you, if time permitted, that on this point the clergy, to a very great extent, are singing exactly the same tune.

Among the causes suggested for the alleged failure of the Church in many cases to reach the bulk of the people, I have known one clergyman after another rank "first and foremost the pew-system;" and complain that "pew-rented churches, and pew-appropriated churches, virtually shut their doors to the majority of the people." I have known the incumbent of a proprietary chapel, smarting under the difficulties of his own position, lift up his voice against the bad effects of "frowning pews." I have known clerical meetings, one after another, unanimous in saying, that "all churches should be free and open," and "that, of course, all such obstacles as are involved in the pew-system should be removed."

Now, independently of the abstract question of rights, it is easy to point out the grounds on which these opinions rest. Appropriation has a necessary tendency to rouse a sense of injustice in the mind of those who are excluded. It keeps up the most invidious form of social distinction; of honour to the "gold ring" and "goodly apparel," in the very place in which we are specially bound to recognise all men as equal, the ransomed brethren of a common Redeemer. It relegates the poor, who are often hard of hearing, to distant incommodious corIt gives rise to endless disputes and litigations; for nothing is a more fertile source of litigation than the property in pews. It breaks the heart of the pastor to see close before him and around him the benches which are kept almost empty by an exclusive monopoly, while the poor are crowding in the distance like outer Gentiles, where his eye cannot catch them, and his voice cannot reach them. The beneficial effects of a mission have been frequently destroyed, when the happy freedom of the mission fortnight has been suddenly cancelled by the revival of the claims to pews.

ners.

It is true that some exceptions may be found to prove the rule. I need not dwell on the ancient faculties, which are fast dying out, and are not likely to be repeated. Nor would any one object to reserve a seat for the founder or builder of a church, except indeed it were the founder or builder himself, who in the present temper of churchmen would probably be the last to tolerate or claim it. But in spite of such exceptions, I should venture to sum up this part of the subject by saying, that whether this monopoly of pews is rested on prescription, or possession, or appropriation, or mere mistake, or usurpation, it is as much at variance with old English law, as it is with apostolic teaching. It is a distinct infringement of the rights of parishioners; and is as indefensible in theory as it is prejudicial in practice.

2.-I turn now to the other question which I mentioned at the outset; how are we to protect the rights of parishioners against the dreaded inroads of alleged multitudes of outsiders, who are threatening, we are told, to crowd them out of their own churches?

No doubt there is some force in this difficulty, though I think it has been a good deal overstated. I have found no such hindrance in carrying out the free system in Brighton, where, of course, it might have been expected that we should be especially exposed to the encroachments of visitors. There are 23 churches and chapels of the Establishment within the old parish of Brighton, of which 13

are absolutely free; viz., ten independent parish churches, nine of them constituted as such within the last few years; two Peel districts, and one mission chapel. The other ten continue to be partially pewrented; but, of course, none of them possess the parish church status. We are very grateful to these chapels-of-ease for the many important services which they render to the parish; and in part, I frankly acknowledge, for the relief which they afford by giving shelter to those who cannot get over their affection for a pew. Now I don't for a moment affirm that the 13 free churches are exempted from all the difficulties by which even the best of our arrangements are beset. One certainly does hear occasional complaints, that where there is a specially ornate service, or a famous preacher, or any similar attraction, in one of these free churches, the habitual worshippers are apt to be just a little crushed and crowded. But we generally find that if people will only come early, and use tact and discretion, and show a willing and accommodating temper, the difficulty is after all a mere bugbear, and the worshippers are as well contented as is compatible with the sacred right of grumbling inherent in our English human nature. Certainly they are a great deal more happy and contented than if they were still bickering about their pews. And after all there is something anomalous in being so afraid of the entry of hypothetical multitudes, when we are all asking so eagerly how and why it is, that we do not succeed better in gathering what people call "the masses" in their thousands into our churches.

In fact, this whole subject should be rested on a higher principle, and solved by the invocation of a nobler law. That a church is free to all the parishioners does not mean that it is also restricted to the same class. The Church of God in England is one body, and we must recognise a solidarity of interests in all its members. We are not Congregationalists, but Churchmen; and we ought to be thankful to welcome the stranger and the wayfarer to the best accommodation which we have to offer. Parishioners have a right to be admitted, but they have no right to exclude. In short, we may repeat and readjust our former argument. As a pew-holder ought not to uphold his monopoly against the rest of the parish, so the parishioners ought not to turn their parish church into one grand monopoly, and uphold it against members of the Church at large. The cure for the alleged evil is to be found in more early attendance; in more frequent services; in a general brightening of worship in all churches alike; for what right has a dull parish to utilise its dulness, by driving its people away to invade their neighbours? Above all, we must seek the remedy in a wider extension of true Christian courtesy and love, which shows an eagerness to welcome the stranger, rather than a jealous dread of his intrusion. And in applying this remedy, we look especially to the churchwardens and sidesmen, on whose functions in relation to the rights of the parishioners, I must say a few words before I close.

