Part 3

‘Were Charles the Second’s the good old times?’ demanded the Statue. ‘With a court full of riot and debauchery—a palace much less decent than any modern casino—whilst Scotch Covenanters were having their legs crushed in the “Boots,” under the auspices and personal superintendence of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The time of Titus Oates, Bedloe, and Dangerfield, and their sham-plots, with the hangings, drawings, and quarterings, on perjured evidence, that followed them. When Russell and Sidney were judicially murdered. The time of the Great Plague and Fire of London. The public money wasted by roguery and embezzlement, while sailors lay starving in the streets for want of their just pay; the Dutch about the same time burning our ships in the Medway. My friend, I think you will hardly call the scandalous monarchy of the “Merry Monarch” the good old times.’

‘I feel the difficulty which you suggest, Sir,’ owned Mr. Blenkinsop.

‘Now, that a man of your loyalty,’ pursued the Statue, ‘should identify the good old times with Cromwell’s Protectorate, is of course out of the question.’

‘Decidedly, Sir!’ exclaimed Mr. Blenkinsop. ‘_He_ shall not have a statue, though you enjoy that honour,’ bowing.

‘And yet,’ said the Statue, ‘with all its faults, this era was perhaps no worse than any we have discussed yet. Never mind! It was a dreary, cant-ridden one, and if you don’t think those England’s palmy days, neither do I. There’s the previous reign then. During the first part of it, there was the king endeavouring to assert arbitrary power. During the latter, the Parliament were fighting against him in the open field. What ultimately became of him I need not say. At what stage of King Charles the First’s career did the good old times exist, Mr. Alderman? I need barely mention the Star Chamber and poor Prynne; and I merely allude to the fate of Strafford and of Laud. On consideration, should you fix the good old times anywhere thereabouts?’

‘I am afraid not, indeed, Sir,’ Mr. Blenkinsop responded, tapping his forehead.

‘What is your opinion of James the First’s reign? Are you enamoured of the good old times of the Gunpowder Plot? or when Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded? or when hundreds of poor miserable old women were burnt alive for witchcraft, and the royal wiseacre on the throne wrote as wise a book, in defence of the execrable superstition through which they suffered?’

Mr. Blenkinsop confessed himself obliged to give up the times of James the First.

‘Now, then,’ continued the Statue, ‘we come to Elizabeth.’

‘There I’ve got you!’ interrupted Mr. Blenkinsop, exultingly. ‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ he added, with a sense of the freedom he had taken; ‘but everybody talks of the times of Good Queen Bess, you know!’

‘Ha, ha!’ laughed the Statue, not at all like Zamiel, or Don Guzman, or a paviour’s rammer, but really with unaffected gaiety. ‘Everybody sometimes says very foolish things. Suppose Everybody’s lot had been cast under Elizabeth! How would Everybody have relished being subject to the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Commission, with its power of imprisonment, rack, and torture? How would Everybody have liked to see his Roman Catholic and Dissenting fellow-subjects, butchered, fined, and imprisoned for their opinions; and charitable ladies butchered, too, for giving them shelter in the sweet compassion of their hearts? What would Everybody have thought of the murder of Mary Queen of Scots? Would Everybody, would Anybody, would _you_, wish to have lived in these days, whose emblems are cropped ears, pillory, stocks, thumb-screws, gibbet, axe, chopping-block, and Scavenger’s daughter? Will you take your stand upon this stage of History for the good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop?’

‘I should rather prefer firmer and safer ground, to be sure, upon the whole,’ answered the worshipper of antiquity, dubiously.

