CENTENARY OF THE SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY. MONCURE D.CONWAY, MA YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1945 This work is presented to the South Place Ethical Society by the Author CENTENARY HISTORY OF THE SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY mmmmmmm SPB :.. \ t^ — £7. — *K g?^-t— o^2T CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 45 worship of the Father and instruction in the Christian religion to those subsequent modifications which they underwent, in Mr. Fox's time, unchallenged. This of course is of no legal importance at the present time ; but seventy years ago there was no such statute of limitations as that now protecting trusts, and the careful provision of our fathers for future changes of belief proves how deliberately, at a time when Deists were in prison and Unitarians in peril, they planted the taproot of their tree in liberty. All of this is the more remarkable and the more notable because at that time, and for some years later, Mr. Fox himself had not questioned the authority of the Bible. That he was still regarded as a firm believer, even by his most intimate friends, appears by a letter to him written by Sarah Flower, known to the world as Sarah Flower Adams, author of "Vivia Perpetua," and the hymn "Nearer, my God, to Thee." This letter (for which I am in debted to Mr. Fox's daughter, Mrs. E. Bridell Fox) was written from Harlow, November 23, 1827, when Sarah Flower was twenty-two years of age. "You did not ask me to write, and perhaps will be little thankful for what you are like to receive, a regular confession of faith, or rather the want of it, from one whom you little suspect guilty of the heinous sin of unbelief. It reads like half jest: never was I more 46 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY serious. My mind has been wandering a long time, and now it seems to have lost sight of that only invulnerable hold against the assaults of this warring world, a firm belief in the genuineness of the Scriptures. "No, not the only one. I do believe in the existence of an All-wise and Omnipotent Being — and that, involving as it does the conviction that everything is working together for good, brings with it comfort I would not resign for worlds. Still, I would fain go to my Bible as I used to — but I cannot. The cloud has come over me gradually, and I did not discover the darkness in which my soul was shrouded until, in seeking to give light to others, my own gloomy state became too settled to admit of doubt. It was in answering Robert Browning that my mind refused to bring forward argument, turned recreant, and sided with the enemy. And when I went to Norwich [musical festival], oh, how much I lost ! In all the choruses of praise to the Almighty my heart joined, and seemed to lift itself above the world to celebrate the praises of him to whom I owed the bliss of those feelings ; but the rest of the ' Messiah ' dwindled to a mere musical enjoyment; and the consciousness of what it might once have been to me brought the bitterest sensations of sadness, almost remorse. " And now, as I sit and look up to the room in which I first had existence, and think of the mother who gave it, and watch the window of the chamber in which she yielded hers, in death as in life a fervent Christian, that thought links itself with another — how much rather would she I had never been, than to be what I now am. "I have a firm belief in a resurrection — at least I think I have — but my mind is in a sad state ; and before that CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 47 goes, I must endeavour to build up my decaying faith. How is it to be done? I want to read a good eccle siastical history. I dare not apply to papa. I dare not let him have a glimpse at the infatuation that possesses me. Had he been less rigid in his ideas of all kinds of unbelief, it would have been better for me. But I have had no one either to remove or confirm my doubts, and Heaven alone knows what uneasiness they have given me. I would give worlds to be a sincere believer ; to go to my Bible as to a friend in the hour of trouble, feeling that whatever might befall, that would never desert me, and defying the world to rob me of its consolations. " My life has been like a set of gems on a string of gold — a succession of bright and beautiful things without a dark thread to dim their lustre. But it will not be always thus. It is not thus now, and some resources I must have against the evil time which is beginning to set in. The very study will be a delight, even if it has not the desired result. The consciousness that I have not examined as far as in me lies, weighs heavily upon me, and to you I now look to direct my inquiries. 'Tis a bold step, and I wonder how I could bring myself to it. I have often longed to speak to you, but that I could not do. And now, it seems as if I could not bear to speak to any one, but I want quietly to read in my own room. What ? Why any books that you would deem suitable. " I shall soon be at home [in London], and if you will lend them, and let me read them, my mind will, at all events, be relieved from whatever portion of guilt may mingle in its present uneasiness. " I hope this will not worry you. I would not be one .to add to the annoyances that visit you ; but that you 48 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY have a sincere regard for me, I now believe ; and how it is returned let this confidence which you possess, un shared by any one beside, bear testimony. " I long to come home. Harlow is not what it once was, and it has added to the feeling of loneliness which has been coming on. Though I may often be mirthful, I am not always happy. But I am in a sad mood this morning, and to-morrow may be brighter in the heavens and in the heart. So I will not write any more than one thing, and that you know already — that I am yours affectionately, Sally. " Burn, and forget — not me and those books — but the letter and low spirits." Out of such pangs was born the hymn " Nearer, my God, to Thee," sung here for nearly a generation before caught up by the outside world ; the hymn which Christians throughout the world are singing in different tunes, unconscious as yet that it is really a hymn of their pilgrimage from the old faith to the new.* The first draft of it, a beautiful autograph, * The history and adventures of this hymn would make an in teresting monograph. Many curious incidents are connected with it in America, of which I will mention two. In the year of the Centenary of American Independence (1876) I was in America, and occasionally visited evangelical gatherings, observing that their chief inspiration was from this hymn. About that time — perhaps in 1875 — there was a great meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in Washington City, from which the Unitarian minister. Dr. Shippen, was pointedly excluded. At its prayer-meeting, which I attended, there was no fervour at all, until a blind preacher, Rev. Thane Miller, arose, and asked all to join in singing " Nearer, my God, to Thee " — a hymn written by a much *-£^**^- Af^y. 'twill ^ /^C-<_ JU*^L 2*~ A^> /£ /^ >fi /&-r/c&*-^. */£& &<£. *j y^-p «*4~-*« A- CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 49 was exhibited by Mr. Fox's daughter at a recent soirde at South Place. It is written for choral re sponses, Mr. Fox and Eliza Flower having adopted a plan, once suggested by Mrs. Barbauld, of a choral antiphone between the choir and the congregation. Now, the heart of the world is responding ! Were inner history traceable, there might be found in Sarah Flower's touching letter to Mr. Fox, a tributary to the spiritual life and history of our Society. The letter was in advance of his opinions at that date, and what influence may it have had in enlarging those opinions? I have told you of Elhanan Winchester, founder of this Society ; how his hard Calvinism yielded under the touch of a New England maiden, whose name he never knew — one sunbeam from her larger faith — and it may be that more unorthodox person than Dr. Shippen. That excited deep emotion. Mr. J. Ward Diehl, of Watsontown, Pennsylvania, tells in the New York Truth-seeker (August 19, 1893) the following incident of travel on a coach, with eight women and two men : " One woman began a conversation by stating that the little eight-year-old daughter of the Evangelical minister of the town we had just left was to be buried that day ' Last night," began the woman, ' there was not a soul in that minister's parlour, which adjoined the room containing the corpse, and all at once the organ in the parlour began to play, " Nearer, my God, to Thee." This was the favourite piece of the dead child.'" This story, Mr. Diehl adds, was accepted by all on the coach except himself, and that he was looked on as a "monster" because of his evident incredulity. 50 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY the last remnant of Calvinism that clung to this Society, biblical authority, yielded under the English maiden's heartbroken confession. Well named was Sarah Flower. Sweetest flowers have bitter buds. That budding doubt of hers blossomed under her minister's culture to beauty and fragrance, and by the fruit that followed many sad hearts like hers were nourished into strength and joy. Ill In the " Encyclopaedia Britannica" there is an article on Unitarianism in which this chapel is not men tioned, nor Mr. Fox ; yet it was in this chapel that the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was founded, and Mr. Fox was its first Foreign Secretary. The Unitarians, whose earliest congregation was organised (1774) in Essex Street, London, by Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, had afterwards several small associations, the most important being the Unitarian Fund for helping weak societies. When Mr. Fox became minister of this Society it established an Auxiliary Fund, June 29, 18 17; and between that date and 1830 this Society assisted about fifty others, £600 being given in this way. This was in addition to raising ^400 per annum for the minister, and building this chapel, at a cost of £4146 (to which the Unitarian Association contributed £200). It was on Wednesday, May 25, 1825, that the Unitarians, gathered from their various Associations, 52 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY discussed in this chapel, where they usually met (it being the largest) the project submitted by Mr. Fox for union " on a more comprehensive basis." It was agreed to, not without some misgivings, and on the following day, at London Tavern, was organised the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. It is to be feared that Unitarians hardly appreciate the historical significance and honour of that title. Adoption of the word "Foreign," omission of the word "Christian," denoted a new departure in Unitarianism, due not to English but to Indian in fluences. It