? He is the very man; and you the most convenient channel through which a hint to this effect can be conveyed to him; as I must remain perdu, having already established in some quarters too great a resemblance to Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah. Mr. Lonsdale has, I hope, received some of our papers, from which he may learn the plan of the society.
Although not yet thirty years of age, Mr. Selwyn had formed definite opinions on many questions of Church polity, as well as on Cathedral Reform, which have since been worked out, but which at that time were problems awaiting solution--and his opinions, which were sought even by his elders, have not been forgotten. On the question of the division of large parishes he thought the best way was not to divide a parish into two equal parts--but, if a new parish were to be formed, to draw off from the old one such a district as would really form a manageable parish. Then the want of still more churches would remain apparent and more good would be done, because some part would be really well looked after. He said moreover, that Mr. Gladstone had put this to him very clearly. One of his friends writes:--
"I spoke to Selwyn about the project of having a general Psalmody, and I told him that the Archbishop and the Bishop of London were warmly in favour of it. I asked him what he thought about getting it sanctioned by the
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ENGAGEMENT.
Queen in Council. He thought it would certainly be desirable on the principle that n+1 is more than n-. I suggested that some persons would rather not see it sanctioned by the State, if it were put out with authority by the Bishops. This sentiment he could not agree to; for though--as Gladstone has suggested--the time may come when the Church must disunite itself, that time has not yet come."
In November, 1838, he announced his engagement to the lady who in the following year became his wife. To a friend who reproached him for needless reticence he wrote:--
"Most gladly would I have made known my happiness to you and to all my friends, and small advantage did I see in concealment, but I was overruled. In vain I pleaded that the secret would be known at Charing Cross long before some of the friends of the parties would hear it (as it has turned out), but certainly there must be some peculiar attraction in the very idea of a secret, even when the reality of it is a thing impossible."
His future father-in-law, Sir J. Richardson, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, had a country house called The Filberts, near Bray. It was a long distance from Eton, as the road led round by the way of Maidenhead bridge, but there was a ferry on the Berkshire side of the river which brought the two places much nearer to each other. On a certain night Mr. Selwyn was returning to Eton at an hour much later than those kept by the ferrymen; there was no difficulty in his punting himself across;--but then--what of the owner of the punt in the morning? what of the early passengers coming perhaps to their work, if the Windsor curate had appropriated the punt at the midnight hour? Was there no way of combining late hours at the Filberts with the rights and comforts of the ferryman and his passengers? It was part of his nature always to have unselfish thoughts for others: and the present difficulty was solved in a way
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that cost him less effort than would have been the case with most men. A modern Leander, he punted himself across the river, and then, having undressed, ferried himself back, made the boat fast and swam back to his clothes: thus gratifying himself and causing no inconvenience to others.
In view of his marriage he offered to seek for clerical duty in London, in order that his future wife might be near her father, Lady Richardson having died between the betrothal and the marriage of her daughter: but it was with satisfaction that he wrote to a friend, "She declined the proposal, and is perfectly contented to live at Eton. Then as to inclination, I love Eton and I love my pupils, and I love Windsor as the place in which my clerical feelings have been most kept alive. In fact, I never was more contented with my present situation than I am now, because the only drawback, the want of domesticity, is now in a fair way of being removed. I confess to being a little tired of living in tents."
About this time he added to his other avocations the task of correcting for the press the Greek and Hebrew edition of Bagster's Polyglot Bible.
By his marriage he vacated his Fellowship, but it will be noted that he had held it for six years and had not resided. A friend, himself a fellow of a College at the sister university, once consulted him as to the responsibilities of a non-resident fellow, and the following is a resume of the conversation which elicited his own experience, and which was committed to writing at the time when this counsel was given.
"He had always looked on the matter in this light. When the Fellows of St. John's College are elected, they take an oath to reside, if necessary. When he was elected he was told with many others that his residence was not necessary; but he always felt that if ever the master should require it, even without assigning a reason, he was bound to go into residence or to resign. I suggested that
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DUTIES OF A FELLOWSHIP.
