The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 30, 1858.

" sidered : first, what has been the effect of
" external splendour on the genuineness and
" earnestness of Christian worship; the second,
" what is the use of pictorial or sculptural repre-
" sentation in the communication of Christian
" historical knowledge or excitement of affec-
" tionate imagination." There are two extreme
practices prevalent in ecclesiastical esthetics.
There are the bare and barn-like buildings very
common in Scotch country parishes ; and there are
the ornate, picturesque, and designedly symbolical
edifices which have sprung up of late in different
parts of England. Both these are extremes. We
think the House of God should be simple—
severely simple—and yet beautiful and grand as
means will allow or taste can achieve. In fact,
there is still wanting the architectural ideal of a
Protestant church. But it seems to us that
sculptural or pictorial symbols in a place of
Christian worship are as indefensible as they are
essentially absurd. Let us take up what Mr.
Jenner very admirably discusses, what are called
paintings of our Blessed Lord. Are these either
scriptural or useful, or in any sense instructive ?
We answer, unhesitatingly, No. That picture,
let it be by a Rubens, a Carlo Dolci, or a Raphael,
is a mere creation of the painter's imagination.
There is no evidence that it is in any degree a
likeness or authentic portrait of the Son of Man.
You may call it so, or you may consecrate it, but
this does not make it so ; nor does it truly
represent llim. He was God as truly as man.
The object of our trust and adoration is not
merely visible humanity, but Deity also ; and his
sacrifice lay less in His outward, and far more in
His inward and invisible agony. Who shall
represent all this ? The painter's pencil cannot
portray the whole Christ. This great achieve-
ment was reserved for the Evangelist's pen alone,
and by it accordingly the Son of God is set forth
in the sacred page, not as a profile, or a conjec-
tural image, or a creature of the fancy, but as
He was, and is, and ever will be, and as He ought
everywhere to be worshipped, "in spirit and in
truth." What Mr. Jenner remarks as to the infec-
tion of error is applicable here, as all history
testifies. The moment you introduce a picture
of the object of worship into the House of God,
you generate a taste and craving for this sort of
thing. The moral atmosphere becomes infected ;
a new and morbid appetite, often insatiable in its
demands, is created ; and in a few years you will
find increasing desires will be made, and while
there are "craftsmen in Ephesus" they will be
also met. Sudaria, holy coats, thorns, bits of the
true cross, with Wondrous fertility make their
appearance, and become candidates for homage,
till the simple spiritual worship of the Christian
degenerates into the dense and idolatrous offices
of the Church of Rome. Men cease to walk by
faith, which is the mark of the Christian. They
cannot trust in the unseen ; they must have the
hem of the garment to lay hold of, or a Madonna
to kiss, or a picture to gaze at, or beads to count.
Christianity is thus betrayed in its own house,
and religion becomes a drama and the church an
opera, and its minister a master of ceremonies.
To see a coarse daub in a window or on a wall
representing the First Person in the Blessed
Trinity as an old man, the Second Person as a
young man or a lamb carrying a flag, and the
Third Person as a dove, is too like " changing
" the glory of the incorruptible God into an
" image made like to corruptible man and to
" birds," &c.
All such representations are untruths, and on
this ground alone they are intolerable deformities
in the House of God, which is the temple of truth.
How to reconcile such pictures in the windows
with the Second Commandment on the wall over
the communion-table must be left to those
disciples of the Great Durandus who can recon-
cile contradictions. Nor are these the only
results.

It would not be difficult (says Mr. Jenner) to prove,
from the progressive decline of nations once great and
illustrious alike by purity in religious faith and moral
dignity of action, that the tendency of external splendour
and a large use of material symbolism in places built for
the worship of God, is to corrupt and debase the minds of
the people, and to bring about that gross condition of cir•
nality of conception and licentiousness of oonduct in which
all that 151 truly noble and pure and elevated becomes at

length buried The material and the sen-
suous take the place of all that is spiritual and pure. We
have only to east our eyes over those countries where
" Religious Art," as it is termed, has been sunned to its
richest degree of ripeness, and to compare the moral con.
dition of their inhabitants with that of those of other
countries in which the most sever+) adherence bat! bowl

