Page images
PDF
EPUB

the pulpit in Crathie Church, and in the Royal pew were Her Most Gracious Majesty, Prince Albert, and the children of the Royal Family. I never saw listeners more intensely attentive." How indeed could it be otherwise, when Dr. Cumming was preaching? But the preacher had more substantial proofs of the impression which his eloquence made on royalty. He "knows from letters in his possession, (from the Queen, of course,) that the truths uttered were deeply appreciated." Accordingly, Dr. Cumming "cannot but believe God's promise, 'My word shall not return unto Me void."" We were not aware before that God had ever made such a promise with respect to Dr. Cumming's word;" and those, who know how frequently "void" the doctor's "word" of prophecy has turned out, will be loath to admit that the promise in question refers to Dr. Cumming. But perhaps we misunderstand his meaning. His profession of faith in his. word not returning to him void may be merely the expression of a hope that his eloquence in the pulpit of Crathie may return to him in the shape of a chaplaincy to one of his "intensely attentive" royal listeners. Whether there were any other listeners in Crathie Church when Dr. Cumming preached he does not vouchsafe to tell us. The "Royal pew" was evidently the cynosure to which his eloquence gravitated.

66

Dr. Cumming's genius is versatile. We have seen how completely at home he could be in "the pulpit of Crathie," exposed to the gaze of royalty. That he is equally at ease when he descends from the pulpit to the platform, and discourses on the arts and sciences, the following quotation from his sermon abundantly manifests:

"The arts beautify, they don't support; they are the capital of the column, they are not its foundation. But wherever Christianity has flourished, there the arts-painting, poetry, science, literature, have all flourished."

It is an inconvenience of original and fertile minds, (for few sublunary goods are without their alloy) that, to borrow a metaphor from Plato, they are like bottles full of water turned suddenly bottom upwards, so charged with matter that they are apt to discharge their contents in a splutter. This may account for the confusion of ideas displayed in the above quotation.

"The arts beautify, they don't support." Indeed! we have never been inside the "National Scotch Church;" but we presume that the pulpit which supported Dr. Cumming when he uttered this sentence, whether "beautified" or not, was, at all events, supported," by one or other of the arts. "The arts are the capital of the column, they are not its foundation." What abstract or concrete idea "the column" represented in Dr. Cumming's imagination we are at a loss to conjecture, being unable to

66

form a conception of a column of which the arts, while unemployed in the foundation, form the capital. Indeed, we have never heard of a column of which "the arts" formed "the capital," and we had always supposed that some one or other had a large share in the formation of every column. But it is not quite clear what the preacher means by "the arts," as he describes painting, poetry, science, literature," as four species of the genus art. The worthy doctor, we suspect, was in the predicament of Plato's plethoric bottle when he enunciated the above incoherent splutter.

We must not forget to mention that Dr. Cumming "has heard" -" on authority," of course-and therefore he "states it is true, that the mind of our beloved Queen is now what it has ever been, strong, vigorous, perfectly possessed," &c. &c.

We are bound to acquiesce when the author of the Great Tribulation solemnly tells us that we ought to rejoice over the premature grave of the Princess Charlotte and her child, because, "had they lived, England would have been England, but it would not have been the England it now is." Such adulation is as clumsy as it is unmanly and impious, and to address it to one suffering under the pang of a heavy bereavement is much the same sort of unfeeling insult as it would be to offer pork chops to a seasick voyager. Fortunately the royal mourner for whom it is intended is not likely to have recourse to the quack anodynes of Crown Court. Dr. Cumming unites impertinence with inconsistency when he rebukes "an eloquent prelate" for giving utterance to a mere Scriptural truism and in the very same breath calls for a national Te Deum to celebrate the death of a Princess Royal of England. Probably no man living has pronounced a tithe of Dr. Cumming's "judicial sentences.” He is such an adept in this kind of spiritual gunnery, that he seems to consider himself possessed of a patent of monopoly in all "judicial sentences." It is, however, consolatory to reflect that, though Dr. Cumming's prophetical guns send their shot to incredible distances, they never hit the mark, even at the shortest range.

And yet Dr. Cumming is a London popular preacher! Are we therefore to infer that the qualifications for that precarious office are a glib and fluent tongue, bold assurance which hesitates at nothing, a shallow mind, and a very superficial education? Dr. Cumming's sermon on the death of the Prince Consort is a masterpiece of vulgar inflated bombast. Of course, he would be rightly estimated by men of highly cultivated intellect; while he is just the man to impose on that class of persons who go to church with "itching ears" for something racy-something to which they can languidly listen without the trouble of thinking. Had he lived in the days of the Hebrew Prophets, he would have satisfied the cravings of those who said to the man of GOD, "Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceit." Dr. Cumming has probably never written or

[blocks in formation]

spoken a sentence that any man, woman, or child will care to quote after his death; but it requires no genius and very little education to "speak smooth things" and "prophesy deceit." Surely a great success was never built on a more flimsy foundation. Long may the Church of England be without such popular preachers!

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH.

1. Lettre à M. l'Evêque de Nantes en réponse à ses attaques contre l'eglise de Russie. Par M. J. WASSILIEFF, Archiprêtre Aumonier de l'ambassade de Russie à Paris.

2. Discussion entre M. l'Evêque de Nantes et M. l'Archiprêtre J. Wassilieff au sujet de l'autorité ecclesiastique dans l'eglise de Russie. Paris: Dubuisson et Cie.

3. The History of the Council of Florence. Translated from the Russian, by Basil Popoff; edited by the Rev. J. M. NEALE, D.D. London: Masters.