Churchwardens are often described as officers of the bishop, and it is held that, as such, it is one of their duties to seat the parishioners; to which Sir John Nicholl, though with some qualifications, added the unfortunate words "according to their rank and station." All parts of this statement seem to require some modification. The office of churchwarden is older than the introduction of fixed seats in churches ;

and the current definitions of their duties in regard to seats rest only on the obiter dicta of judges; which, however much we may respect them, cannot be placed on a level with the decrees of ancient law. To take account in church of the "rank and station" of parishioners looks like a direct contradiction of the rule of the inspired Apostle, which is prior to the law. On the other hand, churchwardens are officers of the bishop only in a limited degree. The archdeacon ministerially admits them to office; but neither bishop nor archdeacon has anything to do with their appointment; and a mandamus would be issued, if asked for, against an archdeacon who challenged a nomination on the ground of unsuitability in the nominee of either the rector or the vestry, who are held to be the proper "judges of the fitness and qualifications of the persons they choose for that office." Neither can the bishop dismiss them; and if they refuse to obey his orders, I fear he has no remedy. They are appointed, as the Canon says, by "the joint or several choice" of pastor and people. They are the legal link between the clergy and the laity, and they make presentments to the Ordinary as wardens of the parish. They may be employed by the bishop, who is the ultimate authority, on the ground of their position and the advantages it gives; but, except in a very non-natural sense, we can scarcely impose the title of his "officers" on functionaries whom he can neither nominate, nor object to, nor control, nor dismiss.

It is impossible to over-estimate the value of a good set of churchwardens, assisted in large churches by a body of sidesmen. But it is neither their right nor their duty to create monopolies, either within the parish or in the parish as a whole. It is not their right or duty to label pews, or frown away strangers, or to have "respect of persons" in the House of God; or to appropriate to individuals any portion of the common property of all. They should, at all the services, be present to help, present to arrange, present to control; not to flaunt in the eyes of strangers the rights of parishioners, but to maintain and set forth by practice and example, that those rights are ennobled when they are connected with duties; and that the highest exercise of right is to recognise the privilege of welcoming the stranger to the House of God.

I have left myself no time to speak at length of the position of the Ordinary in regard to the rights of parishioners in parish churches. In this, as in all similar questions, the ultimate authority rests, as I have said, with the Bishop of the Diocese, whose duty it is to guard the common interest of all the souls committed to his charge. The Church has been deeply indebted to many of the bishops, who have upheld the doctrine of the common rights of the parishioners, and of all other Christian people, with a force and authority which carry their judgments above challenge or appeal. It cannot be doubted that their lordships, whether through the agency of churchwardens or otherwise, will continue to be always ready to cast the shield of their high position over all who may require its protection, in conformity with their sacred commission as our fathers in God.

The Rev. T. E. ESPIN, D.D., Rector of Wallasey, and

Chancellor of the Dioceses of Chester and Liverpool.

