Parish church

“ The parish church is full of interest connected with the parish, it has been built and decorated by the ancestors of the humble inhabitants of the place, the yard about it contains their dust; in it they have left something of their very best—to be swept away by the modern restorer to put in his own stuff, manufactured at a distance, the whole executed by a strange contractor employing strange workmen. ”

“ This, this is the blessed truth of which the parish church is token, as nought else can be—that you are one body, members one of another, and that God’s blessing is on your union and fellow-feeling; that God smiles on your bearing each other’s burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ. ”

“ What is most remarkable about the documents that have come down to us, and which are mere chance survivals amid the general wreck, is the consistent story they tell of the universal and intelligent interest taken by the people of every parish as a whole in beautifying and supporting their churches. In a real and true sense, which may be perhaps strange to us in these later times, the parish church was their church. ”

“ The churchyard of our parish lies in a deep hollow, and a little river half encircles it. In the midst of it stands the church beneath whose shadow the parish has garnered its dead for centuries. There the generations have lain down to sleep, their hearts reconciled one to another, and the beadle has drawn the coverlet of green over them. ”

“ Whatever the origin, it is certain that long before the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries the parish church had practically come to be the property of the parishioners generally in a very definite manner, and, with certain exceptions, to which reference will presently be made, upon the inhabitants of a parochial district as a corporation lay the duty of repairing and rebuilding the fabric, of beautifying the edifice, of maintaining the services, and of seeing generally to its well-being. ”

“ The parishioners, as already pointed out, were bound by law and custom to provide for the repair of the nave of their parish church, and for the general upkeep of the church services. There was little need to compel them to fulfil this duty, for the churchwardens’ accounts and other documents, especially during the fifteenth century, when we have the fullest information, show us that over the entire length and breadth of England the people were gladly rebuilding and beautifying their parish churches. ”

“ The parish church is the church of [Pg 105] the farmers and the gentry. There is no hostility to the clergyman of the parish, no bitter warfare of sect against sect, or of Methodist against Churchman. But you see very few of the farmers go to chapel. The labourer goes there, and finds his own friends—his cousins and uncles—his wife's relations. He is among his own class. There is no feeling of inferiority. The religion taught, the service, the hymns, the preacher, all are his. ”

“ The churches are very fine, with more ornaments even than those in Europe, and all the ceremonies of their religion are carried on with more show; their processions in particular are very extraordinary. Every day one or other of the parishes has a solemn procession with all the insignia of its church, altar, and host, etc., through the parish, begging for whatever can be got, and praying in all forms at every corner of a street. ”

“ We find, then, that in a town which was all one parish with one great church, though the person in charge of the souls of the people was only a solitary vicar with a small income, there were often really a considerable number of clergy grouped around him, and that the services of the Church were better maintained than we should perhaps have expected. ”

“ The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one. The curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church, and the chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday!
The best known and most respected among our parishioners, is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was registered in the list of baptisms. ”

“ We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish, because we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office. We will begin the present, with the clergyman. Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish church on Sunday before ”

“ In the case of parishes having no parish church in which Divine service is usually performed every Sunday, and in the case of extra-parochial places, the church or chapel of an adjoining parish or chapel may be resorted to for banns and marriages. ”

“ There is the old minster or parish church, then the landowner’s church, with burial-place, erected on his private estate for the convenience of his family, tenants, and labourers. This becomes a new parish church within the district of the old minster. Edgar’s laws are the first to mention these churches. ”

“ Our parish churches, as we have them to-day, are stripped of much that made them beautiful. The cold walls, often scraped of all their plaster and whitewash; the windows, glazed with white glass, or with modern glass of very uncertain merit, reveal merely the structural skeleton of the building. ”

“ At Boughton in Northants, owing to a shifting of the population, a chapel in the parish became the parish church. Obviously, if the larger churches were to be properly served, they must depend in no small measure on the goodwill of the parishioners.
§ 18. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries [31] the parishioners came forward with benefactions as they never had done before. The rich wool stapler of Grantham, Newark, or Boston, returned thanks for his wealth by founding a chantry in his church or one of its chapels. ”

“ From the long list of voluntary subscriptions, it appears that all were eager to have a part in the work of building up their church—a church which should be a credit to Bodmin. All sorts and conditions of men and women are entered as contributors on the roll of parishioners, more than 460 in number. Servants appear as well as masters and mistresses, sons and daughters as well as their fathers and mothers.
The same sort of story is told in every set of parish accounts that we possess—a story of popular devotion to the material fabric of the parish church. ”

“ The splendid development of many twelfth century parish churches is no argument against their local origin. Architectural enthusiasm in the middle ages was a possession of the people generally: it was not confined to a limited and privileged body. The large monastery or cathedral churches in every neighbourhood were sources of inspiration to the builders of the parish churches: details were copied, and methods of construction were learned from them, and the structural progress which took place in them had a constant influence upon the architectural improvement of the less important buildings. ”