was preceded by an interesting history. While Mr. Fox and others were in their agonies of revolution against British idolatry, a Hindu, a really great man, Rammohun Roy, was trying to deliver his countrymen from idolatry. Then he helped to liberate us in the West ; and Rammohun Roy was, I believe, really the cause of the organisation of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. Rammohun Roy's movement was of purely Indian origin. A scholar of ancient and high family, and sufficient means, he had good education, and had studied in various oriental regions. He had mastered the Persian language and literature ; learned Sanskrit, and translated select passages from the Vedas ; he had lived among the Moslems and learned Arabic ; having studied Oriental religions, he became a pure CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 53 theist. For this he suffered persecution, and left Calcutta for Benares. In 1803 he began to teach his new views, and established the society which developed into the Brahmo-Somaj. In 181 1 he started the agitation against widow-burning, which mainly by his efforts was abolished eighteen years later. He had studied Hebrew and Greek in order to read the Bible intelligently, and in 1820 published his " Precepts of Jesus." In that year, when he was instructing his Brahmos in Calcutta, a Baptist missionary, who was teaching him Greek — Mr. Adam — tried to convert him to Trinitarianism, but was himself converted to Unitarianism. Some of Rammohun Roy's adherents had started a society in Madras, and it was this Society which put itself in communication with our own. On September 30, 1820, the Parliament Court Society sent five guineas to the native Unitarians of Madras ; and soon after South Place Chapel was opened it sent (Septem ber 12, 1824) twenty pounds to help to build the Anglo-Indian Unitarian Chapel in Calcutta, still, I believe, used by the Brahmo-Somaj. It was these facts, and the Hindu religious poetry translated by Rammohun Roy into English, which awakened Mr. Fox to a recognition of a unity larger than Unitarianism. He startled many prejudices, and had to conquer prejudices about " heathenism," 54 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY before he could obtain an association large enough to include Rammohun Roy. The Hindu teacher really had a nobler religion than any western thinker; indeed, there were then in all the religious world few peers of Rammohun Roy. With him began the reaction of Oriental upon Western thought, which has since been so fruitful. Mr. Fox recognised his Hindu master in the distance, sat in spirit at his feet, and learned how to enlarge his conception of Christianity until it inevitably became to him a universal and human religion. The Unitarians generally, though it may be feared some have rejected the best fruit of that "foreign" seed imported in 1825, rejoiced in its flower. And that flower expanded visibly in this chapel on May 25, 183 1, when the sixth anniversary of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was here held. The Rajah Rammohun Roy him self, now called the " Apostle of the East," had been sent by the Emperor of Delhi as an ambassador to the British Government, and arrived (May 8) just in time to be here on that great occasion. It was a very memorable day in the history of Liberalism. The Rev. Hugh Hutton of Birmingham preached an animated sermon in the morning, on the text (Mark xii. 29-31): "Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel : the Lord CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 55 our God is one Lord ; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this : Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." But in the evening came the great meet ing. The chapel was thronged with eminent men and women. Among those present were the President of Harvard University, Dr. Kirkland, and deputa- tations from France and Transylvania. The Rev. Robert Aspland presided ; Dr. Carpenter, Sir John Bowring, Dr. Kirkland, Dr. Rees, and others made speeches ; and the Rajah spoke impressively. He spoke of the opposition he had met in India from Christians : " They always lay a stress on mystery and mystical points, which serve to delude their followers ; and the consequence is that we meet with such opposition in India that our progress is very slight." All were charmed by the noble presence of the Hindu teacher. The great speech of the occasion was of course by Mr. Fox. His immediate plea was for the establishment of unsectarian Domestic Missions in England to improve "the temporal and spiritual condition" of the people, and " illustrate their religion by deeds of love and mercy " ; a scheme much opposed pre- 56 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY viously, but recognised in the presence of a Hindu whose greatness seemed to show that foreign missionaries might well be recalled for home work. In the conclusion Mr. Fox greeted the visitors — Frenchmen, Transylvanians, and the Americans successively ; then, turning to the Rajah, he said : " And when our oriental friend shall return, if return he must (long be it delayed !), to his native regions, may he have to report that Europe is not only as supreme as he esteems it in sciences, arts, and arms, but is beginning to aspire to a supremacy in benevolence, which shall annihilate all other supremacies, and even in the end its own, by assimilating and exalting human feeling and human character in all the regions of the world. The Rajah remarked to me the other day, with somewhat of an indignant feeling, that he had been shown a painting of Jesus Christ, and that the painter was false, for he had given him the pale European countenance, not remem bering that Jesus Christ was an oriental. The criticism was just. Those theologians have painted falsely, too, who have portrayed Christianity as a cold intellectual religion, and not given it that rich oriental colouring of fancy and of feeling with which the Scriptures glow, and by which they possess themselves, not only of the mind, but the heart and soul of man. Oh, thus may our religion appear, creating the whole human race anew in the image of their Creator ! " Thus Mr. Fox led the way not only towards humanising Unitarianism, by associating it with the CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 57 Hindu movement, but also by making it a philan thropy. This Society had long been liberal and active in charitable work. It annually gave from £S° t(> £^o to the poor. There had been founded by the Society in 18 15 an " Infants' Friend Society," for the relief of "new-born infants and their mothers." This was reconstituted in 1830, and placed under the management of eighteen ladies of the congregation. This philanthropy is the more interesting because it does not appear that at any time the chapel was frequented by the so-called working class, not even during the Reform Bill agitation, when Mr. Fox was their orator in open-air meetings, and while he was a leader in the Corn Law agitation. The chapel was mainly carried on by middle-class people, and for a long time a shilling entrance fee was paid by those who had not seats. Thomas Carlyle told me of his coming to hear Mr. Fox. His eloquence, said Carlyle, was like opening a window through London fog into the blue sky. " But," he added, " I went away feeling that Fox had been summoning those people to sit in judgment on matters of which they were no judges at all." I assured Carlyle that therein he was mistaken ; Mr. Fox was teaching the teachers, men and women who, or many of them, were centres of influence in 58 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY their several spheres. And among those whose youth was largely influenced by Mr. Fox a consider able number, some of them still living, did, or are doing, noble service for every human cause — men like John Stuart Mill; Peter Alfred Taylor, the brave commoner ; Mrs. Frank Malleson, who founded the Working-women's College ; reformers like Slack, Saul, Whitehead, Macmorran, Holyoake, Ashurst, Dixon, Collet, Ryall, Braham, Johnson, Marsden, Raftery, Cunnington, Levey, Walters and Ragg ; and families whose names rank high in the annals of this city — as the Waterlows, Hicksons, Lyons, Taylors, Courtaulds. I name some whom I have always asso ciated with Mr. Fox's ministry. You will recall others. I have recently received a letter from an old officer of the Mint, Joseph Newton, who tells me that in the later years of Mr. Fox's life he once found him sitting in the transept of the Crystal Palace, and approached him, and told him that his whole life had been influenced by his discourses. The conversation was almost affectionate, the parting affecting. And how many venerable men are there who cherish memories like these ? And not alone in this country. I remember well some dark days in my own ministry at Washington, when many friends were leaving me (1856) because I had arraigned the great national wrong — Slavery. I lost my pulpit, but among those CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 59 who stood by me were some who had learned the principles of liberty and justice within these walls. And when, later, at Cincinnati, I was losing friends for some discourses against supernaturalism, several of those who befriended me were men whose fetters had fallen under the voice of Mr. Fox. I have known in America others who were trained by Mr. Fox, and I never knew one who faltered in any cause involving human freedom or intellectual liberty. On that great day when Rammohun Roy was welcomed by the British and Foreign Unitarian Association in this chapel — I may almost call it the pentecostal day of Liberalism — a young lady entered with Mr. and Mrs. Fox, and sat in their pew near the pulpit. And here for the first time she heard her name pronounced in public. The British and Foreign Unitarian Association had offered three prizes for essays on the means of diffusing their faith among Jews, Moslems, and Catholics. It was now announced that all three prizes were awarded to Harriet Martineau. She was the young lady who sat beside Mrs. Fox, until that moment ignorant of her success. Harriet Martineau was then under thirty, and though she had written industriously, was little known to the world. But Mr. Fox had recognised her powers five years before, had brought her from Norwich, paid her for articles, introduced 60 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY her to the Mills and other literary people. She says that, next to the assistance of her brother James, that of Mr. Fox was " the occasion, and in great measure the cause, of the greatest intellectual progress I ever made before thirty." From that day, when her name and success were announced to the Unitarians assembled in this place, Harriet Martineau's literary position was assured. This became the home of her soul. And when, on October 13, 1833, a memorial service was here held for