The Express.
London, England, 1868-12-12 00:00:00

GLOBE THEATRE ROTA'.

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Ti &min, DAVID 111:\T, THE BACICWOODMIAN.
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And THE BALLII4,OSIA/E BOY. War IL Booth.

ETON WAITE AT LONDON 1111DBIL
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LONDON. SATURDAY. DEC. 12.

THE (111.7:CH A
_TILE WORK/Na

CLASSES.

Tits Church of England, as a national esta-
blishment, has in one respect failed conspicuously.
h is the church of the aristocracy and the church
of the middle claws, but it does not attract the
poor to its i.:mime, and working men are rarely
to be found within its walls. They :nay be bap-
tised in the National Church, they are almost
always married in it, end when they die the
bubliwe words of the burial service are road over
their graven. But this in all. Clergymen eon-
feint and deplore the fact that the men
who belong to the clans of artisans and
mach:mica do not, and will not, listen to their
instructions, that they keep aloof from the
Church and fight shy of the minister, even when
he in known to bo liberal in disposition and cha-
ritable to those who differ from him. And this
• feeling iv' the part of working men is not confined
to the Church of England; but is acknowledged
also by tlip.ecidcre. There is a portion of the
- ptiorer tradininten and flomo.stic

se2ftnts for exitropl,. —who like chapel better than
church; but flo groat bulk of what aro nom-
manly smiled working mon oars nothing about
either.

Why then, it may he asked, is the church
of the nation in this respect so unnational ?

EX

Woiking men are shrewd observslie ; they Sr.
fond of argument ; they are not at all disposed to
acquiesce in the belief that whatever is, is best;
they have no reverenee for an institution boosuse
it is established, and they are singularly free from
anything like sentiment. When they look at the
Church they are more struck by its divisions than
by its essential unity ; they hear the painful
wrangling@ of the High Churchmen, the how
Churchmen, and tho Broad Churchmen, they see
much that is childish, unmanly, and uncharitable ;
they detest superstition, and are irritated by the
mummeries of the extreme ritual st ; they detest
intolerance, and are disgusted with the bigotry of
the extreme Evangelical.
There is another reason why our working men
avoid the church which cannot be too strongly
stated. Most of them when boys wore sent
to the Sunday School, a noble institution
against which in itself we have no word to
utter. But the arrangetuents of the school taken in
connection with the Church services are terribly
wearisome to children. Think of an hour and a
half in school and the additional constraint of two
hours in church, at a service which, for the young,
has little interest or meaning, and we need scarcely
wonder that, when the period of bondage is past,
and children are free to choose for themselves,
they elect to stay away from church altogether.
We grown up men and women find sometimes
that a long service and a long sermon are tolerably
so ere discipline; but this is nothing to what Sun-
day scholars undergo, and that upon com-
pulsion. Fur men as well as for children, a long
service is a great mistake; and we believe that
working men would be attracted by the simplicity
and beauty of the Liturgy, if what ought to be a
pleasure were not so unnecessarily converted into
a toil. Men who work hard all the week shrink
from being wearied also upon Sunday. Then,
again, working men are wont to herd together,
and do not care to mingle with those who
are above them in society. They abominate, as
well they may, being placed on hard free seats,
when their " betters" are in cushioned pews ;
end even when churches are free and pewlese, as
all churches, we believe, will be before many
years are past, they shrink from contact with the
fine gentleman and the fashionably-dressed lady.
In New York every Episcopal church has a
chapel attached to it for the exclusive use of the
poorer classes, but there is something revolting in
such a caste distinction, and we should not care
to see the example followed in England. What
we do want is a greater union of classes upon
week days, more knowledge, which will produce
mere sympathy, and then there will be no neces-
sity for a hateful and unchristian separation on
the day of public worship.

There arc other reasons which account in some
measure for this general defection of the work-
ing classes from the servioes of the Church.
They do not think it a righteous thing,
that livings should be bought and sold.
they are democratic enough to wonder how
it comes to pass that great poverty and great
wealth are the distinguishing marks of Christian
teachers ; they are not sure that the influence the
elergynian possesses is always legitimately exer-
cised : they are afraid of priesteraft, and they are
extremely fund of independence. Happily the
ministers of religion are fully alive to the strange
fact that Christianity as taught in our churches
and chapels is a gospel ter the rich and the well-to-
do, and not a gospel for the poor. It is something to
be aware of the anomaly, since until it is thoroughly
perceived there is no chance of a remedy being
applied. When clergymen find that they have
failed where most of all they must have wished
for success, they will be earnest in discovering the
secret of their failure ; and the working man, too,
us he gains wider knowledge and escapes from his
class prejudices will be less disposed to isolate
himself from a body of men who, whatever may be
their theoretical differentia, are always ready to
promote the benefit of their parishioners and neigh-
bours by acts of practical charity. There are
faults on both sides, and these will best he over-
come by appreciating the virtues which are happily
still snore conspicuous, both of the clergy and of
working men.