Heterodox London
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HETERODOX LONDON: _ OR, PHASES OF FREE THOUGHT IN THE METROPOLIS. nv _ REV. CHARLES MAURICE QVIES, D.D. " urmon or "on'monox" nn uloaraonox Loxmox," uc. l¢1 'rnovz ALL THINGS: HOLD nsr 'ran wmcn I8 soon." l.>_. IN 'rwo VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND 1874. [All rights of Ifrarulation and Reproducticm are r¢aerv¢d.] EE M4 Die, /,l `° ».»-_ __ // """' S: /" /71. T0 MY FRIEND, MRS. MAKDOUGALL GREGORY, 3 Bzhiraie THIS NOW CONCLUDED SERIES OF VOLUMES ON THE RELIGIONS OF LONDON. 4 D x MAURME DAVIES. London, 1874. Digitized by CONTENTS. PAGE THE NEMESIS or FAITH .... _ 1 INDEPENDENT RELIGIOUS Rnromnzns _ . 19 A PARSON IN TRANSITION _ _ . 33 HUHANITARIANISH . _ . 55 SOCIABLE HERETICS _ . 87 AN UNIIIs1'onIc CnIus1'. 111 ADVANCED UNITARIANISH . .. 121 Noc'rEs SOCBATICJE, I. _ __ 137 Nocrzs Socnumczz, II..... _ . 176 THE SUNDAY LEAGUE AT Hom: _ . _ 208 INTERVIEWING A MomIoN ELDEB .......... 241 THE GOSPEL or HI-:LL FIRE ACCORDING 'ro MII. VoYsI-:Y __ 274 MODERATE UNITABIANISM ............ 311 RI'ruAI.|sI°Ic UNITARIANISH . 325 HACKNEY Pao1>AaANmsu . 351 SECULARISM AND SECULABISH _ . 364 ERRATA. Page 201, line 3, and page 202, first line, for "Wi1l," read "Vri1l." . INTRODUCTION. I AM well aware that to excuse is to accuse one's self; but I fancy I see my orthodox friends uplifting both hands in pious dismay, and hear them exclaiming, " Urgue quo tandem? Having exhausted Unorthodoxy, and had his fling at Orthodoxy, what remains for this most analytical of authors to do next?" I will tell them. After going through the dilferent phases of our multiform Church of England as by law established, and also the various outlying bodies, all of which claimed orthodoxy, and many boasting that they ex- hausted it, I found a large margin still remaining in those who made neither claim, and asserted no lot or inheritance even in the larger Church of England, yet most of whom were, in their own sense of the word, religious. I saw that, where these bodies were secular and materialistic, the line between religion and politics became shadowy and ill-defined, and that if my work was to comprehend the whole world of re- ligious London, it must include some of these. The x Introduction. result was the resumption of my pen, and the gradual accretion of a vast mass of data, from which the materials for the present volumes have been selected. Several of the chapters which succeed have already seen the light in the columns of newspapers-some in London daily papers, many of them in the Manchester Evening News, a few in the Scottish Guara'z'an, and others in a local journal which I have edited. Urged at last by inexorable time, and my publishers' call for " more copy," I have written down the results of my ecclesiastical wanderings in the " far countries" where my observations were made, at last literally racing the press to bring my work to its conclusion. Per- haps, when the nature of that work is considered, it will scarcely have suffered by this rapid style of com- position. It affects to be no more than what one of my many kindly critics termed its predecessor, a series " of literary photographs," a collection of pen-and-ink portraits of men who are, in their several departments, influencing the tone of current thought, and leaving their mark on our day and generation. During some portion of the time while I wrote I was in full parochial work in a London curacy, and had to snatch rare inter- vals ofleisure between frequent services on Sundays and week-days. This, again, I cannot regret, for I found my several works, in and out of church, re-act one on the other. I hope a sense of my own shortcomings made me look with toleration on the gropings of others after truth. I am sure the observation of their Introduction. xi successes or failures made me less dogmatic in my own pulpit teachings. These are suspended now; but the combined work has le& deeply impressed upon my own mind the consummate wisdom of the text I have chosen as my motto, "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." I must apologize-I use the word in its strict rather than in its ordinary sense-for the length to which my chapters run in this work. I felt it 'right to let those whom I reported speak for themselves. Free Thought, or Advanced Thought, has been too often condemned without a hearing. It is not for me to say whether those whom I chronicle are right or wrong; but I may, without undue advocacy, state my conviction that they are thoroughly honest, and intensely in earnest; and I feel that those