the Rajah Rammohun Roy, who had suddenly died at Bristol, Harriet Martineau wrote a hymn for the occasion, which was sung at the close to music composed by Eliza Flower — the first original com positions ever sung here : " No faithless tears, O God, we shed For him who to Thine altars led ; A swallow from a distant clime, Found rest beneath the cherubim. In Thee he rests from toil and pain : O, Father, hear our true Amen ! " No faithless tears ! Led forth by Thee, Meek pilgrim to the sepulchre, For him Thy truth from day to day Sprang up, and blossomed by the way. Shalt Thou not claim Thine own again ? O, bend to hear our deep Amen ! CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 61 " No faithless tears ! Though many dream To see His face by Ganges' stream ; Though thousands wait on many a shore, The voice that shall be heard no more ; O, breathe Thy peace amid their pain, And hear Thy children's loud Amen ! " Rammohun Roy desired to have written on his tomb the line of a Persian poet : "The true way of serving God is to do good to man." In his funeral discourse Mr. Fox asked all to adopt that as the rule of their own conduct. To it he dedicated him self ; and from that time he more and more abandoned Christian legends, and steadily advanced towards the fervent and catholic Theism of which he became a foremost English apostle. The word "catholic" is especially descriptive of his religious sentiment in maturer life. The controversial tone of Mr. Fox, while emancipating himself and his Society from the Calvinistic dogmas and puritanical "survivals," made way for a poetic catholicity which regarded all the religions of the world as phases of a divine education of the race. He loved and often selected for the choir Pope's Universal Prayer : " Father of all, in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." 62 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY In 1829, when many Dissenters were petitioning Parliament against Catholic emancipation, Mr. Fox and his Society acquired honourable eminence by their exertions for that measure of justice to oppo nents. In the beginning of that year the Society passed a resolution : "That the Committee be instructed to take such measures as may appear to them necessary towards obtaining a repeal of all penal statutes affecting religious opinions, and more especially those affecting our Roman Catholic brethren." The same year witnessed Catholic emancipation, but left twelve Deists in prison. This persecution may have led Mr. Fox to examine more closely the religion of Deists. After the Catholic emancipation he became interested in the question of the civil disabilities of the Jews, and commenting on some utterances of the Bishop of Hereford on that subject {1834), he wrote : " If this be the figure under which Christianity is to continue to be exhibited by its recognised leaders, there needs no prophet to predict that, as the religion of the people of this country, it will not last two more generations." But at this time he felt an increasing repugnance to the Deity of the Old Testament.* He had probably been re- * " I once sat down to make a list of all the very words of the Deity that I could find recorded in the Scriptures. It began CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 63 reading Thomas Paine when in an article on Cob- bett (Monthly Repository, 1835, p. 486) he wrote : " He has been very absurdly compared with Paine, whom he excelled as much in fertility of popular illus tration as he fell short of him in the faculty of general ising, and in the condensed, yet imaginative expression of abstract principles. Paine's merits as a writer are scarcely yet appreciated ; those of Cobbett render them selves felt instantly." The name of Paine was especially odious to many Unitarians, accused of being in the "half-way house to Paine," and Mr Fox's remark is significant. But in that same year, 1835, he is found speaking tenderly of Roman Catholic superstition. The pas sage referred to is in a discourse on "The Moral Omnipresence of God," the manuscript of which was presented to me by a lady of this Society many years ago.* I give the extract, which illustrates not grandly; ¦ God said. Let there be Light, and there was Light.' But it soon got entangled in such personal, local, jejune, and questionable matters, that I gave up the attempt, stopped short in the list, and arrived at the conviction that there was more of the wisdom of God in the words of the man Christ Jesus than in all the recorded declarations of the Jewish Jehovah." — From the Discourse on the 25th Anniversary, 1842. * After his fortieth year Mr. Fox never read sermons. His preparation was in shorthand notes, and he sometimes had books beside him from which to read extracts. The published discourses were written out from his shorthand notes by Eliza Flower ; but that in my possession seems to be in his own hand- 64 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY only the catholicity referred to, but the style of preach ing which, with the " lute-like voice " remembered by Holyoake and the eloquence described by Hazlitt, charmed his generally cultured audiences : " It was only a few days ago that I was witness to the adoration of a mere bit of wood. It was at the feast of the raising of the Cross, which is celebrated at this season in Catholic countries. I saw this bit of wood, enshrined in gold, carried along by the priests in their flowing robes ; and in the countenances of the kneeling multitude there was an expression of the most fervent devotion and gratitude, which was well worthy of remark ; but not merely on account of the striking fact, that an implement, disgraceful as the gallows — indeed, far more so, for no free man was crucified, whatever his crime might be — should by a strong association with a striking instance of moral heroism, become an object of reverence. Far more than this : there was the germ of all that is lovely, good, and noble in feeling. The people felt that sympathy with suffering greatness which made the tears run down their cheeks ; and then they sympathised with writing, though smaller than usual, and of extreme nicety. The title is on a separate page, and beneath it is a verse which, in his collection, is added to L. E. L.'s hymn, " The Presence of Per petual Change," etc. : " In all changes brighter things And better have their birth ; The presence of perpetual love Is ever on the earth." On the last page is copied Mrs. Adams' hymn, "O Love! thou makest all things even. ' CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 65 the glorious triumph over the powers of evil. And what is this but the greatest and purest emotion — that which shall at some future time, in this life or the next, become the realisation of the moral omnipresence of God in all that fulness of glory which the lofty imagination ascribes to the Eternal Spirit? And we may trace the moral presence of God in fanaticism as well as in superstition. If we see a man with his whole attention fixed upon a single verse of the Scripture (one of those who, believing in plenary inspiration, think every sentence contains infi nite truth) — fixed upon this from day to day, from hour to hour, concentrating all his powers and knowledge to its elucidation, compressing and squeezing out of it, as it were, every particle of truth it may contain, fixing his mind on it till every jot is rooted in his soul : though all this is the result of a grievous error, one tending to form creeds for the mind which more than all crush and Oppress the soul : still, I pity the man who does not see in this intelligence, thus strongly called forth to activity, that which will outrun its text, break down its dungeon walls, and having disposed of its mistakes, will stand forth and proclaim to the nations, Behold your God ! " The Cross has given more than two hundred words of varied meanings to our language, but no interpretation more transcendant than that which Mr. Fox's quick sympathies derived from the devout tears of kneeling Catholics, who would have regarded him as an agent of Antichrist. The phrase, "outrun his text," probably had a special meaning for Mr. Fox's audience. He had 66 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY recently been " outrunning his texts." Perhaps it was under an influence left by Rammohun Roy that Mr., Fox recognised some sectarian narrowness in raising the Scripture of one religion authentically above those of all others. He kept a book in which were copied passages suitable for his lectionary, mainly from classical authors, but including a few oriental extracts translated by Rammohun Roy. The dis course from which I have just read is the earliest I have found without any Scripture text. I also re mark in this discourse a consideration even for atheists. Having opened with a theistic argument, he adds : " Those who aspire after truth must be careful not to impose on themselves by words, and the theist must be equally careful with the atheist, and in his horror of atheism should remember that belief is as solemn a thing as unbelief. On a subject so vast, that we feel as if the powers of our mind would sink under it, the wisest sayings are but children's bubbles ; and in dealing with the Infinite we should keep in mind that we are but the creatures of yesterday ; and that it therefore becomes us to show humility and diffidence with regard to belief in as well as disbelief of an Almighty Ruler of the Universe." That is the highest watermark ever reached by any Liberalism claiming the Christian name. And it is the more worthy of homage because Mr. Fox CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 67 never had a doubt of the existence of a Deity in his life.