‘Well, now,’ said the Statue, ‘’tis getting late, and, unaccustomed as I am to conversational speaking, I must be brief. Were those the good old times when Sanguinary Mary roasted bishops, and lighted the fires of Smithfield? When Henry the Eighth, the British Bluebeard, cut his wives’ heads off, and burnt Catholic and Protestant at the same stake? When Richard the Third smothered his nephews in the Tower? When the Wars of the Roses deluged the land with blood? When Jack Cade marched upon London? When we were disgracefully driven out of France under Henry the Sixth, or, as disgracefully, went marauding there, under Henry the Fifth? Were the good old times those of Northumberland’s rebellion? Of Richard the Second’s assassination? Of the battles, burnings, massacres, cruel tormentings, and atrocities, which form the sum of the Plantagenet reigns? Of John’s declaring himself the Pope’s vassal, and performing dental operations on the Jews? Of the Forest Laws and Curfew under the Norman kings? At what point of this series of bloody and cruel annals will you place the times which you praise? Or do your good old times extend over all that period when somebody or other was constantly committing high treason, and there was a perpetual exhibition of heads on London Bridge and Temple Bar?’

It was allowed by Mr. Blenkinsop that either alternative presented considerable difficulty.

‘Was it in the good old times that Harold fell at Hastings, and William the Conqueror enslaved England? Were those blissful years the ages of monkery; of Odo and Dunstan, bearding monarchs and branding queens? Of Danish ravage and slaughter? Or were they those of the Saxon Heptarchy, and the worship of Thor and Odin? Of the advent of Hengist and Horsa? Of British subjugation by the Romans? Or, lastly, must we go back to the Ancient Britons, Druidism, and human sacrifices; and say that those were the real, unadulterated, genuine, good old times when the true-blue natives of this island went naked, painted with woad?’

‘Upon my word, Sir,’ said Mr. Blenkinsop, ‘after the observations that I have heard from you this night, I acknowledge that I _do_ feel myself rather at a loss to assign a precise period to the times in question.’

‘Shall I do it for you?’ asked the Statue.

‘If you please, Sir. I should be very much obliged if you would,’ replied the bewildered Blenkinsop, greatly relieved.

‘The best times, Mr. Blenkinsop,’ said the Statue, ‘are the oldest. They are the wisest; for the older the world grows the more experience it acquires. It is older now than ever it was. The oldest and best times the world has yet seen are the present. These, so far as we have yet gone, are the genuine good old times, Sir.’

‘Indeed, Sir?’ ejaculated the astonished Alderman.

‘Yes, my good friend. These are the best times that we know of—bad as the best may be. But in proportion to their defects, they afford room for amendment. Mind that, Sir, in the future exercise of your municipal and political wisdom. Don’t continue to stand in the light which is gradually illuminating human darkness. The Future is the date of that happy period which your imagination has fixed in the Past. It will arrive when all shall do what is right; hence none shall suffer what is wrong. The true good old times are yet to come.’

‘Have you any idea when, Sir?’ Mr. Blenkinsop inquired, modestly.

‘That is a little beyond me,’ the Statue answered. ‘I cannot say how long it will take to convert the Blenkinsops. I devoutly wish you may live to see them. And with that, I wish you good night, Mr. Blenkinsop.’

‘Sir,’ returned Mr. Blenkinsop with a profound bow, ‘I have the honour to wish you the same.’

Mr. Blenkinsop returned home an altered man. This was soon manifest. In a few days he astonished the Corporation by proposing the appointment of an Officer of Health to preside over the sanitary affairs of Beetlebury. It had already transpired that he had consented to the introduction of lucifer-matches into his domestic establishment, in which, previously, he had insisted on sticking to the old tinder-box. Next, to the wonder of all Beetlebury, he was the first to propose a great new school, and to sign a requisition that a county penitentiary might be established for the reformation of juvenile offenders. The last account of him is that he has not only become a subscriber to the mechanics’ institute, but that he actually presided thereat, lately, on the occasion of a lecture on Geology.

