be out of it. He must, if he is to make his mark in his parish, have as wide an experience as possible of all that interests and influences his people. He must be as well read as the average of them. He must be on a level with the topics of the day. He must be able to deliver a lecture upon a popular subject. He must show an intelligent interest in what is stirring the mind of the country at any given time. In short the clerical profession has become merely one among others, and the clergyman has in many things become just as the layman. And of course those clergymen who aspire to make their influence felt conform to this altered state of things. They find that the clergyman is not the less, but the more, respected who is as capable of a political opinion as any one in his congregation; who is, to give an example, a keen judge, and perhaps a performer, of music; who is, as his time allows him, as careful a reader of new books and pamphlets as are any of those persons who are prepared to admire or disagree with his last Sunday's sermon. It is felt that the clergyman is not, according to the opinion of the fox-hunting squire, "only wanted for Sunday,"-but that he has a work for the Monday and the rest of the six days also, and that it is only his experience of the previous six days-his political, his social, his literary, his parochial experience— which gives him the right and ensures him the certainty of being listened to with fairness on the Sunday. Now, of course, if this feeling be strongly felt and vigorously acted upon, we may expect the amusements of the people, just as much as their morals, to be a general consideration of the clergyman and a topic of his sermons. Indeed it seems hardly possible to judge of people's morals without first judging of their amusements. And the clergy do judge-often unfairly and indiscriminately. They speak without knowledge; they speak of those things of which not unfrequently they have no experience and of which they are

not therefore competent to form an opinion. It is hardly too much to say that not one in twenty of the clergy who take exception, for example, to the theatre and to the members of the theatrical and musical profession, are in the habit of attending the theatre. We are not at this moment saying it is their duty to do so. All we say is that to give advice with respect to amusements may fall within the province of the clergyman; that he can claim no right to speak of that of which he has no knowledge by personal experience; and that if he feels it his business to speak on such subjects he can hardly avoid coming to the conclusion that it is his duty to know what he is talking about. "Never," said the present Dean of Westminster in a sermon preached when he was severing his professorial connection with Oxford, never take exception to a book-certainly never condemn it-without having read it." And the maxim applies all round. If a clergyman claims to guide his flock it seems suitable that he should have a full personal knowledge of all that is likely to influence them. If he speaks from hearsay evidence or from his own prepossessions, he is only.speaking in a way which will make one half of his audience laugh at him and the other half despise him. It appears to us, then, from these considerations, that if a clergyman is to be of use in the present day he will necessarily regard theology from a different point of view from his clerical forefathers, and that if he does so the world must not blame him for doing many things from which they abstained.

(2.) Perhaps the matter becomes clearer when we examine the next point proposed, that the Church of England is a great social, as distinct from a great ecclesiastical, institution. In fact we might say that the present ecclesiastical position of the Church of England is determined by its social position. It has a great religious work to carry on, but that work must be carried on, and, as it seems to us, may be

or

carried on, in every way with greater advantage by remembering and making use of the social position which it occupies. The clergy of the Church of England are a married clergy. The intercourse between them and the laity is in every way encouraged; not only as regards matters of business but as regards also the hospitalities and amenities of daily life. The presence of a curate at a lawn-tennis party is as much a witness to the intermingling of clergy and laity as is a mixed gathering of bishops and country gentlemen at a diocesan meeting. The clergy of the Church of England are thus enabled, should be so, to deal much more directly with the needs of the people -speaking and acting as they can do from a free personal experience-than are, for example, the clergy of the Church of Rome, whose knowledge of life is in many cases only gained from the confessional. The Anglican clergyman reads the novels that lie upon your table, he can sing the last new song, he knows about the University Boat-race, or the Eton and Harrow match you can talk as freely to him in nine cases out of ten as you can to any layman. Whatever it may be as regards the hierarchy of the Church of Rome, and those among her clergy who may have special missions entrusted to them, this is not the case as far as the rank and file of her clergy are concerned. The latter see little of their flocks except in church or in times of sickness. As to knowing anything of cricket-matches, or novels, or general politics, they know about as well whether they have relations permanently settled in the moon.