even this might not be fair, because, if after having enjoyed the benefits of the college so long you suddenly resigned as soon as called upon to do your duty, you forced the college to have recourse to some younger and less experienced fellows. He thought this argument not quite sound: there were always men of other colleges, if need so be, to take the Fellowship and Tutorship together. I asked him his opinion as to the pecuniary responsibility; he said he had always looked upon his dividend as ermaion ti [Greek]--or (as he once expressed it to me at Eton--he 'apponed it to lucre,'--) had never felt at liberty to apply this to selfish purposes, had thought that one good way would have been to give a sum annually to the master to increase his fund for poor students. During all the time, however, that he had held his fellowship 20l. out of 160l. per annum had been taken away for the new buildings at St. John's; he had also found vent for the money, of which he wished so to dispose, in privately supporting several deserving young men at St. John's College, so that he had never begun any systematic plan. He thought the dividend might be looked on as only a retaining fee paid by the college to the non-resident fellow for possible future services: he thought the idea of the fellowship being a reward for past services or industry absurd, as it was quite reward enough to a man for three years' industry (which has been undertaken for his own good and not that of the college) that he has gained the means of making his livelihood. The Senior Fellow told him on his election that he was that day presented with 60,000l."
On June 25, 1839, Mr. Selwyn was married, his father laying aside for a time the cares of law and taking his son's duties as private tutor to his pupils, in order to allow him to go on a wedding tour. He would seem to have had his course shaped for him, and to be justified in looking forward to a career of competence and easy prosperity. Mr. Gladstone, in an appreciative letter to the editor of the Times, on April 17, 1878, has stated that in the case of Mr. Selwyn a distinguished and honourable future was assured to him in England, and that he had contemplated
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nothing beyond it. The testimony of one so eminent in himself, and so qualified to speak of the friend of his earliest years, should find a place in his Biography:--
"Until almost the eve of his accepting the bishopric of New Zealand he had never thought of such a step. Every influence that could act upon a man appeared to mark him for preferment and prosperity in England. Connected as tutor with families of rank and influence, universally popular from his frank, manly, and engaging character, and scarcely less so from his extraordinary vigour as an athlete, he was attached to Eton, where he resided, with a love surpassing even the love of Etonians. In himself he formed a large part of the life of Eton, and Eton formed a large part of his life. To him is due no small share of the beneficial movement in the direction of religious earnestness which marked the Eton of forty years back, and which was not, in my opinion, sensibly affected by any influence extraneous to the place itself. At a moment's notice, upon the call of duty, he tore up the singularly deep roots which his life had struck into the soil of England."
But, pace tanti viri, there is more than hypothesis on the other side. There are those of his contemporaries, still living, who are of opinion that Selwyn was always preparing himself for a probable future of which he had himself no clear conception. One thing, however, is certain, that he did not look forward with any eagerness to the lot of an easily placed well-beneficed English rector: the conditions of such a ministry would not satisfy his aspirations for active service nor exhaust his burning zeal. The great extension of the Colonial Episcopate had not commenced in 1839, neither had any foreshadowing of that remarkable movement been revealed to the Church: but the chivalrous spirit which dwelt in the breast of such men as Henry Martyn, in our own communion, and in Xavier, Schwartz, Ziegenbalg, and Carey, men of different creeds and hardly less varied gifts and powers, possessed in fullest measure the heart of Selwyn: he held, and made no secret of the
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PROSPECTS.
fact, that the soldiers of the Cross ought to consider themselves always at the command of their superiors, ready to go anywhere and to do anything.
When a quarter of a century later (in 1854) he said in one of the four famous Advent sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, "offer yourselves to the Archbishop of Canterbury as twelve hundred young men have recently offered themselves to the Commander-in-chief" [for service in the Crimea]: in thus appealing to the zeal of his audience he was but inculcating what had been to himself a rigid rule of duty: only thus can we account for the testimony of his friends that "he was always preparing himself for work in the future, of whatever kind it might be;" and it is certainly true that on his marriage he took a pledge from his wife that she would never oppose his going wherever he might be ordered on duty. Preferment came in his way, as was likely, more than once, but he was not keen to accept it: his thoughts were evidently directed to more distant scenes, and it is worthy of notice that in a letter written in August, 1839, some six weeks after his marriage, the purport of which was to offer congratulations to a friend on the marriage of a member of his family, the following passage occurs, having no connection with any other part of the letter, and by its very abruptness showing how firmly the matter had taken possession of his thoughts:--
"A good deal of interest is being exerted about a new colony in New Zealand, and strong wishes are expressed that the Church should be well established at first on a good footing, and not be left as in Australia to be built up after Dissent and Popery had taken deep root. Have you heard anything about it?"