The remarkable change which has occurred in Mr. Blenkinsop’s views and principles, he himself refers to his conversation with the Statue, as above related. That narrative, however, his fellow townsmen receive with incredulous expressions, accompanied by gestures and grimaces of like import. They hint, that Mr. Blenkinsop had been thinking for himself a little, and only wanted a plausible excuse for recanting his errors. Most of his fellow aldermen believe him mad; not less on account of his new moral and political sentiments, so very different from their own, than of his Statue story. When it has been suggested to them that he has only had his spectacles cleaned, and has been looking about him, they shake their heads, and say that he had better have left his spectacles alone, and that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a good deal of dirt quite the contrary. _Their_ spectacles have never been cleaned, they say, and any one may see they don’t want cleaning.

The truth seems to be, that Mr. Blenkinsop has found an altogether new pair of spectacles, which enable him to see in the right direction. Formerly, he could only look backwards; he now looks forwards to the grand object that all human eyes should have in view—progressive improvement.

BAPTISMAL RITUALS.

The subject of baptism having recently been pressed prominently upon public attention, it has been thought that a few curious particulars relating exclusively to the rite as anciently performed would be interesting.

In the earliest days of the Christian Church those who were admitted into it by baptism were necessarily not infants but adolescent or adult converts. These previously underwent a course of religious instruction, generally for two years. They were called during their pupilage, ‘catechumens,’[2] a name afterwards transferred to all infants before baptism. When such candidates were judged worthy to be received within the pale of the Church, their names were inscribed at the beginning of Lent, on a list of the competent or ‘illuminated.’ On Easter or Pentecost eve they were baptised, by three solemn immersions, the first of the right side, the second of the left, and the third of the face. They were confirmed at the same time, often, in addition, receiving the sacrament. Sprinkling was only resorted to in cases of the sick and bedridden, who were called _clinics_,[3] because they received the rite in bed. Baptism was at that early period accompanied by certain symbolical ceremonies long since disused. For example, milk and honey were given to the new Christian to mark his entrance into the land of promise, and as a sign of his spiritual infancy in being ‘born again;’ for milk and honey were the food of children when weaned. The three immersions were made in honour of the three persons of the Trinity; but the Arians having found in that ceremony an argument favouring the notion of distinction and plurality of natures in the Deity, Pope Gregory by a letter addressed to St. Leander of Seville, ordained that in Spain, the then stronghold of Arianism, only one immersion should be practised. This prescription was preserved and applied to the Church universal by the 6th canon of the Council of Toledo in 633. The triple immersion was, however, persisted in in Ireland to the 12th century. Infants were thus baptised by their fathers, or indeed by any other person at hand, either in water or in milk; but the custom was abolished in 1172 by the Council of Cashel.

Footnote 2:

From the participle of a Greek verb, expressing the act of receiving rudimentary instruction.

Footnote 3:

From a Greek word signifying a bed, whence we derive the word _clinical_.

The African churches obliged those who were to be baptised on Easter eve to bathe on Good Friday, ‘in order,’ says P. Richard, in his _Analyse des Conciles_, ‘to rid themselves of the impurities contracted during the observance of Lent before presenting themselves at the sacred font.’ The bishops and priesthood of some of the Western churches, as at Milan, in Spain, and in Wales, washed the feet of the newly baptised, in imitation of the humiliation of the Redeemer. This was forbidden in 303 by the 48th canon of the Council of Elvira.

The Baptistery of the early church was one of the _exedræ_, or out-buildings, and consisted of a porch or ante-room, where adult converts made their confession of faith, and an inner room, where the actual baptism took place. Thus it continued till the sixth century, when baptisteries began to be taken into the church itself. The font was always of wood or stone. Indeed, we find the provincial council held in Scotland, in 1225, prescribing those materials as the only ones to be used. The Church in all ages discouraged private baptism. By the 55th canon of the same Council, the water which had been used to baptise a child out of church was to be thrown into the fire, or carried immediately to the parish baptistery, that it might be employed for no other purpose; in like manner, the vessel which, had held it was to be either burnt or consecrated for church use. For many centuries superstitious virtues were attributed to water which had been used for baptism. The blind bathed their eyes in it in the hope of obtaining their sight. It was said to ‘drown the devil,’ and to purify those who had recourse to it.