Doubtless to those of them who are keen to turn it to account, there is a decided advantage in this respect on the side of the clergy of the Church of England. And it is difficult to see where, in this social aspect of things, you can draw the line-to determine, with regard to amusements, which may be engaged in by the clergy, and which must be debarred to them. In

his Bishopric of Souls, Archdeacon Evans points out the contempt into which the clergy may bring their office, and how much mischief they may be the authors of to their flocks, by attending archery meetings. As to balls and theatres, these, of course— as in his day they were tabooed by many even of the non-Puritan laity— he does not discuss. Probably he would have thought any clergyman as deserving, at the least, suspension who meditated taking part in such amusements. He seems to have approved of fishing, which he describes as a "quiet, meditative pursuit, and which, therefore," he adds, "may without impropriety be enjoyed by the clergyman.' But time and theology have alike changed since the vicar of Heversham wrote his once celebrated volume. Indeed it seems hard to say now what a clergyman may not do, that is, consistently with proper attention to his own special work. As regards the theatre, at any rate, it is difficult to understand why, if he may be present at a representation of a play in a private house, or during a "reading" given by an eminent actor, a clergyman should not see the same play more adequately performed in public by professionals, than it can be in private by amateurs, or witness one of the great impersonations of the eminent actor's. There appear only two arguments which can be brought forward in defence of such a proposition. One is, that it is not the representation of a play which is so objectionable, but the adjuncts of the theatre, and the support which the attendance of respectable people at the theatre gives to those whose moral character is unworthy of it. The other is, that a clergyman should have no time for such amusements; that the indulging in them tends to unfit him for his work; that such amusements are often in their effect contrary to the results at which he should ever be aiming. The former of these arguments will be better dealt

with by and by. But the latter seems to prove too much. Carried out to its logical results, it would assert that a clergyman should not engage in amusement at all; for there seems to be no reason why a play should unfit the clergyman, who likes seeing one, for his work, any more than a visit to the Royal Academy, which is always held to be quite admissible, should hinder the labours of him who is fond of pictures. No doubt there is a party in the Church of England who would like to see the clergy withdrawn from amusement altogether who would prefer that their life should be taken up with saying offices and so forth. All that need be said in reply to that is, that as it takes all sorts to make a world, so it takes all kinds of clergy to make a Church of England. There is no objection to those who prefer saying offices to any other mode of spending their leisure time, so passing it; but they must not try to make their way of carrying out their ordination vows the rule for everybody. If the Church of England is a social institutionif the clergy accordingly have to mix with the laity, it must surely be left to public opinion and the general good sense of the clergy themselves a good sense which we may confidently hope intercourse with the laity will in every way deepen, even if it does not create it,-to prevent either an exaggerated importance being attached to amusements in general, or to particular forms of amusement being indulged to the detriment of the ministry or to the scandal of congregations.

(3.) Our third point is that the theatre exists, and, in all human certainty, will continue to exist. Those who object to the theatre will hardly bring forward any argument to show that the desire for witnessing histrionic performances, or the faculty for producing them, belongs necessarily to a depraved state of society, or to a low ebb of moral sensibility. Such desires and such faculties, however they may be abused and mis

employed, have been shown over and over again to be inherent in human nature. The argument which is usually brought against the theatre is the one which we hinted at above, viz., that its adjuncts are objectionable, and that it directly tends to foster immorality. "We may grant," objectors say, "that a good play well performed is not merely a pleasurable, but a useful thing; but of how many plays now being performed in London could you affirm this character? And your actors and actresses, what kind of people are they? what sort of lives do they lead what is there to encourage them to take a worthy view of their profession, or of life in general? Will you assert that the morals of the most of them will bear looking into? Even if the plays, some them, may be pronounced harmlesseven if those who perform them do not offend decency and outrage morality before the curtain, what takes place behind it, in the green-room? This statement contains two arguments which are worth a little examination-the one that actors are a great deal worse away from, than in the presence of, the public; the other that, whatever the theatre is capable of becoming, in London, at any rate, the stage is in a degraded condition.

of

With regard to the former argument, we may reply that people are too ready tacitly to assume that an actor or a singer belongs to the rag-tag-and-bobtail of society. People, in speaking of such persons, do not always speak that which they know; or, if they do know that which is to the detriment of certain actors, they do not take the trouble to distinguish between individuals, but take for granted that ex uno disce omnes. For example, we have heard some people speak exactly in the same terms of such eminent artists and such worthy members of society as Herr Joachim and Mr. Irving, as we have heard others speak of those public performers whose morals would perhaps not bear a close inspection. As a rule, we may assume that persons

who speak in this sweeping and indiscriminating way, do not know what they are talking about. But if they did, their objections would prove too much. If they say that it is not what takes place on the stage, but what takes place behind it, which makes them shrink from encouraging the theatre, we have a right to reply that they have no right to single out the theatre for attack, and exempt from their diatribe not merely the other artistic professions, but social life in general. If it is not what a man is as you know him, but what he is when you, as it were, don't know him— when he is behind your back-which is to influence you in applauding him or in denouncing him, then where consistently can you draw the line? When you visit the Royal Academy, you should, if you have the courage of your convictions, look into the private life of every one of the artists whose productions decorate its walls, lest unwittingly you be encouraging by your presence and approval a man whose personal life you would feel bound to condemn; nay, further, in society, you should, in all fairness, before you descend from the drawing-room to the dining-room, inquire into the previous history of each one of your neighbours, in order to avoid sitting down with, and thereby recognising, some out rager of morality! The fact is, that we are bound to say of actors and actresses, as we say of our neighbours, that life is too short for rigorous examinations into the past doings of those we casually meet; that so long as we know nothing, we have no right to assume anything; that if people are civil and agreeable, it is our duty to meet them in a like spirit, and to think the best of them. And further: if we are to judge by hearsay of actors and actresses, it is only a foregone conclusion which can make us decide against them; for if we hear one man denounce an actor, another is sure to tell us that he met the reprobated individual abroad, at St. Moritz or at

Mürren, and found him a most agreeable well-informed person.

