Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope

“ I shall proceed to treat of the influence of these Congresses on the Church movement according to an ascending scale, handling first the material, then the moral, and lastly the religious aspect of the Congress, conscious as I am that these various aspects must and ought not to be too rigidly kept separate during the discussion. In what I have to say I shall, of course, regard the question from the only point of view which I can occupy in honesty to my own convictions, that of a follower of the so-called High Church party. I am not ashamed at owning my side ”

“ Harvest thanksgivings may be defended in view of the material benefits with which they are connected, and which may be supposed peculiarly able to touch the unimaginative minds of our agricultural population. The Dedication Feast of any Church is, we all know, a time-honoured custom. But in general I am jealous of modern and arbitrarily devised days of solemnity. I am jealous not only for the honour but for the completeness of the Christian year of the Universal Church. ”

“ The more completely constituted the Church is, the more abundant in good works, the more steadfast in the Faith, the more eager and successful in the salvation of souls, the more will it crave for, and the better will it use, occasions of mutual counsel more free and unconventional than Synod or ranged Conference can provide. ”

“ The religious influence of the Congresses makes itself directly felt through the devotional apparatus which is provided as an essential part of their programme. Every Congress, at least from the one at Manchester, has commenced its session with a solemn service in the great church of the meeting place, followed by a concio from some distinguished divine, except in two cases where the want of any leading church caused service and sermon to be multiplied. ”

“ High Church and Low Church both presuppose a Church. The very word 'gradation' involves the metaphor of a staircase or ladder. So a High Churchman may be described as one who goes up the ladder as high as he can to get the best look-out, but not so high as to risk falling over; while a Low Churchman, equally desirous of a sufficient look-out, and equally fearful of the fall over, also attempts what he considers the utmost safe altitude, which, however, happens to be some rungs under that of his compeer. ”

“ Their aim, as I must, at the risk of tautology, repeat, is influence, not power, and so restrictions which would be puerile or intolerable in bodies which had to reach decisive votes, and order the future actions of men, can merely be judged in the light of expediency or inexpediency when they are adopted by gatherings whose single, though important, object is mutual persuasion. ”

“ The broad fact which is certain is, that an Establishment can assimilate the external organisation of an Apostolic Church, and that an Apostolic Church can accept the benefits of an Establishment without creating any liability why it should be called on to abandon or to modify its distinctive features. ”

“ It is plain from all these considerations that the value of any congress, as an influential organ of Church opinion at each particular session, must depend upon a good choice of subjects, and of appointed readers and speakers. ”

“ The fact that the Church Congress aims at influence, and has neither will nor way to grasp at power, does not at all diminish the auspicious signification of its healthy assimilation by the pre-existing Church. If that Church were not conscious of strong life, it could not stand the sudden generation of new influence within its frame. ”

“ One party, no doubt, concentrates its labour on developing the Church upon those specific lines, and while anxious, even to death, for the soul's internal concerns, treats those internal concerns as under the administration of the external Church; while the other party, in acting within that external Church, makes, so to speak, something of a separate interest of the internal condition and welfare of the soul. The High Churchman may be said to be differentially jealous lest the Apostolic depositum of the Faith should suffer by over-much anxiety as to personal religion ”

“ Of this 'truce of God,' an active and vigorous, not to say young and bustling embodiment is the Church Congress. The professing Churchman who attends one, need only do so, as agreeing in the words of a teacher to whom personally I own myself more indebted, in days long past, than to any other living man, for the realisation of an Apostolic Church, and for the conviction that the Church of England is, as such an one, worthy of all obedience and honour ”

“ The Congress, however constituted, can only debate upon a limited selection of questions; and it would be plainly monstrous to leave them to the accident of 'first come, first served,' by letting the aspirants fill up the notice papers by a chance priority. The committee steps in, with the feeling of responsibility which English plain-speaking brings home to all who are bold enough to accept voluntary work of a confessedly delicate description. ”

“ Briefly, then, believing as I do, that the comitiary, as distinguished from a representative, constitution is essential to the vitality of Church Congresses, I further believe that restrictions in the nature of, and as stringent as, those which exist, are indispensable to guard the order, and in guarding the order to maintain the liberty, of rational debate. ”

“ There is another aspect of usefulness in which I must present the Church Congress, so as to do full justice to the subject. I have spoken of the value of the debates in relation to the topics discussed. There is, however, an antecedent advantage in the debating itself, apart from the questions raised. Ever since our Church has awakened to new life, a strong and reasonable desire has grown up, both among laymen and clergy, for opportunities of regular conference, of which the placid Englishman of George III.'s days could not have realised the slightest idea. ”

