OF GOING TO CHURCH

I had been to church one summer Sunday morning—­a very simple affair it was, with nothing sung but a couple of hymns; but the Vicar read beautifully, neither emphatically nor lifelessly, with a little thrill in his voice at times that I liked to hear.  It did not compel you to listen so much as invite you to join.  Lestrange played the organ most divinely; he generally extemporised before the service, and played a simple piece at the end; but he never strained the resources of the little organ, and it was all simple and formal music, principally Bach or Handel.

Father Payne himself was a regular attendant at church, and Sunday was a decidedly leisurely day.  He advised us to put aside our writing work, to write letters, read, make personal jottings, talk, though there was no inquisition into such things.

Father Payne was a somewhat irregular responder, but it was a pleasure to sit near him, because his deep, rapid voice gave a new quality to the words.  He seemed happy in church, and prayed with great absorption, though I noticed that his Bible was often open before him all through the service.  The Vicar’s sermons were good of their kind, suggestive rather than provocative, about very simple matters of conduct rather than belief.  I have heard Father Payne speak of them with admiration as never being discursive, and I gathered that the Vicar was a great admirer of Newman’s sermons.

We came away together, Father Payne and I, and we strolled a little in the garden.  I felt emboldened to ask him the plain question why he went to church.  “Oh, for a lot of reasons,” he said, “none of them very conclusive!  I like to meet my friends in the first place; and then a liturgy has a charm for me.  It has a beauty of its own, and I like ceremony.  It is not that I think it sacred—­only beautiful.  But I quite admit the weakness of it, which is simply that it does not appeal to everyone, and I don’t think that our Anglican service is an ideal service.  It is too refined and formal; and many people would feel it was more religious if it were more extempore—­prayer and plain advice.”

I told him something of my old childish experience, saying that I used to regard church as a sort of calling-over, and that God would be vexed if one did not appear.

He laughed at this.  “Yes, I don’t think we can insist on it as being a levee,” he said, “where one is expected to come and make one’s bow and pay formal compliments.  That idea is an old anthropomorphic one, of course.  It is superstitious—­it is almost debasing to think of God demanding praise as a duty incumbent on us.  ’To thee all angels cry aloud’—­I confess I don’t like the idea of heaven as a place of cheerful noise—­that isn’t attractive!