But in the autumn of the same year he said to a friend with whom he was walking to the coach at Old Windsor, "Well, our days here are numbered;" and then added that the Powis family had offered him a living to which he
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supposed he should not be obliged to go until Easter, 1841 by which time he hoped "that the new Church at Windsor would be complete, and Cotton and Balston established as curates:" He added that "there was another living of greater value promised to him when it should become vacant, but he was indifferent about the whole matter." Even in January, 1841 (the year which witnessed his departure for New Zealand), he had contemplated a country benefice as his lot, for it is recorded that he "came to Lincoln's Inn, on Sunday, January 24, 1841, and described his future vicarage as 'antique without being venerable, and ruinous without being picturesque': yet he did not despond about the place, for although told that the Squires were of the worst sort of 'Squire Westerns,' he replied, that however that might be Lord Powis and his brother were determined to get their estates and livings into good order, that it was a great privilege to act with such men, and that the very fact of the living being in a bad state ought to be encouragement to take it: that if he could hold it three or four years he might bring things a little into order and smooth the way for after comers."
It has already been mentioned incidentally, that Mr. Selwyn was zealous in the cause of education, which had not then attracted a tithe of the thought and attention which have since been bestowed upon it. There was no regular system of inspection instituted, neither were the teachers trained for their work. It was at this time that the Government proposed a scheme of inspection, the results of which would regulate the amount of grant from the Imperial Treasury; and when asked his opinion, Mr. Selwyn thought that the National Society was right in declining public money if made dependent on Government Inspection, inasmuch as being a Church Society they were bound to recognise no head but the Archbishop: at the same time he thought an individual might do so; but his expectation was that the Government would abandon the
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NATIONAL SOCIETY.
scheme of inspection on the ground of expense. Concurrently with these plans the National Society established a Training Institution for Masters, and the office of Principal was pressed on Mr. Selwyn. It was a sphere of duty very congenial with his tastes, but he had for many years determined to take no office that was not strictly ecclesiastical, and under the immediate control of the Bishops. He said that "nothing was so near to his heart as the restoration of cathedrals to their statutable usefulness." In his letter to Mr. Gladstone on the functions of cathedrals, a very prominent place had been given to the training of schoolmasters; he however declined the proposed office, unless he were appointed to it by the Archbishop; he said he "would much rather be a prebendary at any cathedral, with little or no pay, and work out the system, than be at the head of the new establishment while the system at head-quarters was as deficient as it was. In the provinces, especially at Exeter, the system was better, but the Bishop (of London), the Archbishop, and the Chapter of St. Paul's, ought to put themselves at the head of the education of the country."
His views on the position of affairs were expressed in the following letter.
TO THE REV. C. B. DALTON.
ETON COLLEGE, WINDSOR, August 25th, 1840.
As to the Training School, I believe that I may consider the negotiation at an end. The Bishop of London offered me an honorary stall at St. Paul's; but I felt obliged to adhere to my first resolution of not undertaking the office, except upon the distinct understanding with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, that it is to be considered an ecclesiastical office, and a direct mode of carrying into effect one great object of the cathedral foundation. If I am not satisfied on this point, I feel that I do not sufficiently understand the line of duty required of me, to be able to give satisfaction; and there-
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fore I would rather not undertake it. The Bishop of London added to my difficulty by saying in the House of Lords: "That he wished to record it as his solemn opinion that non-residentiary stalls were without value, except as honorary distinctions." What have I to do with an honorary distinction? What distinctions are there in the Church, but differences of ministration? Altogether, I do not see my way out of the present position of the National Society, with Diocesan Boards growing up around it, better constituted than itself, and with very little disposition on the part of the Archbishop to make the Society, what it ought to be, the Metropolitan Board of Education, conducted by a synod of bishops. So I suppose you will hear of my taking flight to Bishop's Castle in the course of another year or so.
In a letter of a date later by a few days he wrote thus humorously:--
"If you hear any strictures about the principalship, you may explain that I never agreed to take the office except as recognised by the competent authorities strictly ecclesiastical office: no personal distinction conferred upon myself individually would effect this object. As an Algebraist you will easily understand the following:--
Let S = Selwyn.
HC = Honorary Canonry.
P = Principalship.
Then P x HC = Ecclesiastical office,
and S x (P x HC) = my proposal about the principalship.
But
S x HC = an individual Canon.
and S x P = a Secular Person. .'. S x HC + S x P = S(HC + P) = Proposal of my friends:
but S(HC + P) does not = S x (P x HC)."