“ In a Church Congress the qualification is as wide as, but stops rigidly short at, the Anglican Communion in its broadest aspect. It is obvious that such a body as I have described, of a purely voluntary character, of a more than republican constitution, but with a very carefully, if not suspiciously, guarded order of procedure, can never hope to exercise any direct power. What remains as its heritage in the commonwealth of the Church is influence ”

“ The Establishment section might desire to make it more popular, and the Apostolic section might long to make it more hieratic, but each side, if wise, feels that the attempt, if pushed too far, would sever the alliance, and bring down the Church of England as it is with a heavy swoop. In the meantime, while patient, like all institutions, of cautious and conservative reform, it remains so long as it is not tampered with, neither too popular to be a Church, nor too hieratic to be an Establishment. ”

“ Those who know too much may sometimes be as ineligible as those who know too little. The Church has, for some questions, to be assumed as composed of two, and for others as of three parties, or else to be dealt with as an united fraternity. The general success of the Congress demands a certain recognition of official, political, and social distinction, as well as of technical knowledge ”

“ The most salient characteristics of Church Congresses are the democratic simplicity of their organisation, and the autocratic limitation under which they are allowed to deliberate. Membership is voluntary for clergymen and laymen, under the single condition of communion with the Church of England. Women may attend the meetings, though happily there has never been a claim from any one to address the gathering. ”

“ We may put the nature of their constitution in another way: they are potential Comitia; the whole body of citizens form their members, if only those citizens can and are willing to attend. But who are the citizens? Here the difference between a Church Congress and one for the cultivation of any learned or social object becomes apparent. In the British Association, the Social Science, or the Archæological Congress the qualification for temporary membership is that of belonging to the human race. ”

“ The danger which may be apprehended is, an over-encouragement to lay bare personal experiences, infinitely interesting to the soul which has undergone them, but not of a nature to make public without some deterioration of that finer moral sense in the person himself, which can hardly flourish without the co-existence of scrupulous reticence. ”

“ Fundamentally different in principle, as would be a religious Establishment which derives its constitution from some act of the State, and a Church claiming the allegiance of baptised Christians, as a branch of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic body, the two communities can, without doubt, be moulded so as to present identical external features. A Bishop is an expedient chief officer, whether he be a delegate of the executive or a successor of the Apostles ”

“ The result has been that, in every successive town in which it has gathered, the Congress has been welcomed with a courtesy, even from those who can have no part in it, which demonstrates that the Church possesses the working strength which has won a respect such as never is accorded to the claims of lazy arrogance. ”

“ The influence of Church Congresses in bringing the parties face to face on the topic of personal religion will come under my second head of their moral influence. Under the present one comes their value in fostering, on both sides, a broader, deeper appreciation of the Church as a system and as a corporation than was possible in the days of the earlier isolation. The organisation and multiplication of dioceses ”

“ It would be plainly impossible to bring together so large a number from such distances for a simply spiritual gathering, and if the attempt were made, the resultant might be the feverish excitement of Revivalism. The Congress, with its special topics inviting discussion, is the corrective element. ”

“ The idea of supplementing Academies or Societies—that is, stationary bodies of men, devoted to some common object of serious pursuit—by Congresses or larger meetings, assembling at rarer intervals, and with a laxer system of membership, is, I believe, of foreign origin, and the offspring of an age of facilitated locomotion. ”

“ They are not an intrinsic feature; and I fear the speakers at them have sometimes shown tendencies to overlook so rare an opportunity of distinctively putting the Church forward before such unusual audiences. More general topics, I make no doubt, win more certain plaudits; but at a Church Congress 'working men's' meeting what may be really useful in the highest degree should surely have been considered rather than what was popular. ”

“ Only the abstract merit of the subject-matter has to be appraised; but when the from four to six selected athletes have to be entered, a bewildering variety of cross considerations arises within an area full small for their sufficient adjustment. ”

“ I do not offer this as a perfect metaphor, but it grows naturally out of the vocables in question, and serves to place the two parties in that amicable attitude which they deserve to assume relatively to Church Congresses. If any man be asked truthfully to recapitulate the most crying shortcomings of the Church in the Georgian age, he would, quite irrespective of party, reckon personal isolation among them. ”

“ On the other hand, the successive choice of selected readers and speakers has been subjected to much sharp, though legitimate, criticism from those who are certainly not the meekest of mankind — the controversialists of the religious press. ”

“ They have shown how much the High Churchman values personal religion, and how far the Low Churchman has been brought to recognise system and external order in the discharge of the more delicate offices of the Pastorate. ”