* It was a harder matter to be magnanimous to the English Church. The atheists had hardly yet shown their head, the deists were in prison, the Catholics and Jews were under popular odium ; but the English Church was powerful, arrogant, and oppres sive. And yet the great-hearted and clear-headed Mr. Fox was equal to this also. In lately advocating reform of the Church instead of disestablishment, I was not aware that Mr. Fox had to a considerable extent been before me by sixty years. At the close of 1833, reviewing in his Monthly Repository a pamphlet advocating indis criminate disestablishment and disendowment, he * In the London Times, November 29, 1833, a paragraph appeared, headed "Hissing an Atheist." Mr. Julian Hibbert, called as a witness before Alderman Browne, stated, when the Bible was presented, that he was an atheist. He was insulted by the attorney, Charles Phillips, and hissed by the people present, the jury joining, and Alderman Browne expressed satis faction in this display of religious sentiment. On this, Mr. Fox wrote [Monthly Repository, January 1834) an admirable rebuke of the alderman and the attorney. " A man," he said, "professing to be an atheist may nevertheless be a moral man, as far as regards his social duties ; and if he be a punctilious man in regard to truth — which declaring his belief in opposition to public obloquy is mostly a proof of— it is utterly absurd and mis chievous to incapacitate him from giving his evidence in a court of law." 68 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY described such a scheme as " penny-wise and pound- foolish," adding : " What is called Church property is in fact a public trust of property, assigned in perpetuity for a particular purpose, the spiritual and moral culture of the people. " The community would be little benefited by its being seized and thrown into that great quagmire, the National Debt. Still less is there occasion to make a present of the tithes to the landlords. The best thing would be for the property to remain intact ; commuting the tithes for land, or land's worth in money ; and for the nation to reap the benefit of its original appropriation, that appro priation being interpreted in accordance with the know ledge which mankind have gained since the endowments were founded. The donors thought that the essence of moral and spiritual culture was in the rites and ordi nances of the Romish Church. It was long ago disco vered that they were mistaken ; and that the funds which they left were properly applied to the purer and ampler instruction of the Episcopal Church. Very well ; the people are ripe for and need a more pure and ample instruction still. The Church of England is in the same predicament now as the Church of Rome was three centuries ago. Then, the old mass and the mysteries would not do any longer. They were found insufficient. And the services and sermons of the clergy are found insufficient now, and they will not do any longer. We want something more and better for the money ; and the nation has a right to the most and the best which that money will procure. Not only religion of so compre hensive a form that few will dissent from it, or so varied CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 69 that almost all might join in that which they preferred ; but education also — a thorough education for the entire population, the apparatus of scientific experiments, lectures on all topics which can be illustrated by lectur ing, institutes and libraries ; in short, the complete mental culture of the people might be provided for out of what is called Church property, and would be the enlightened direction of that property towards the end which the founders contemplated in their blind and superstitious way. This would surely be much better than breaking up the Establishment, and allowing all the world to scramble for the spoils. Instead of putting up the cathedrals and churches to public auction, as our author proposes, we would keep them in good repair, let all denominations share with the Episcopal in the use of them on Sunday, under such regulations as time and locality [I would add competency and culture] require ; and in them, and in the chapels which would thus be vacated, there would be noble accommodation through the week for the lecturer, the schoolmaster, artistical exhibitions, and social meetings.'' These principles were perfectly consistent with the persistent protest made by Mr. Fox against the practical union of Church and State then existing.* * In 1837 Mr. Fox's discourse on this subject was published and sold in aid of Mr. Burden and the Braintree parishioners for losses consequent on refusal to pay Church rates. Thirty years later, a, discourse of mine was inspired by the imprisonment of James Grant, then of Kettleburgh, Suffolk, head of a family long connected with this chapel, for refusing to pay the Church rate. Our friend Mr. Grant was imprisoned in White Cross 70 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY In 1833 he gave six lectures "On Church Reform, considered as a national and not a sectarian object " ; and on Sunday, March 9, 1834, the South Place Society adopted and signed a petition which was presented to Parliament by Joseph Hume. In this it is said : "Your petitioners are earnestly desirous of such amendments in the existing laws as shall secure the public benefit of a correct registration of births, mar riages, and deaths; allow the marriage contract to be entered into without submission to a prescribed religious ceremony ; prohibit any restriction of the advantages and honours of the universities by the imposition of a theological test; and exonerate all classes from com pulsory payments towards the support of a Church from which they dissent : but that your petitioners regard these and many other evils which might be enumerated, as merely emanations from one great practical grievance, namely, the alliance of a Church with the State, so that while one sect is established, all others are only tolerated, and their members are, by the very fact of this legal partiality, subjected to insult, injury, and degradation." The petitioners further, in well-weighed words, " disclaim any hostility to the Episcopal Church in its spiritual capacity," desire from the funds "due Street, March 1867, for six months, and soon after release was present in the House of Commons at the passing of the Church Rates Abolition Bill (1868). He was the last person who suffered for Church rates. CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 71 provision for their present recipients," and applica tion of the residue to such national education as would fulfil the real intent of the endowments. Parliament has responded to this South Place petition. Every particular grievance it pointed out has been removed. That those grievances were not, as our fathers believed, emanations from the allfance of Church and State, is proved by the fact that the alliance survives their removal. That evils still accompany that alliance is certain, but the experience of this Society may render us doubtful whether such remaining evils are necessary " eman ations " of the alliance ; and if in sixty years every oppression enumerated has been redressed, we may feel encouraged to hope that reforming earnestness equal to that of our predecessors may remove the obstructions that prevent the free and full entrance of the highest genius and learning of England into its Church, and the utilisation of that mighty engine for the culture and elevation of the whole nation. Mr. Fox was an uncompromising Radical in opposing any particular wrong — like slavery, or the Corn Law ; but when it came to constitutional changes he could never be harnessed by any party. He thought for himself. Thus he admired Roebuck, but would not follow him in his scheme for an elective House of Lords. With the same wisdom 72 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY that characterised his plan of Church Reform, he would reform the House of Lords by relieving it of legislative functions ; he would allow it to return a measure to the House of Commons with objections ; but if the Commons then passed it, the measure would become law. I must, however, resist the temptation to follow Mr. Fox as a political orator — an orator under whose voice, as I heard Mr. Froude say, the masses bent as forests beneath the storm ; whose eloquence however, was not stormy, not the mere militant blast that overthrows Jerichos, but rather the Orphic strain that builds the many-gated walls of civilisa tion. Nor can I now estimate the literary career of Mr. Fox. The man who helped Mill and Dr. Brabant to found the Westminster Review, and wrote its first article ; who drew around him a fine literary circle — Hazlitt, Thomas Campbell, J. S. Mill, Douglas Jerrold, Leigh Hunt, Talfourd, Pemberton, Home, John Forster, Crabbe Robinson, Browning, Mac- ready, Helen Faucit, the Novellos, Hennells, Bra- bants, Brays, Adamses, Howitts, Cowden Clarkes, and many literary pilgrims from America and other foreign lands; who gave the first welcome to the Martineaus;* who first recognised the genius of * The Rev. James Martineau, a fellow-citizen of Norwich, was in intimate relations with Mr. Fox, who, in the spring of 1831, CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 73 Tennyson, and over Robert Browning's youthful work cried Eureka 1 who was Macready's right-hand man in elevating the British stage — such a writer requires studies more extended than are possible here. The Memorial edition of his works is in twelve volumes, but twice as many would hardly contain his valuable writings. In the Monthly Repository — to which he contributed for many years, and edited from 1831 to 1836, writing many of the articles — you will find a better history than anywhere else of the progress of English thought and reform during the first twenty years of this chapel. And in that progress this Society was ever in visited him in Dublin, and preached before a newly formed Unitarian Association there. A pleasant incident of that visit was Mr. Fox's ¦• dedication " of Dr. Martineau's eldest son, Russell, now the distinguished Hebraist of the British Museum. In October 1831 Dr. Martineau was invited to succeed the Rev. P. Taylor, deceased, whose assistant he had been in the Eustace Street Chapel, Dublin, but was unwilling to participate in the Regium Donum — about /i6,ooo — distributed by the State to the Presbyterian Churches. Martineau's admirable letter of resig nation (reluctantly accepted, November 13, 1831) was published by Mr. Fox in the Monthly Repository of the following month. In that month Martineau visited Fox at Dalston, and preached for him at South Place. He was urged by Fox to settle in London, with the Stamford Street Congregation (where an invitation was probable), and take charge of the newly established ministry to the poor, then awaiting a responsible head. The invitation to Hope Street, Liverpool, prevailed, however. Martineau was a contributor to the Monthly Repository while it was> under the edi torial care of Fox. 74 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY the vanguard. It was among the first to petition against the wrongs of deists, against the death- penalty for theft, against the oppression of woman, and to insist on national schools for both sexes. At a dinner of the Society at the London Tavern, February 6, 1833, the chairman, Mr. Fox, who had the poet Campbell at his side, and other literary men around him, in proposing the toast " Civil and Religious Liberty," said in the course of his speech : " I look back with interest to the varying circumstances under which I have, from time to time during the last sixteen or seventeen years, proposed this toast. It has always hitherto had in our minds reference to some particular subject, which then was uppermost in our attention. Shortly after I came amongst you it bore in my ideas upon the endeavours which I was then making, and in which you materially strengthened my hands, to put an end to the prosecutions then prevalent against those who were not believers in Christianity. It was at that time that the