who be- lieve them to be wrong ought to be made aware of the nature and extent of the error--if " error" it be- with which they have to cope. I had no idea of this when I entered on my present study. I spoke and thought vaguely of " Infidelity," " Free Thought," " Secularism," and "Athcism." I scarcely realized the lines of demarcation between them, or how they met and blended imperceptibly the one in the other. I feel also that there are some few of those about whom I have written who may be disposed to resent their inclusion in a book bearing the title of " Heterodox." I have, in the body of the work, con- tinually made the remark that I use the term in its xii Introduction. etymological rather than its colloquial sense. I feel I have a right to use it wherever those I am describ- ing themselves repudiate the title of orthodox; and I have strictly so limited myself. I am thinking especially of the Swedenborgians, or New Jerusalem Church, when I speak thus. They have made no pro- test against the imputation of Heterodoxy or Mysticism; and I therefore the more readily assure them that I use the terms in an utterly inoffensive sense. Iniirst projecting my book, I contemplated the alternative title, " Phases of Unbelief inLondon." Had I retained that expression on my title-page, I could of course have only included those who fell short of the standard of belief in the Established Church, which I have been obliged all along to take arbitrarily as my average. But there is a heresy of excess, as well as of defect, and only so could my excel- lent friend Dr. Bayley become the subject of my re- marks. It was as the complement and corollary of the chapters on Modern Spiritualism that I felt some notice of the New Jerusalem Church to be necessary. " The Irvingites, or aoi~a/isanl Catholic Apostolic Church," might have claimed mention in the same " " way, their unknown tongues" and prophecies" being palpably a phase of trance-mediumship ; but that body so studiously threw impediments in the way of anything like a fair examination on a. former occasion, that I felt it was hopeless to expect any distinct statement of their tenets and practices. Introduction. xiii Moreover, in spite of vigorous private proselytizing and a spasmodic platform propagandism, the body can scarcely be deemed characteristic of the present reli- gious thought of London; indeed, it promises to be- come ere long as moribund and eifete as its well-nigh obsolete Apostolate. Adverse critics might easily describe my present method as one of paste, scissors, and padding ; and it is from no wish to anticipate such a judgment, but in simple justice to myself, to urge that the selection of a typical discourse from the published works of those I was describing has been about the most diflicult, certainly the least interesting portion of my task. It could scarcely be, however, that I should, in each case when I paid a flying visit, fall in with a thoroughly characteristic discourse or lecture; and there I felt bound to supplement my account with something that was an embodiment of the real opinions of the man or the sect. In the case of Mr. Bradlaugh, I did get two discourses, which I venture to think eminently characteristic of his religious and political opinions; and in these, let me say, I have been obliged to trust to my own reports. The lectures at the Hall of Science are not as a rule taken down; and where this is the case Ihave to be satisfied with a. few rough notes, jotted down during the discourse or debate, and afterwards aided by anot very retentive memory in their transcription. It is, of course, inevitable that only one side of the xiv Inlroduction. question presents itself in this book, which will there- fore assume 'the appearance of advocacy ; but not more so than its predecessors did in the cases of Dis- sent and Established doctrines. It was certainly desirable to let Unbelief speak for itself as freely as the various grades of faith. Not to have done so would have been to act the advocate indeed: and I cannot help thinking that the suppression of Hetero- dox subjects, and careful concealment of infidel argu- ments, is, on the omne zzgnotum pro mayngyico principle, exceedingly dangerous-far more dangerous than the fullest quotation, as appearing like a concession that such utterances, if allowed to go forth, must of neces- sity carry conviction with them. I can well remember that, when I was a boy, a pious but injudicious relative warned me never to read Byron, showing me at the same time Moore's twenty-two volumes, care- fully locked inside a wiregratihg in the study.