“ Any account of parish life in mediæval England must include much more than might at first sight be supposed. To imagine that the story of the parson and his church could adequately represent the story of the parish, even with all that the one had to do for his people and all that in the other was contained and done, is somewhat like thinking that the biographies of kings and nobles and the chronicle of their battles and achievements would tell properly the story of a people or a country. ”

“ The old parish church of England, which with its yards is a common meeting-place for the people's fairs and wakes, and even for their beer-brewing; the simple rustics forming the congregation; the tonsured head of the priest rising above the pulpit,—a monk from the neighboring abbey, who earns his brown bread and ale and venison by endeavors to move the moral sentiments which lie at the root of the Anglo-Saxon character and beneath the apparent stolidity of each yokel. Many of the tales are unfit for reproduction in our more mincing times. ”

“ Taking the congregation of our Parish Church in the agregate it is a fair sample of every class of human life. You have the old maid in her unspotted, demurely-coloured moire antique, carrying a Prayer Book belonging to a past generation; you have the ancient bachelor with plenty of money and possessing a thorough knowledge as to the safest way of keeping it, his great idea being that the best way of getting to heaven is to stick to his coins, attend church every Sunday, and take the sacrament regularly ”

“ The same story of local government, popular interest, and ready self-help, as well as an unmistakeable spirit of affection for the parish church as theirs—their very own—is manifested by the people in every account we possess. ”

“ Some, I am aware, would urge you to prefer your parish church to a Dissenting chapel, even if the minister be an irreligious man, and to stay there till it shall please God to introduce the gospel into it; but as it is not in my power to reconcile such advice with the injunction of our Lord, Take heed what ye hear, you cannot expect that I can approve of such a course. The eminently devout Christian loves the habitation of the Lord's house, and the place where his honour dwelleth ”

“ It can never be impressed too strongly upon the average Englishman that, quite apart from their religious associations, the parish churches of this country form, as a body, one of the most remarkable historical monuments which any European nation possesses. ”

“ Behind the altar, ranged round the apse, were the seats of the clergy, having in the centre the throne of the bishop. Thus the apse, like the chancel of an English parish church, had a double function; the portion containing the altar was the sanctuary, the portion containing the seats of the bishop and his presbyters was the choir; basilicas so orientated were divided into nave, sanctuary, choir; whereas English parish churches divide into nave, choir, sanctuary. ”

“ Sittings in Parish Churches to be unappropriated, and free to all.
Appropriation of Sittings only, not of whole Pews.
In Town Churches, where Seats are appropriated, that privilege to be suspended at one Sunday Service, and the whole Church to be at that time free.
More Churches.
Iron, or other temporary Churches.
"Ragged" Churches.
Preaching Places, (Mission Chapels) to be built in great numbers, to meet the immediate wants of rapidly increasing populations.
A considerable Increase of the number of the Clergy. ”

“ It was about this time that parishes, as we now understand the word, were first formed in England. At first, each kingdom formed but one parish, which again was divided into what we should now call dioceses, the cathedral being for a time the only church, the bishop sending his priests travelling about the country, to instruct the people and administer the rites of Christianity. ”

“ Neither that any man shall be bound to the saying of them, but such as from time to time, in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, parish Churches, and Chapels to the same annexed, shall serve the congregation. ”

“ There are two parish churches, St Mary and St Peter, both erected early in the 19th century, of which the first has near it an isolated church tower of earlier date. There are three Roman Catholic chapels, a court-house and other public offices. ”

“ Now let us consider how many relics of the true cross there are in the world. An account of those merely with which I am acquainted would fill a whole volume, for there is not a church, from a cathedral to the most miserable abbey or parish church, that does not contain a piece. Large splinters of it are preserved in various places, as for instance in the Holy Chapel at Paris, whilst at Rome they show a crucifix of considerable size made entirely, they say, from this wood. ”

“ One of the convictions out of which the vision came that led to the work of the Larger Parish was that the Church should minister to the whole man; that nothing that goes to make a man a full-rounded man, or that has a legitimate place in his life should be ignored by the Church; that it should have something to say and something to do with his social nature as well as his religious nature; that it should [Pg 81] concern itself with the affairs of the community and be an element of uplifting power in the community life. ”

“ In many cases the mode of life on these manors went on unchanged for centuries, the tenants of these different manors going to the original parish church, and the parish priest ministering to the people in all the manors in his parish. In other cases daughter churches, or chapels of ease, were built in the newer manors, and provision was made for the support of a priest to minister to them. ”

“ But what is this white conventicle-looking edifice which crowns its heights? Surely it is the refuge of some Mormon congregation—the temple, perchance, of some pagan fanaticism? Nay verily, good sirs,—assuage your indignation, for this is a Church of your own communion, a sort of Chapel of Ease to the parish of St. John. The architect was “abroad” when this building was designed; for one less becoming the outward character of a Church it is impossible to conceive. It is dedicated to St. Paul, and was opened for divine worship in 1830. ”