celebrated prosecutions against Mr. Carlile and others were instituted. You then petitioned as Christians for those who professed their disbelief in, and hostility to, Christianity, and that the name of your religion might not be stained by oppression for religion's sake. Herein you acted up to your principles, and your efforts have not been thrown away ; for if the Legislature has not altogether recognised the great principle which is the subject of our toast, such prosecutions have become less frequent, and have emanated, I believe in all cases, from private individuals, against the inclination of the CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 75 public authorities, and the sentences consequent upon them have been much less vindictive. After this time, about the year 1819, our views were directed by this toast to Parliamentary Reform, not under the aspect it has lately assumed ; but as it appeared to us at the period when, by the Manchester Massacre and the atrocious Six Acts, it was attempted to silence the free expression of public discontent. A year or two more recently, this sentiment associated itself in our minds with sympathy for an oppressed woman (Queen Caroline). For one year at least we gave a magnificent testimony of that feeling by omitting the King's name from our list of toasts, to show that we would vindicate the rights of humanity, not only when any great public interest was at stake, but in what ever quarter they were insulted and outraged. After wards our toast referred more especially to the Catholic question, and it is with pleasure I remember how you uniformly refused to ask for your own rights individually, but would only claim them as linked with the rights of all who were persecuted for conscience sake. The times have now changed. This sentiment is not now, as heretofore, connected with any peculiar topic; it now associates itself with all the great questions to which the attention of the world is directed — it is now linked with every improvement, ecclesiastical and legislative — with every right that can conduce to that full measure of enjoyment which it is the design of our great Creator that man should possess upon earth. Our sympathies are now bestowed upon every country which is combating for its rights, and endeavouring to maintain the position which man ought to hold. We have sympathised with our friends in France in shaking off the yoke of a 76 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY monarch who ought no longer to reign over them. We are not, like the Edinburgh Reviewers, sick of hearing of America as connected with civil and religious institutions. You well remember how often her sons have mixed with us at these social meetings, and how often we have found delight in contemplating that noble country, with her broad rivers, her rich and yet uncultivated plains, her cities ever and anon springing up in her desert wilds — with the horn of plenty in her hand, and the olive of peace on her brow, and crown and mitres under her feet. With feelings the most expansive to all our fellow- creatures, and the most firm as regards our own prin ciples, let us drink, ' Civil and Religious Liberty all the world over ! ' " No man greatly moves men by his doubts, but by his convictions. Mr. Fox was not a sceptical man ; he was a great believer. His emancipation from Calvinism was due to his great belief in the justice of God, and the unbelief of Calvinism in that jus tice. His further progress was due to mental fairness, incapable of maintaining a prejudice against evidence. But his ultimate attainment of his own real faith was due to a combination of inner and outer causes. He kept himself in healthy and genuine relation with the world by discarding the ministerial garb and airs. He cleared his mind of cant. In 1833 he ceased to administer the sacra ments, and the trustees of Dr. Williams' Trust took back the communion plate they had lent to South CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 77 Place. Men who give others their own flesh and blood to eat, and the recipients of such communion, find sacraments turned into fossils — not bread, but stone. He desired to preserve the sentiment of old observances ; for christening, he substituted " dedi cation," and for the communion proposed a friendly supper. In 1831 he purchased the Monthly Re pository, the Unitarian organ, and took " Theology " out of its title, and took it largely also out of its con tents. He had long contributed to this magazine, and in a remarkable series of anonymous articles, in 1830, had startled the Liberals with new ideas of religious comprehensiveness : " There is nothing in the universe which is not strictly religious. Whatever isolates itself is superstition. All sciences are doctrine ; all industry is worship ; all laws of matter and of mind are God's will ; all revelations of those laws are God's works ; all devotion, goodness, and happiness have their best and broadest basis in the truth, that of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things." * After he became editor he made good these ideas, and with the assistance of John Stuart Mill (" Antiquus"), Crabbe Robinson (who wrote about Goethe), Pemberton ("Pel Verjuice"), William * Ebion Adamson's conversation with his friends, Barnabas, Elhanan, Philo, Caleb, Theophilus (1830). 78 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY Brydges Adams ("Junius Redivivus "), Harriet Mar tineau, and Sarah Flower ("S. Y."), who wrote charming prose articles — among others, a tale called "The Actress" (1835) — he made the magazine brilliant ; and it is, I repeat, the periodical best worthy of reference to any one who would study the intellectual progress of England sixty years ago. He ceased also, as we have seen, to confine himself to Scripture lessons. Mr. Joseph Newton tells me of a discourse contrasting the cosmogony of Genesis with the revelations of geology, at the end of which, Mr. Fox, closing the Bible, laid a hand on either cover, and said : " Ah, my friends, do not let the range of your intellect be limited by the mechanical art of a bookbinder." Soon after, Sarah Flower's wonderful letter began that release, and Rammohun Roy helped to complete it. Harriet Martineau may have drawn his interest more towards large social, economic, and human ques tions, before which the petty issues of theology shrivelled. While the intellectual women by whom he was surrounded stimulated his zeal in behalf of the educational and other rights of women, the subject of marriage and divorce was pressed upon his attention by his own domestic unhappiness, which ultimately led to his living apart from his wife. On this question he held views now recog- CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 79 nised by civilised laws, but then regarded by most people as immoral. Mr. Fox had dragged his denomination along. He states that there were attempts to neutralise his opposition to " infidel " persecutions, to his advocacy of Hindu missions, to his proposed domestic ministry for the poor, and to his liberation of the Monthly Repository from all sectarian character.* He was finally liberated from the sect by a tempest which, though personally painful, was really the means of giving this Society the independent position which it has since occupied. Into the details of that turmoil there is no need to go. The charges made against him speedily cleared away : Mr. Fox and his wife came together again in later life. But were I a believer in providences, I would regard that tempest, in which accumulated sectarian animosities against the leader found opportunity to spend their force, as a special providence. It not only detached this Society from all sectarian connections, but gave it the momentous instruction that it had a mission of ethical liberation equally important with its re ligious liberation. This Mr. Fox recognised. He had placed his resignation in the hands of the Society ; after due investigation, its withdrawal was requested; and in withdrawing his resignation * See Monthly Repository for 1833, p. 348. 80 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY (September 22, 1834), Mr. Fox, after expressing views of marriage now almost universal, added : " When, more than seventeen years ago, I became the minister at Parliament Court Chapel, where this con gregation then assembled, the only confession of faith which was received or required from me was a declaration of belief in the duty of free inquiry and the rights of Religious Liberty. That declaration ought not to be restricted to the investigation and profession of theological doctrine. Pulpit instruction, to attain any power of usefulness, must extend to topics of far greater practical importance than the articles of any creed. We must carry into moral speculation, into civil and political life, into the investigation of institutions and manners, the same fearlessness and frankness, and the same reference to great principles and ultimate purposes, that are requisite in theology, even though they entail a repetition with aggravations of the same results, in the imputation of bad motives or bad tendencies, the aspersion of character or conduct, and the interruption of that peace which is never advantageously preserved when it obstructs freedom of thought and speech, the promulgation of truth, and the progress of individual or social reformation." Mr. Fox then lost the old Presbyterian wing of the Society, but it was only a small wing, albeit heavy ; he gained in its place a wing related to his genius. Robert Browning told me that Mr. Fox was a man of both genius and talent. " He used sometimes, too, to put out his talent to work for CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 81 him." I think the minister used to compensate his unprogressive wing with his talent for lifting the progressives by his genius. But after the secession his genius found a more sustaining atmosphere. In his admirable seven lectures in 1835, on "Morality as modified by the various classes into which Society is divided," new powers are found unfolded. He is less scriptural, more secular, more imaginative, more resolute. One after another his beautiful hymns were written ; when they began to be sung I know not, but in 1841 the first part, and in 1842 the second, of his " Hymns and Anthems " took their place, and the old Aspland Hymn-book was gradually superseded. Thus, amid pangs, came the new birth of our Society, which gave joy to its festival of 1842, the twenty-fifth year of Mr. Fox's settlement with it. On this their silver-wedding the Society, along with gifts, presented an address, in which they said : " When juster views shall prevail of the duty of man to God, and of man to man ; when wiser estimates shall be formed of life and of death ; when in public the welfare of the human family shall take precedence of class legisla tion ; and in religion, bigotry and intolerance shall give place to charity and love — then will be found foremost in the records of the wise and great, by whom those blessings have been wrought, the name of William John son Fox."