There is more to be said for the other argument, i.e., that the London stage is in a degraded condition. That, we fear, is an incontrovertible fact, Well, admit that it is; admit that low and vulgar are mild terms to apply to many of the entertainments which are at present popular; admit that the current tendency of the stage, as far as the public is concerned, is to make immorality familiar, and, as far as the theatre itself is concerned, to make, in contradistinction to what has been said above, the institution as it exists in practice the world of employés, of ballet-girls and supers-a perfect sink of iniquity; admit, with Cardinal Manning, that every place of theatrical representation, from the opera house to the penny gaff, is a link in the vast chain of vice with which the world is compassed-and what follows? Surely this-that we are in the presence of a mass of evil towards which it behoves us to bear something else than a mere indifferent attitude. Surely we should either try to accomplish the impossible by suppressing the theatre altogether, or attempt what is more likely to be successful-the reformation of it and its surroundings. But reform can be promoted in only one way, and that is by the agency of public opinion. It can do for the stage what it has done for the gaol and the workhouse. can influence the theatre as it has influenced the drinking customs of the upper classes of society. Public opinion, it is true, will not affect details; and the stage requires particular as well as general improvement. But let public opinion give the impulse, and specific reforms will follow as a matter of course. London there may still be found, we will say, three or four theatres where the plays are unobjectionable. It will be, we think, by the public who care for the theatre giving an honest support to those establishments that something towards the resuscitation

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of the stage and of the actor's profession may be effected. It will be by patronising those houses where the art-if it is not of the best, has at any rate a tendency to become good-it will be by shunning those houses where the staple of the entertainment consists in appeals either to the passions or to the vulgarity of the audience; it will be by extending the right hand of fellowship to those actors and actresses who are truly endeavouring to dignify and elevate their profession, by endeavouring to lead all actors and actresses whatsoever to consider that art consists in something else than in the ability to dance a cancan or to sing a topical song; it will be by these remedies, in conjunction with many others upon which in this paper we are not called upon to touch, that we shall help to place on a proper footing that which must exist, and which must either become better and better, higher and higher; or, on the other hand, worse and worse, lower and lower. And with this principle in view there seems to us to be no reason why clergymen should not attend the theatre. they would not merely speak of the stage as the Bishop of Manchester has done, but take a step which he, apparently, has some reason for not taking -i.e., witness in person the plays they recommend they might, it seems to us, do much not merely to elevate and extend the influence of the stage in this country, but do much to purify public morality, and to put to the blush all that offends against it.

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(4.) For, to come to our last point, necessity is laid upon the clergy to have opinions about such places and the frequenting of them.-We remember once hearing the story of how an excellent clergyman, a High Church man, a member of the council of the English Church Union, was enabled to introduce a reform into a circus which he had visited with his children. He was shocked with the profanity of one of the jokes made by the clown; and after the performance he wrote to the

manager stating what he objected to, and pointing out to him how much exception was taken, owing to practices of this sort, by excellent people to the theatre in general. The manager in reply thanked him cordially for his note, assured him that he had taken care to prevent a repetition of what had been complained of, and ended by saying how much he wished that respectable people would visit the theatre and promote the welfare of such establishments by their comments and suggestions. It seems to us that this story shows clearly how useful it is for the clergy to have an opinion upon the theatre, based upon personal knowledge, for the sake both of those who perform in it and of those who frequent it. There is no saying how much impropriety they might be able to check-how high a standard they might be able to insist on; they cannot tell how far they might be able to strengthen and to assist the weaker consciences of their flock, by being able to speak from experience on such matters,-by letting it be seen that men, whose calling is the most solemn, who have to engage on work the most important and serious which can occupy human beings, can give their attention to that which might at first sight appear to be trivial and beneath their notice, but which, after all, has perhaps the most important influence upon public morality. We remember the present Master of the Temple being severely taken to task in the Guardian for sending his Sunday-school children to a circus which happened to be visiting Doncaster on the occasion of their annual treat. He was able, of course, to take very good care of himself; but not the least important of his remarks, and the one which bears upon our present subject, was this: "That it behoved clergymen, with regard to amusements, to be as diligent in commending what was good as they were in reprobating what was bad." He seemed, in other words, to have said what we are urging here,