-,--,,,,,,w.,,

kept up to simplicity and truthfulness in °harsh archi-
tecture, in order to see that in the latter the moraleand,
manners have been preserved most pure and uncorrupt.
These remarks are most just.

fervour
pahritsi art i etsi c,
andE vpeicntubrier;gßueuskanind, j!I
would
hesitate to say, in stronger terms than wedc'es "t
care to employ, I cannot answer for the eape.
" rience of others, but I never yet meta Christian
" whose heart was thoroughly set on the world
" to come, and, so far as human judgment could
" pronounce, perfect and right before God, who
" cared about art at all. The fact seems to be
" that strength of religious feeling is capable of
" supplying for itself whatsoever is wanting in
" the rudest suggestions of art, and will either on
" the one hand purify what is coarse into in-
" offensiveness, or, on the other, turn what is
" feeble into impressiveness. Probably all art ita
" such is unsatisfactory to it." There is, at
least, truth in this as a statement of fact. No
material provision can fill up the lofty concep-
tions a Christian has of God. This chapter of Mr..
Jenner's work is very valuable and instructive,
and especially seasonable at the present moment.
In the words of its enlightened and thoughtful
author, " Right views of God and right views of
"ourselves are the two things which lie at the
" basis of all true worship. Without that, our
" worship, though most gorgeous, and grand in all
" its externals, may be nothing but the grovelling
"of superstition, and our devotions nothing but
" acts of self-idolatry." We believe these wise,
sensible, and scriptural views, unfolded in this
volume in language exact and eloquent, are daily
finding wider and deeper acceptance in the
Church of England. Weak, watery, and senti-
mental curates may take offence at what strikes
at the very foundation of the sensuous and
gaudy symbolism which decorates, or rather de-
forms, their favourite shrines; but earnest and
reflecting minds will thank Mr. Jenner for his
just principles and sound reasoning, and rejoice to
carry them into practice.
In his next chapter the author proceeds to
separate the apostolic doctrine of the Cross
from that sensuous adoration of a piece of wood
into which it has been carnalized by the Rurnish
Church. We believe the true crucifix of the
53rd of Isaiah, and that they alone glory iu the
Cross who lean on the infinite and perfect sacri-
fice of Christ, and reflect in their daily walk
those divine fruits which spontaneously grow
from it. It does seem to us almost unaccount-
able that a body of professing ministers of Chris-
tianity should so far apostatize from common
sense, not to say Scripture, as to substitute a
cross-beam of modern growth, or empty figure,
for that moral glory and spiritual significance
which are meant and contained in the apostolic
allusions to the cross of Christ. It seems as if
the inspirer of Romanism designed to render
every doctrine of Christianity ridiculous, by con-
densing magnificent moral truths into material
and sensuous shapes. That he has succeeded is
too true. Infidelity has drawn its chief nutri-
ment from the Church of Rome. Even Moham-
medans have shrunk from its revolting idolatry.
It is a question which the judgment day alone
will adequately answer how far Voltaire, or Rous-
seau, or D'Alembert, or Hume, are the logical
results of Roman superstition. To walk byi
.faith,
which is "the evidence of things not seen, is the
mark and path of pure religion—to walk by, the
imaginary and apocryphal embodiment of things
unseen, is the brand of apostacy. The worst we
wish Pio Nono and his ostentatious and gaudy
sionate consideration of these truths.
showman, Dr. Wiseman, is a serious and dispas-

In his next article, on Controversy, Mr. Jenner
presents one of the most sober and effective
apologies for a much misapprehended and much
abused word that we have yet read. We do
most heartily commend this chapter to those
feeble and sensitive Christians who entertain a
traditional and sentimental abhorrence of con-
troversy. It is carefully discussed, logically
argued, and illustrated by a variety and appo-
siteness of evidence that must carry conviction
to all honest and reasonable minds. Mr. Jenucr
remarks ;
In their extreme anxiety for peace there are some
persons who, though lovers of truth, will exert little or
no Glare to secure the purity of truth. " Let us have To
controversy," is their cry. So strong, indeed, is their
dislike to it that they will sometimes go ail far as to assert
that where controversy is indulged in there can be no Curie,
Unity. Wu wonder if 'foyer mare W liaqb pow