- IV In 1836 Mr. Fox had to economise his strength ; he gave up the Monthly Repository to Richard Henry Home in July (from whom in the year following it passed to Leigh Hunt). From this time the Sunday evening discourses were more frequently delivered by others; and on February 27, 1840, Rev. Philip Harwood, who had been occasionally heard, was invited to become Mr. Fox's coadjutor. Mr. Harwood, previously Unitarian minister at Bridport, had gained reputation by a sermon in Edinburgh, in which he rationalised St. Paul's conversion, causing his exclusion from St. Mark's pulpit in that city.* He was naturally invited here, and began with startling discourses on Strauss' "Leben Jesu." That famous work was not yet translated, and Harwood's discourses, which were published, first awakened * This caused a secession, and formation of the short-lived Clyde Street Society (1839). Mr. Fox had (1823) dedicated the Young Street Society, which in 1835 built St. Mark's. CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 83 public interest in it. It is a fact characteristic of Mr. Fox's method, that though he had really taken away the basis of supernaturalism, the superstruc ture only began to tumble palpably under Harwood, whose heresy Fox had to defend. Relief from evening discourses rendered Mr. Fox's morning efforts the more effective. My friend, Mr. J. A. Lyon, remembers Mr. Harwood as "a very quiet, sedate preacher, pleasant to listen to, but not such as would induce me to come from a distance to hear him." He did not remain long, though he parted with the Society pleasantly, and for some time attended its dinners. He resigned the pulpit on September 23, 1841, having been engaged by the Philosophical Institution in Beaumont Square. But young Mr. Beaumont, not liking Harwood's theology, removed him, and he went into journalism. He ultimately became editor of the Saturday Review, and I believe held that position at the time of his death in 1887. Few, probably, in his later years recognised in the able editor, Philip Harwood, the heresiarch of 1840, who made even South Place shudder by his studies in Christian mythology. It was his six revolutionary discourses which set Miss Brabant to the task of translating Strauss' "Life of Jesus," a work which, on her betrothal with the author Charles Hennell (1843), sne gave over 84 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY to her friend Marian Evans (George Eliot), in whose name, by her insistence, it appeared.* In 1842, on Easter Sunday, came the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr. Fox's settlement with the Society. The Committee prepared an address, already quoted, which was, I believe, written by John Forster, and finely engrossed. A well-filled purse was also pre sented. In his discourse on this occasion, shown me in manuscript by his daughter, Mr. Fox reviewed the history of the Society in his time, and dwelt on its reiterated affirmation of the one confession of faith with which he entered their service : " I believe in the duty of free inquiry, and in the right of religious liberty." " The Society has continued to act in the spirit of the language thus employed .... And what is the Christian religion, as professed by this congregation, but the religion which has for its great and vital principle the duty of free inquiry, and the right of religious liberty ? That is our Christianity. If Christianity be not that ; if Christianity be at war with that ; why the sooner we renounce it the better. But if this be Christianity, the * Dr. Brabant, of Bath, whom I knew, gave /800 to found the Westminster Review. He was a personal friend of Strauss, and gave me an introduction to him. His daughter, whose second husband was the poet, W. M. W. Call (who wrote some of our most beautiful hymns), is still living. She translated Bauer's " Theology of the Old Testament," and a considerable portion of the " Leben Jesu." CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 85 longer and the more steadfastly we cling to it the better. Nine years after the date of the Trust Deed (1825), the interposition of some persons between me and the con gregation — an interposition which the congregation appeared neither to require nor to relish — led to my announcing my purpose of retiring from my connection with it. That was prevented by a resolution of the congregation, and on this renewal of the relations sub sisting between us, I again adverted to the original Confession of Faith on which that relation was formed. From that time to the present eight more years have passed, thus completing a quarter of a century since I first announced and formed the connection that has subsisted on the basis of that great principle. Twenty- five years ! with all their changes — and they have seen some changes in the great world. Three of our monarchs since that time have passed to their tombs, and we are under the reign of a Queen who was not then born." This re-assertion of the principle of liberty was probably elicited by the excitement caused by the discussion of supernaturalism, inspired by Strauss, begun by Mr. Harwood, and elaborated by Mr. Fox. He reminded his congregation of the labours and responsibilities of those who undertook to question and refute accepted opinions : " And none, perhaps, but those who have actually gone through it, can well realise to themselves how much it involves — how much of patient toil ; what diversified investigation ; what sore struggles between old and new $6 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY investigations; between religious influences of different and conflicting kinds — all aggravated, perhaps, by ex ternal circumstances, by the censure of some and the alienation of others." He reminded them of the fidelity of Winchester and Vidler, and said : "We may as well stop at the first step, as stop anywhere. A right of inquiry which is bounded, is not a right worthy of a rational creature." The few members lost by these new advances in rationalism were of slight importance, compared with the increasing hold which South Place was gaining on educated youth. Our friend Mr. Robin Allen, one of those youths, interested himself to obtain a further testimonial for Mr. Fox, and it resulted in the presentation of a silver vase on Sunday, February 19, 1843, in the chapel. About the same time the ladies expressed their affection and gratitude to Miss Eliza Flower by pre senting her with an alabaster vase, which is now a cherished ornament in the home of our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Henry J. Slack. I may mention, too, as an indication of progress, that at the great banquet in the London Bridge Hotel in celebration of the twenty- fifth anniversary, where nearly four hundred sat down, ladies, formerly admitted only to the gallery, sat at the table. It seems curious that the public- dinner conservatism, outlasting all other, should CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 87 have prevailed so long in a society which owed so much to women.* To two women — Eliza and Sarah Flower — the Society owes a debt second only to that due to the eloquence of Mr. Fox. They were the daughters of the famous editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, Benjamin Flower, who, for criticising the Bishop of Llandaff in his paper, was sent to prison. In prison he was visited by a sympathetic lady, whom, on release, he married. From such parentage, and with such traditions of radicalism, came Eliza and Sarah Flower, aged respectively twenty-four and twenty- six when their widowed father died (1829), leaving them to the guardianship of Mr. Fox. They were lovely, refined, cultured ; their home at Dalston, nearly opposite that of Mr. Fox, was frequented by literary and musical people, t I have already quoted Sarah's * The annual dinner, when I became connected with the Society, was mainly that of the Committee and a few invited friends, held at the London Tavern, It was afterwards given up for the annual ball. Mr. Fox liked to see dancing, though he does not appear to have ever danced himself. Mr. J. A. Lyon writes me : " At the close of the seventeen days' bazaar (Anti-Corn Law) at Covent Garden Theatre, the floor was cleared for a promenade. After a little speaking some called for a dance, which was carried, after much opposition by our Quaker and Puritan friends. Mr. Fox, speaking loudly, said : ' I am for free-trade in Hops ! Clara Novello went to a piano, a violin was found, and dancing went on, our demure friends leaving the building." t See H. Martineau's "Five Years of Youth." Mr. Fox's 88 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY reference to Browning, and his questions, which disturbed her early bibliolatry. He was then fifteen ; in his twenty-first year " Pauline " was published ; and in a letter of June 1833, Sarah, writing to her cousin Celina (Mrs. Edward Fordham Flower, of Stratford-on-Avon), says : " Have you seen anything of ' Pauline ' ? I will send you down one of the first copies. We have renewed an old acquaintance with the author, who is the ' poet-boy ' we used to know years ago. He is yet unmatured, and will do much better things. He is very interesting from his great power of conversation and thorough originality, to say nothing of his personal appearance, which would be unexceptionally poetical if nature had not served him an unkind trick in giving him an ugly nose." The nose must have improved along with the poetry. Some passages in " Pauline " were, I think, inspired by Eliza Flower.