Ar a time when Christendom seems to be awakened to a special desire for inward unity, by the greatness of the struggle which seems to be at hand with external lawlessness and infidelity, it is most important that all persons should really seek to acquaint themselves with the working of the Christian Church in different parts. We owe a large debt of gratitude to Mr. Neale for the learning and labour with which he has endeavoured to bring the Eastern Church within the knowledge of our countrymen. Englishmen, however, are too content to believe even now that all in the East is mere corruption and ignorance. Travellers tell us of the degraded state of the eastern clergy. It saves a great deal of trouble to think that what is so said must be true. They forget that there are many at home who are quite as ready to speak evil of the English clergy; and however absurd it may seem to hear them denounced in a mass as profligate, drunkards, liars, and thieves, rapacious lovers of money, and oppressors of the poor; yet such language is not only common in the most widely disseminated organs of the press, but is believed by multitudes of readers, and not unfrequently repeated even by men of much worldly respectability amongst the upper classes; most persons commonly excepting from the general denunciation that part of the clerical body of which they happen to have had personal experience. When such things are said at home, where the refutation might have seemed so easy, we cannot wonder if evil tales reach us respecting the clergy of distant parts. It is the natural result of

the love of evil-speaking, which is so inherent in human nature. Besides which, the evils of a country, and especially through their very inconsistency, the evils of an ecclesiastical system are so much more apparent than the good. The working of the inner life cannot be known to many. Circumstances may be very unfavourable to the development of intellectual criticism, where yet many a soul may be patiently endeavouring to make advance in the work of holiness. The practical working of a Church is of more importance than its intellectual research, unless there be something in the spirit of the day, and the requirements of its practical work, which brings the importance of historical investigation before the minds of men. We are not, therefore, summarily to condemn even those bodies of men whose non-appreciation of their own manuscript treasures seems to us, now that we are acquainted with their value, to be so deplorable. In fact, do those persons who ridicule the eastern monks for neglecting to decipher their old MSS., themselves endeavour to work out all that might be explored in the Bodleian, or the British Museum? To laugh at others' idleness is generally the occupation of idlers, and persons who disparage the Eastern Church after the pleasant reading of books of modern travel, have generally, we believe, but little acquaintance with the archives of their own nation and university, and even of their own college. These remarks, however, are by the way.

We have before us three very valuable though unpretending works emanating from the Russian Church. The history of the Council of Florence is especially interesting at the present moment, when a council is again summoned to take into consideration the reunion of the Latin and Greek Communions. That council was called into being in fear for the safety of the Eastern Empire, just ere Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks. The present movement of the Roman pontiff is evidently connected with a similar apprehension as to the safety of Rome. We may regard the success of the Moslem as a judgment upon Christendom for its divisions. Let it be the earnest prayer of everyone that such things may be laid aside, as prevent godly union and concord. Even if the union of Christendom be impossible until CHRIST Himself comes, yet is it our duty to prepare for it by a penitential consideration of whatever there may be in ourselves to hinder it. We must lay aside those suspicions and mislikings, which we have one towards another, not knowing what God may purpose to effect by any branch of His Church in time to come.

"The present volume," upon the Council of Florence, "was originally the work of a student in the Spiritual Academy at Moscow, but has received correction from, and I believe I may say, the imprimatur of, the theological professor in the same Academy. If it assists in making the Eastern Church and the great learning of its scholars better

known to ourselves, I shall be very thankful for the small share I have taken in the publication of the present volume."

With these words of Mr. Neale, the editor, we shall commend to the Christian public of England, the work translated from the Russian by the son of the Rev. Eugene Popoff, Chaplain to the Russian Embassy in London.

The rest of the present article will be devoted to the letters of M. Wassilieff, who is chaplain to the Russian Embassy at Paris. We shall indeed content ourselves with doing little more than translating some of the most important of the historical details, which are contained in the second of these pamphlets. Although in form it is only an occasional letter, it is in substance a most valuable treatise upon the history and position of the Russian Church. It has been translated into a great number of languages, and widely circulated through the East.

To Englishmen, however, this letter is particularly interesting, because it recalls so vividly the parallel which the Anglican separation from Rome offers to the Russian separation from Constantinople. The difference of conduct on the part of the two patriarchs is especially observable. Had Rome manifested towards England the same fatherly forbearance which Constantinople did towards Russia, the formation of the great Anglo-Saxon Church might indeed have been an element of wondrously germinating life to the whole of Christendom. Whereas the Church of Constantinople gained strength from assenting to the liberation of her spiritual offspring, the effort of Rome to retain a dominion over English Christianity, has been a source of weakness and a waste of precious life to both parties. The alienation of Rome from the other Patriarchates, made it impossible to obtain for the English Church that recognition which Russia obtained from the Patriarchs of the East, in communion with Constantinople. The original fault, therefore, of the schism between East and West left its taint by natural inheritance upon our separation in the sixteenth century, and we bear its traces to the present day. Whether any circumstances may ever allow of our coming to an understanding with the Greek Church must be left to the Providence of God with prayerful effort to fit ourselves for that reunion. It would seem, however, that the reunion of Constantinople and Rome in brotherly agreement must be the first step to the recognition of our real position in Christendom and union with them both as a younger branch of the great Christian Body bearing the same relation to the West as Russia does to the East.

There is another point in the history of the Russian Church which makes it specially interesting to Englishmen. The substitution of the Holy Governing Synod for the Patriarchate of Moscow, reduces its ecclesiastical government to a form very analogous to

« PreviousContinue »