Baptism was by the early Church strictly forbidden during Lent. The Council of Toledo, held in 694, ordered by its 2nd canon, that, from the commencement of the fast to Good Friday, every baptistery should be closed, and sealed up with the seal of the bishop. The Council held at Reading, Berkshire, in 1279, prescribed that infants born the week previous to each Easter and Pentecost, should be baptised only at those festivals. There is no restriction of this kind preserved by the Reformed Church; but we are admonished in the rubric that the most acceptable place and time for the ceremony is in church, no later than the first or second Sunday after birth. Sundays or holidays are suggested, because ‘the most number of people come together,’ to be edified thereby, and be witnesses of the admission of the child into the Church. Private baptism is objected to, except when need shall compel.

The practice of administering the Eucharist to the adult converts to Christianity after baptism, was in many churches improperly, during the fourth century, extended to infants. The priest dipped his fore-finger into the wine, and put it to the lips of the child to suck. This abuse of the Holy Sacrament did not survive the twelfth century. It was repeatedly forbidden by various Councils of the Church, and at length fell into desuetude.

Christening fees originated at a very early date. At first, bishops and those who had aided in the ceremony of baptism were entertained at a feast. This was afterwards commuted to an actual payment of money. Both were afterwards forbidden. The 48th canon of the Council of Elvira, held in 303, prohibits the leaving of money in the fonts, ‘that the ministers of the Church may not appear to sell that which it is their duty to give gratuitously.’ This rule was, however, as little observed in the Middle Ages as it has been since. Strype says, that in 1560 it was enjoined by the heads of the Church that, ‘to avoid contention, let the curate have the value of the “Chrisome,” not under 4_d._, and above as they can agree, and as the state of the parents may require.’ The Chrisome was the white cloth placed by the minister upon the head of a child, which had been newly anointed with chrism, or hallowed ointment composed of oil and balm, always used after baptism. The gift of this cloth was usually made by the mother at the time of Churching. To show how enduring such customs are, even after the occasion for them has passed away, we need only quote a passage from Morant’s ‘Essex.’ ‘In Denton Church there has been a custom, time out of mind, at the churching of a woman, for her to give a white cambric handkerchief to the minister as an offering.’ The same custom is kept up in Kent, as may be seen in Lewis’s History of the Isle of Thanet.

The number of sponsors for each child was prescribed by the 4th Canon of the Council of York, in 1196, to be _no more_ than three persons;—two males and one female for a boy, and two females and one male for a girl;—a rule which is still preserved. A custom sprung up afterwards, which reversed the old state of things. By little and little, large presents were looked for from sponsors, not only to the child but to its mother; the result was that there grew to be a great difficulty in procuring persons to undertake so expensive an office. Indeed, it sometimes happened that fraudulent parents had a child baptised thrice, for the sake of the godfather’s gifts. To remedy these evils, a Council held at l’Isle, in Provence, in 1288, ordered that thenceforth nothing was to be given to the baptised but a white robe. This prescription appears to have been kept for ages; Stow, in his Chronicle of King James’s Reign, says, ‘At this time, and for many ages, it was not the use and custom (as now it is) for godfathers and godmothers to give plate at the baptism of children, but only to give _christening shirts_, with little bands and cuffs, wrought either with silk or blue thread, the best of them edged with a small lace of silk and gold.’ Cups and spoons have, however, stood their ground as favourite presents to babies on such occasions, ever since. ‘Apostle spoons’—so called because a figure of one of the apostles was chased on the handle of each—were anciently given: opulent sponsors presenting the whole twelve. Those in middling circumstances gave four, and the poorer sort contented themselves with the gift of one, exhibiting the figure of any saint, in honour of whom the child received its name. Thus, in the books of the Stationers’ Company, we find under 1560, ‘a spoone the gift of Master Reginald Woolf, all gilte, with the picture of St. John.’