THE subject is not limited to questions connected with church sittings. What shall we say, for instance, about the right of free access to the church? If the church be the common property of all the parishioners, they ought, one might argue, to be able to get into it at all reasonable times; and if you lock it up for safety's sake all the week long, except a few hours on the first day, then it becomes a question whether every parishioner may not have a right to a key. Some very serious questions might be stirred also about rights to services in the parish churches; whether the full measure which Church rule contemplates and provides for, if it do not secure it, is not a right; such as a double daily service and a weekly Communion. But it is undoubtedly to church sittings that our attention this evening is expected to be mainly directed; though of course the rights of parishioners are much older in the parish churches than are the sittings; for it is quite certain that in early times there were no sittings at all provided for the congregations in the churches. Indeed it would seem that no parishioner ever thought of sitting during any part of divine service until after the middle of the fifteenth century. An occasional bench or two there certainly were in some, perhaps most churches; but they were apparently intended, like the seats in the church porch, for waiting between services, or for those to rest on who might find in the sacred precincts what many might be glad to find now in our noisy, bustling centres of population-a quiet spot, freely accessible for thought or prayer or reading, such as at home many can never have. Sermons until the sixteenth century were not many, and perhaps were not long. The lections from Holy Scriptures were very short likewise. Both these elements of instruction were wisely amplified at that time, and permanent sitting accommodation had soon to be provided accordingly. The clergy had, at any rate from quite the earlier days of the middle ages, choir stalls. The patron of the church, representing its founder, was likewise recognised by the Synods of the thirteenth and following century as entitled to a stall amongst them. So was the King and his lords. Then came the mayor in the borough and the squire in the county. In short, by the time that it became in a manner necessary to make arrangements for the congregation to sit at intervals during divine service, the germ of sittings differentiated according to earthly rank had established itself. For it is extremely difficult in these matters to draw a hard and fast line. One cannot see why one man's temporal dignity and social rank, whatever it be, should not as justly claim to be marked as another man's; and wherever you fix the demarcation which severs the privileged individuals from the undistinguished multitude, personal offence must needs be given. Open benches undoubtedly were the first form of seats introduced for parishioners generally; but under the influences to which I have adverted these soon began to give place to private inclosures, modelled after the capacious dimensions of the official or aristocratic pews. The earliest sample of the square pew, with two seats facing each other, and a cross seat at the top, bears date, I believe, A.D. 1601. There is no known example of a range of such double pews until A.D. 1634. Doors were occasionally attached to official stalls as early, at any rate, as A.D. 1500; but they came into

general use when the square pews were erected, and we sometimes see Jacobean doors put upon much older seats. Locks to prevent intrusion on these fenced precincts were soon found indispensable. In A.D. 1631

In

we find the Bishop of Winchester ordering the removal of the locks which had been placed on certain pews in a Hampshire church (Elevetham) "because the same had been set on the pews without a faculty."* Soon after the Restoration it was certainly customary to keep the pews locked up. This appears from a remark in Pepys's Diary under date Christmas Day, 1661. When distinguished persons acquired appropriated seats for themselves they naturally took their families into them with themselves. In primitive times the sexes were always separated in church, as may be seen from the Apostolic Constitutions and a long catena of later authorities quoted by Bingham. And the earlier faculties which grant pews to individuals speak generally of them as for the males or the females only of the family. There are repeated references also in churchwardens' accounts, not only to women's seats, but to seats set apart for the matrons or the maids. The church authorities seem to have set themselves against innovations in these arrangements. 1620 a certain Mr. Loveday, of Cripplegate Within, was had up before the Consistory Court of London, and admonished for sitting in the same pew with his wife, which the learned Chancellor stigmatised as "highly indecent." Repeated inquiries on the subject may be found in the Visitation Articles of the Caroline Bishops. Thus Bishop Wren asks in A.D. 1636 :—“ Are all the pews and seats in the church so ordered that they which are in them may also conveniently kneel down in the time of prayer, and have their faces eastward toward the holy table; and also that men and women do not sit promiscuously together?" But appropriation of seats and the separation of the sexes are two quite discordant principles. The idea of a church congregation as consisting of an aggregation of families had obtained a strong hold on the parishes and generally prevailed. Connected with this was another innovation. Family privacy and comfort demanded seclusion; and some other motives came in also with many to make them wish to esconce themselves behind high wainscot. Certain observances were ordered in these years, and enforced too by authority, which many did not like. Such were bowing at the Saviour's name, and standing at the creeds and the doxologies, for the custom then was to sit whilst the Psalms were sung. Recusancy in such matters could not so easily be detected when sheltered in a tall pew five feet or more high, as pews were often made in the years before the Protectorate. Dr. Cosin, afterwards Bishop of Durham, then, I suppose, an Archdeacon, is charged with being very severe in such matters. He spoke even to "gentlewomen of the highest rank sitting in their pews; 'Can ye not stand, you lazie sows?' taking them by the arms and tearing their sleeves to raise them up when the Nicene Creed is sung." So says Peter Smart in Canterberie's Cruelty, published in A.D. 1643. But we must not take all he says for gospel. Naturally enough the occupants of these private domiciles stinted nothing to make themselves comfortable in them. At Cholderton there

*Heales's Church Seats and Pews, i., p. 152.

+ "In the morning to church, where at the door of our pew I was fain to stay because the sexton had not opened the door. A good sermon by Mr. Mills."