The principalship being declined, a country living seemed imminent: yet at this time (the autumn of 1840) he often talked about the Colonial Churches. It was not
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COLONIAL EPISCOPATE.
until the spring of 1841 that Bishop Blomfield brought the increase of the Episcopate abroad prominently before the Church. So great a step was not taken hurriedly: thoughtful men had sought and given counsel: they saw the yearly increasing tide of emigration to New South Wales, and the truer views of the Church's Divine Organization which had been adopted had made men think with shame of the history of our colonization in America: they remembered how the dreary ecclesiastical history of the eighteenth century was studded with piteous and importunate appeals for the Episcopate from the Church in America, and that the spiritual gift which the civil power refused was obtained directly the States had achieved their political independence: they saw how the West Indian Sees had not been founded until a whole century after they had been promised: the Sees of Madras and Bombay had been, as it were but yesterday, established for the better supervision of the chaplains, for of missionary work in India neither bishops nor chaplains were supposed to take heed. Was a better day about to dawn? Were wiser counsels to prevail? Was it to go forth that Episcopacy and Presbyterianism differed so little that while the former was a luxury and a dignity for home work, the maimed organization and mutilated regime of the latter were sufficient for all practical purposes abroad? Mr. Selwyn was admitted into the counsels of those who were aiming at a better system. On one occasion he said that "he had been talking with the Dean of Chichester, and he thought that he, with the Bishop of London and a few others, were the only persons who had really enlarged views about the extension of the Church."
Malta was one of the first places at which the promoters of the movement hoped to place a bishop, and the importance of the position was considered by Mr. Selwyn to be very great. "What would a Bishop of Malta have to do?" it was asked; and he replied with warmth, "What would he have to do! What would he not have to do?
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Not only to care for our foreign congregations, a very wide field, but all Africa! where a noble attempt might be made to rekindle the fires of the early Churches--all the places mentioned in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles! Conceive," he said, "300 bishops in Egypt alone!" "Especially he hoped that inferior men would not be put into Colonial Bishoprics: he could conceive no hopes nor fancies (however high they might be raised) which would imagine greater things than had really been done: we ought not to think of what could soon be done, or done in our time, but we should act on sound and comprehensive principles, and be content that in ages to come the end should be attained."
It is fair therefore to assume from what has been recorded, his indifference to the prospect of the placid labours of a country benefice, his ever considering himself at the command of his ecclesiastical superiors, and his sound views on the subject of Christian colonization or church extension, that without any sort of seeking the episcopate, there was a readiness to respond to the call if it should come and an instinctive anticipation that such a summons would come.
The proposed Sees being, some entirely and others partially, supported by the offerings of private persons, and not, as in the cases of the most recent precedents of the bishops in the East and West Indies, maintained by public money, it seemed right that the selection of the new bishops, in other words, the "patronage," should not be vested in the Crown; and this opinion has in recent times established itself by its inherent justice and fitness: but Mr. Selwyn did not care for the patronage, and his views on this point, and on the remedies which the Church has in her own hands if threatened with improper exercise of patronage, are set forth in the following letter to one who, as these pages show, was at this period a very frequent correspondent:--
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STATE PATRONAGE.
ETON COLLEGE, WINDSOR,
March 1st, 1841.
MY DEAR DALTON,
I care very little about the patronage question. As a question of principle, I do not consider that the Government appoint a bishop, so long as they do not pretend to consecrate him. The consecrating bishops are ecclesiastically, I think, the senders, as they will not be compelled to consecrate an unfit person. The state gives protection and support in return for the right of recommendation. As a question of expediency, while the state can recommend any one to be Archbishop of Canterbury, it seems unimportant to question their recommendation of Bishops of New Zealand. If the appointment were in the hands of the Archbishop, it would be only a state recommendation once removed. As to the question, who provides the funds for the endowment, that will pass away and be forgotten in twenty years.
Most of the present bishoprics were endowed by private individuals, and yet the state recommends. Do not think me Erastian; because the real reason why I care so little about the matter is because we must always have the remedy in our own hands. The State can never consecrate or ordain; therefore they can never vitally affect the Church. If the state show a disposition to appoint unfit men, the bishops must take care that no such men are ordained or consecrated. All that we can suffer, is certain penalties of premunire, &c., which would be an easy exchange for martyrdom. Any persecution at home would have the effect of "sending out the disciples everywhere preaching the word." So that if the worst come to the worst, it will all tend to the propagation of the Gospel.
The Bishopric of Malta seems to be a question of names. There can be nothing to prevent having a Romanist bishop with a Protestant one in the same country, but it would be well that they should be called by different names. The Bishop of Malta would not be a title descriptive of the duties required of our bishop, for these will range over the Mediterranean.