Shakspeare, in his Henry VIII., makes the king say, when Cranmer professes himself unworthy to be sponsor to the young princess:—

‘Come, come, my lord, you’d spare your spoons.’

Again, in Davenant’s Comedy of ‘The Wits,’ (1639):

‘My pendants, cascanets, and rings; My christ’ning caudle-cup and spoons, Are dissolved into that lump.’

The coral and bells is an old invention for baptismal presents. Coral was anciently considered an amulet against fascination and evil spirits.

It is to be regretted that, at the present time, the grave responsibilities of the sponsors of children is too often considered to end with the presentation of some such gifts as we have enumerated. It is not to our praise that the ties between sponsors and god-children, were much closer, and held more sacredly in times which we are pleased to call barbarous. God-children were placed not only in a state of pupilage with their sureties, but also in the position of relations. A sort of relationship was established even between the Godfathers and Godmothers; insomuch, that marriage between any such parties was forbidden under pain of severe punishment. This injunction, like many others, had it appears been sufficiently disobeyed to warrant a special canon (12th) of the Council of Compiègne, held so early as 757, which enforced the separation of all those sponsors and God-children of both sexes who had intermarried, and the Church refused the rites of marriage to the women so separated. A century after (815) the Council of Mayence not only reinforced these restrictions and penalties, but added others.

ARCTIC HEROES.

A FRAGMENT OF NAVAL HISTORY.

SCENE, _a stupendous region of icebergs and snow. The bare mast of a half-buried ship stands among the rifts and ridges. The figures of two men, covered closely with furs and skins, slowly emerge from beneath the winter-housing of the deck, and descend upon the snow by an upper ladder, and steps cut below in the frozen wall of snow. They advance._

_1st Man._ We are out of hearing now. Give thy heart words.

[_They walk on in silence some steps further, and then pause._

_2nd Man._ Here ‘midst the sea’s unfathomable ice, Life-piercing cold, and the remorseless night Which never ends, nor changes its dead face, Save in the ’ghast smile of the hopeless moon, Must slowly close our sum of wasted hours; And with them all the enterprising dreams, Efforts, endurance, and resolve, which make The power and glory of us Englishmen.

_1st Man._ It _may_ be so.

_2nd Man._ Oh, doubt not but it must. Day after day, week crawling after week, So slowly that they scarcely seem to move, Nor we to know it, till our calendar Shows us that months have lapsed away, and left Our drifting time, while here our bodies lie Like melancholy blots upon the snow. Thus have we lived, and gradually seen, By calculations which appear to mock Our hearts with their false figures, that ’tis now Three years since we were cut off from the world By these impregnable walls of solid ocean!

_1st Man._ All this is true: the physical elements We thought to conquer, are too strong for man.

_2nd Man._ We have felt the crush of battle side by side; Seen our best friends, with victory in their eyes, Suddenly smitten down, a mangled heap, And thought our own turn might be next; yet never Drooped we in spirit, or such horror felt As in the voiceless tortures of this place, Which freezes up the mind.

_1st Man._ Not yet.

_2nd Man._ I feel it. Death, flying red-eyed from the cannon’s mouth, Were child’s play to confront, compared with this. Inch by inch famine in the silent frost— The cold anatomies of our dear friends, One by one carried in their rigid sheets To lay beneath the snow—till he that’s last, Creeps to the lonely horror of his berth Within the vacant ship, and while the bears Grope round and round, thinks of his distant home— Those dearest to him—glancing rapidly Through his past life—then with a wailful sigh And a brief prayer, his soul becomes a blank.

_1st Man._ This is despair—I’ll hear no more of it. We have provisions still.

_2nd Man._ And for how long?

_1st Man._ A flock of wild birds may pass over us, And some our shots may reach.

_2nd Man._ And by this chance Find food for one day more.

_1st Man._ Yes, and thank God; For the next day may preservation come, And rescue from old England.

_2nd Man._ All our fuel Is nearly gone; and as the last log burns And falls in ashes, so may we foresee The frozen circle sitting round.