* In their circle birthday was observed by his friends ; Sarah Flower for many years greeted the day, March 1, with a lyric. That of 1842 begins : " Pour out for the Poet Hebe, pour free ! Pour out for the Poet, His pen it hath come From the wing of an eagle, And tells of its home. ' ' * The first review of "Pauline" was by Mr. Fox in the Monthly Repository, April 1833. Mr. Fox introduced the poet to Moxon, who, however, declined " Paracelsus " (reviewed also by CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 89 Browning was cherished by the sisters (his seniors) as a poet and a friend. Eliza sometimes criticised his poetry ; she did not like the idea in Pippa's song, " God's puppets first and last are we." In conversa tions with Browning I saw that Eliza Flower stood sacredly apart in his memory and homage. " She was," he said, "a composer of real genius." He could never speak of her early death without evident pain. In the year before her death from consumption (1846), Browning wrote to her : " I never had another feeling than entire admiration for your music — entire admiration. I put it apart from all other English music I know, and fully believe in it as the music we all waited for. Of your health I shall not trust myself to speak : you must know what is un spoken." John Stuart Mill was supposed at one time an aspirant for Eliza's hand ; but she was the spouse of her art, consecrated to its ideal. Its steady realisa tion she saw in the sacred heart of the Society, whose every beat she set to music. The two sisters, with voices mated like their souls, sang in the choir Mr. Fox, 1835). Browning wrote for the Monthly Repository, while edited by Mr. Fox, a sonnet (1834), and "The King" (1835), in "Pippa Passes;" in 1836, "Porphyria," "Johannes Agricola," and " Still ailing, Wind ? " (See a paper on Browning in The Argosy, February 1890, by Mrs. Bridell Fox.) 90 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY there. Sarah, disappointed of her hope to become an actress, developed into a marvellous hymn-writer. Mr. Fox also, whose early lyrical power had been repressed by life's storm and stress, again rose into song. After he had ceased to use Scripture texts in his discourses, he loved to begin or end with some melodious verse born of his rapture. When his little collection of Hymns and Anthems — some of these, as " Light, light in darkness," written for musical themes admired by Eliza Flower — was printed, the tunes were already selected. Some of them Eliza set to her own music, others to compo sitions of friends, as Sophia Collett, or strains of Mozart, Spohr, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Hummel. When Mendelssohn visited England he made the acquaintance of the Flowers, and recognised Eliza's genius. Under the art of our friend Mr. Collet, then musical director, the choir reached unique excellence ; the hymns were exquisite antiphones to the poet-preacher's harmonies of thought and feeling. In 1834 Sarah had married William Brydges Adams, a friend of Mr. Fox, who wrote in the Monthly Repository under the name of "Junius Redivivus." She had, as I have said, an enthusiasm for the stage, which is shown in her tale in the Monthly Repository (1835), "The Actress," wherein CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 91 also, under the name Walter Brandon, may be dis covered, I suspect, some portraiture of Mr. Fox. Her prose sketches, such as her account of meeting Charles Lamb and Coleridge, are all signed " S. Y." (i.e., Sally), and indicate generous hero-worship ; but it was in her hymns that she excelled. Her poem on the gentle martyr of Carthage, " Vivia Per petua," is a sort of hymn. It came out of her heart and life. The remarkable letter she wrote to Mr. Fox in her twenty-second year, might be a preface to " Vivia Perpetua," and shows from what depths came such lines as these : " I could not live — couldst thou ? — to feel a truth Cry loudly in the heart, and strangle it. Were this the end, no other life beyond, Better to perish thus, our dust unurn'd (So it might nourish still a living flower), Rather than breathe such breath as hourly kills The truth that blooms within." But it is disclosed in this wonderful poem that Sarah Flower had not emerged from the shadow of doubt. Vivia says to Saturus : " There are some mysteries, I scarce begin To thread them but from out them up springs love, Flies through them like a bird along a grove, And sings them to forgetfulness, in joy. 92 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY But one e'en now doth come to hold her mute : Oppression yet doth crush with iron foot .... Our power is so much weaker than our will ; — But Love omnipotent ! " * Alas ! this doubt was never solved. Sarah died in her forty-third year (1848), heart-broken at the death of her beloved sister Eliza, which occurred December 13, 1846. The sisters were buried at their old home in Harlow. Eliza's death was especially a heavy loss to the chapel. The Com mittee in their annual report paid their tribute to "one for many years so intimately connected with this congregation ; the virtues and graces of whose * Mrs. E. F. Bridell Fox, in " Memories," contributed to The Girl's Own Paper (July 19, 1890), describes Sarah's reading the poem to her sister and Mr. Fox, and some others. " I picture to myself the bright, sunny little sitting-room, with all the sweet scents of the old-fashioned flowers — the roses and clematis that struggled for supremacy in at the open windows — the ad'ded fra grance of the full-flowering old lime trees that stood in a solemn row outside the little garden, half shutting out the meadows that lay between us and Kensington Gardens, where the lowing white cows grazed all day. All the scene rises up before me. Inside the dainty little sitting-room, with its old-fashioned pink and white chintz curtains, and old black-framed engravings on the walls, and the piano filling up the tiny back room; while the rich expressive voice rose and fell with the thrilling emotions, until, in the scene in the prison between Vivia and her father, Mrs. Adams fairly broke down, overcome with the grief and trials of her own creation, and several of the audience sobbed aloud." (The poem was published in 1841.) CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 93 character endeared her to all who knew her ; and whose compositions have contributed so materially to the beauty and completeness of the services in this place." The memorial service for Eliza Flower, held in the chapel December 20, 1 846, was long remembered — some still remember it. It consisted of her own music, and a prayer — no more — from Mr. Fox. Friends have told me of the minister's emotion as he arose and uttered the word " God ! " then paused as if in an agony of struggle : " God ! with Whom are the issues of life and death ; Whose are the sunshine and darkness ; Who givest and takest away ; and Who, ever holy, wise, and good, art to be adored in all; teach the heart to say, in filial sub mission and filial confidence, ' Not our will, but Thine be done!'" It was, throughout, a pathetic prayer. Mr. Fox must have found this place too painful for a time, and presently (1847) made an effort to resign. He was now in Parliament (for Oldham) — where he first did battle for justice to the Jews, and then for national education — and in many parts of the country was doing valiant service for every humane cause ; in illustration of what John Bright once remarked to our friend Mr. Lyon: "You Unitarians are very 94 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY useful for this world's work." The congregation had some thought of trying to unite his political and his ministerial work by removing to a " National Hall " at the West End. In 1844 the chapel had been thoroughly repaired, and the interior made some what less puritanical than before. The congregation then received an offer of £5000 for the place from the Devonshire Square congregation, and on December 29, 1845, a resolution to sell passed in Committee by a majority of sixteen. It required confirmation, how ever, and during the next year there was much warm discussion. Affection for the old place prevailed. (For the freehold, which originally cost £600, an offer of £1 5,000 was refused thirty years ago. It was always feared that the character of the place might be seriously altered by a change of locality). It is impossible, within the necessary limits of these discourses, to give any adequate account of the tremendous effect of Mr. Fox's last labours in this place. They culminated in his memorable dis courses on " Religious Ideas," which form his most important volume, delivered in 1849 — discourses which anticipated half the " Hibbert Lectures " of our own time. In them his ministry flowered and virtually ended. They placed South Place beyond the reach of any reactionary influence. In February 1849 the Rev. Newenham Travers CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 95 gave at South Place three lectures explanatory of his reasons for leaving the Established Church. His polished scholarly style and thought were grateful to the congregation, and he was at once engaged as assistant, Mr. Fox taking half the Sundays. Mr. Travers preached here two years, retiring at the close of 1850. In parting from him the Committee's report expressed thanks for his services, and " deep sympathy with the sufferings he has undergone for conscience sake." Mr. Travers was a Scholar of Lincoln College, Oxford, and his discourses were of critical value. He was among the first to point out an error of transla tion in the Levitical law, supposed to forbid marriage with a deceased wife's sister ; and also to prove that the Levitical laws could not be consistently adopted without adopting their penalty— death. Mr. Travers, who still lives (1893), resigned on his appointment as assistant-master in University College School, where he gained further scholastic reputation by his edition of Terence's "Andria" (1858). In a sermon on " Inspiration " Mr. Travers left us a prophecy : " Look for inspiration in thine own heart, and thou wilt find it there at last. The circle of thy vision, so small whilst thou wast bondman to tradition and the preacher of a narrow faith, will enlarge itself ever, till it 96 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY embrace in its range the interests of humanity ; and thou wilt delight in no meaner labour than that which toils for the good of all, in faith of the great destinies of all, in recognition of the brotherhood of all, and of their equal filial relation to the God and Father of all." The Rev. Henry Ierson was elected assistant- minister in January 185 1, and was really the minis ter, Mr. Fox giving only eight discourses that year. The last he ever delivered were six in 1852.* Mr. Ierson, as I and others remember, was a worthy and earnest man, though reactionary so far as South Place ideas were concerned. However, things went on fairly well until the close of 1856. At that time Mr. Ierson claimed the right to act on the Committee, and the event resembled that which recently occurred when the same question arose. There is a little history relating to this question which may interest you. So far back as 18 18, during the organ dispute, the minister twice met the Committee. It is entered : " Mr. Fox being present, was requested to take the chair, to which he assented." But on October 21, it was — "Resolved, with only one dissentient, that it is the opinion of this Committee that the minister of this * In 1848 Mr. Fox lectured twenty-six times (£500) ; in 1849, twenty-six times (£350) ; in 1850, " three courses " (£300) ; in 1851, eight lectures (£100) ; in 1852, six lectures (£100). CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 97 congregation is not to be considered a member of the Committee, and that the peculiar circumstance under which Mr. Fox presided at the last two meetings should not be considered a precedent for the future." Nevertheless, during the twenty difficult years that followed the Committee often availed themselves of their Minister's intimate knowledge of the Society's affairs, and on its reorganisation (April 5, 1837), adopted a government of six managers (of which the Minister was one) and two auditors. The Society had just been excluded from the Unitarian Associa tion, and had to be thenceforth its own denomination. It required good ethical as well as business engi neering. Nevertheless, Mr. Fox's presence on Com mittee was not without some friction, and was discontinued by him voluntarily ; the last occasion of his appearance seems to have been on June 30, 1843. When, nearly fourteen years later, Mr. Ierson pro posed to avail himself of this right, it was heard with amazement. The rule had so long been obsolete that its existence was unknown ; and the congrega tion, on April 24, 1857, promptly repealed the rule by more than two-thirds majority, although such repeal involved, as all knew, the Minister's resigna tion. That indeed immediately occurred. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Ierson's successor, Mr. Barnett, also desired to be on the Committee. The G 98 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY Committee appointed a permanent Sub-committee to consult with Mr. Barnett whenever he desired, and thus put him in communication with the Committee. In reporting this to the congregation they said : " A nearer approach than this to priestly power your Committee will always feel it their duty strenuously to resist." It is a congregational instinct to guard against ministerial, as it is a parliamentary instinct to guard against royal interference. A popular preacher could easily crush opponents in committee. My own prac tice has been to observe a tacit contract : never to interfere with the Committee's functions, and never let them interfere with mine. However members of this Society may differ on the abstract question, I hope it will hereafter remain abstract. It sometimes proves fatal to change the habits of age. The present custom of the Society was established a hundred years ago, was affirmed seventy-five years ago, and after one experiment the other way, has been thrice re-affirmed. In January 1858, the Rev. Henry N. Barnett of Bristol was elected minister. He was an able man, and rather fond of experiments. In 1862 he compiled a supplementary Hymn Book, with psalms pointed for chanting. He also held services on Christmas Day, the ladies having decorated the CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 99 chapel for it — the first time perhaps such a thing had ever occurred in a dissenting body. This was generally welcomed. But all that could not recover the dwindling congregation. Mr. Barnett was con nected with a Sunday paper, not remarkable for its piety, but in the pulpit he had an accession of aggres sive piety, or even semi-orthodoxy ; and finally de sired to adopt the English Church Service, slightly expurgated. When this was smiled at, and his exhor tations responded to with empty pews, Mr. Barnett, in his publication called " The South Place Pulpit," printed a letter to the Society, in which he resigned the pulpit and scathed the congregation. Alluding to his desire to sell the chapel to an orthodox denomination, in order to get rid of the " mountain weight of prejudice " against it, he said : " I had a dream that it would be possible to build a new church, bearing a Christian name, wearing a Chris tian look, and solemnly consecrated to Christian uses. I am told that my Christianity is offensive to you. ... It is urged against me that I preach all about Christ, and never about Socrates. I seek, however humbly and however feebly, to reconcile your sinning and sorrowing souls to the Lord God Almighty ; you are intent, instead, on a career of iconoclastic adventures and exploits." (No. 21.) The Committee of the " sinning and sorrowing " too CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY Society — or of so much of it as was left — appointed George Levey, George Hickson, E. Braham, Henry Moore, a sub-committee to answer Mr. Barnett's letter, which they did very ably, especially re senting its fling at Mr. Fox. The concluding words of the Committee are : " Now we have a comparatively empty chapel ; and it would be strange, indeed, in this age of free inquiry, and in this free Church of ours, if it were not so, seeing that for the last five years we have had scarcely any other source of religion opened to us but records of the past as contained in the Bible. The daily heroisms of our own time, the martyrdoms of old, the great spirits of all countries and of all climes, have ceased to be called in to our assistance ; and from our pulpit the rocks and the heavens no longer sing their grand hymn of devotion and praise." Such was the hunger and such the famine of South Place in June 1863 — just thirty years ago. The Society never drew so near dissolution. I remember after my first discourse here — I forget the date, but think it must have been about this time in 1863 — Mr. Marsden told me there was some doubt whether they might not close the chapel. They engaged the services of very able men — William Binns, Joseph Barker, our friend Mr. Coupland, John Page Hopps, William Maccall, Hurst CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 101 Smith, Simpson, Whitehead, Washington Wilks, J. C. Street, Professor Newman. I used to come here and listen whenever I could, but it was rare to find a hundred present. I doubt if there were seventy to hear my own first discourse, and dear Marsden could only congratulate me on my " attentive " audience. I did not preach as a candidate for this pulpit. I had come from America, in April. 1863, on an anti-slavery mission, it being supposed that a Vir ginian abolitionist might influence public opinion here, which largely favoured the Southern Confed eracy. I was the guest of the (Peter) Taylors of Aubrey House, members of this Society. My family was in America, and I was fully expecting to return thither at the close of the year. I was lecturing about the country, gratuitously, on the war, and had encountered the regulation mob in Free Trade Hall, Manchester. I also wrote much for papers and magazines. Circumstances induced me to remain in England longer than I had intended, and my family joined me in September (1863). On the breaking out of the war I had resigned my pulpit in Cincinnati, in order to devote myself entirely to the work of making sure that the war should terminate the cause of strife, Slavery. This being secured, and the war nearing its end, the old long- 102 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY ing for a pulpit had revived, and I was glad to form a temporary engagement with South Place. I had several times occupied the pulpit in the autumn and winter, and find, by record of the annual meeting, January 31, 1864, "it was moved by Mr. Newman, and seconded by Mr. Shuter, and carried, 'That Mr. Conway be invited to conduct the services of the chapel for the next six months.' " In June the request was made for another six months ; and then, at the annual meeting of 1865, my office was made permanent ; the salary being fixed at ^150, at which figure it remained for eight years. I was just thirty-one, but a long pilgrimage it had been from my Methodist itinerancy in Maryland, a revivalist under twenty years, to the South Place pulpit. I came from sitting at the feet of Emerson and Parker, a passionate Emersonian, a devout Theist. My early law studies survived in a keen interest in controversies. I used to start from my home in Camden Town early enough on Sunday mornings to pass an hour at Smithfield. There, over the ashes of martyrs, orthodoxy and atheism used to struggle; and I, seeking to convert both to South Place salvation, played the part of Mr. Facing-both- ways, and was pleasantly pelted by both sides. But I learned a great deal on old Smithfield Common — not yet vulgarised by a meat market— as also under CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY 103 St. Pancras arches, where I have fought many a battle for Theism ; for supernaturalism I had long rejected, and the Christian name I was inclined to give up. It is one of the most pleasant things in my memory that I reached England in time to know Mr. Fox. Though his strength was abated, the old fire some times kindled in his eye, and the sweetness that so long charmed his audience was still in his voice. I heard him, in a little Shakespearian company, read with impressiveness the part of the king in the First Part of Henry IV., the other characters taken by his old friends the Taylors and Mallesons. I told him of friends of his in America, and of the poet Long fellow's recollection of his first visit to South Place, where they were singing his " Psalm of Life " when he entered, the first time he had ever heard any poem of his sung as a hymn. (That day he went home with Mr. Fox to dinner.) Mr. Fox spoke cor dially of him and other mutual friends in America — of Emerson, Parker, and, I think, of Margaret Fuller, whom he had entertained, though her I did not know. We conversed about the Chapel and its members, and the hymns — snatches of which he sometimes repeated. He was still a member of Parliament when I came, but was unable to attend, and retired in 1863. A beautiful and gracious old 104 CENTENARY OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY man he was ; his serene face, soft eye, flowing white locks remain a picture in my memory. But had I known as much of him as I now know, I would have clasped his knees. Mr. Fox died at his residence, 3 Sussex Place, Regent's Park, on June 3, 1864. I assisted his old friend, the Rev. Mr. Malleson, at his burial in Brompton Cemetery. On June 12 we held a memorial service here, and my discourse on that occasion, printed by the Society, seemed to link me to the intimate history of this chapel.* From the first I enjoyed intimacy with the Flower family, and from them and others heard so much of Eliza and Sarah that I almost feel as if I knew * There were veteran Freethinkers and Radicals at whose graves I officiated — James Watson, William Lovett, the widow of Hetherington, and Mrs. Taylor of Frognal Lodge. Comme morative discourses, in most cases attended with memorial services, have been given here, under my ministry, in honour of W. J. Fox, President Lincoln, Cobden, Dickens, Maurice, Mazzini, Mill, Strauss, Livingstone, Sir Charles Lyell, Professor W. K. Clifford, " George Eliot," Dean Stanley, President Gar field, Darwin, Longfellow, Carlyle, Emerson, Louis Blanc, Harriet Martineau, Mary Carpenter, James Waterlow, Bishop Colenso. Lately some recollections were given of the late Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts ; and memorial services have been held in honour of Renan and Tennyson. Of all of these, with the exception of Livingstone, Garfield, and Miss Mar tineau, I was able to speak from some personal knowledge. In but one instance — that of Napoleon III. — I felt it necessary to pass strictures on one whose career had closed. ^-VbtTc-e^Le^