The Ethical Movement in Great Britain

¶3THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN

¶10THE FARLEIGH PRESS 44, WORSHIP SIREET, LONDON, E.C. 2 .

¶13This is a documentary history of the Ethical Movement in Great Britain, compiled mainly with the aid of the relatively rich material very kindly placed at my disposal by a number of Committees and individuals. Unfortunately, the provincial Societies are, with rare exceptions, reported on only indircedy because of the absence of relevant documents. However, some information concerning these Sociedes and much about the Movement generally will be found in the pages of The Ethical World (continued as Democracy, Ethics, Ethical Review, and The Ethical World) and its successor, The Humanist, These periodicals cover the period 1898 to 1922 and may be consulted at the British Museum Library. Acknowledgment of the documentary and other sources has been made in connection with each Chapter, but I would here repeat in general terms my infinite indebtedness to the Committees and individuals who collaborated. At the same time I would most warmly urge all British Ethical Societies to include in their Rules a paragraph to the effect that a copv of each Annual Report, pamphlet ^ly^ dated), periodical, etc., issueef by them, should be invariably forwarded to the British Museum Library (Bloomsbury, London, W.C.i), to ensure that a record of the activities of the British Ethical Movement is preserved for future generations. To which I would add the eminent desirability of comprehensive and comparable Annual Reports of the type described in Chapter I., Section ii.

¶14The story of the Ethical Movement in Great Britain is carried here roughly to the summer of 1931 ; but little that is specially noteworthy, it may be remarked, occui'red between the date just mentioned and the commencement of 1934, at least so far as Societies are concerned.

¶15May this history serve its double object — (a) to inform the leaders and the rank and file of the Ethical Movement in the years to come of the earnest endeavours of its pioneers to create a nation-wide network of Ethical Societies teaching the supreme importance of the ethical factor in all the relations of life — personal, social, national, and international, — apart from all theological and metaphysical considerations, and (b) to assist the social student and the historian to arrive at a fair judgment regarding the purport and the influence of the Ethical Movement in Great Britain.

¶16The Chairman of the Council of the British Ethical Union, Lord Snell, C.B.E., wrote to me under date iith May 1933 : “ Let me say at once that for this careful statement of the facts of the origin and experiences of the Movement, and of the separate Societies, etc., the Movement is under a great obligation to you. Your work will stand as the first serious attempt to record the doings of the Movement as a whole and it will form an essential basis for whatever else it may he wise to write on the same thense^ at a later date. Whoever attempts an interpretative history of what we have been trying to do will be saved immense labour and your work will therefore have its place in our archives.”

¶18London, April 1934*

¶111The “ General Aim of the Society ”, as set out in the first Report and as reproduced below, is remarkable in several ways. It reinstates unequivocally the line of thought expressed in the July 1886 Statement. In fact, it emphasises both the negative and the positive aspects. “ In the pursuit of these aims the Ethical Society does not set out from any authoritative or merely traditional statement of the claims of morality. It believes that these claims rest upon the rational nature of man as a member of an organic spiritual community.” And the meaning of the term “ religious ”, which appeared three times in the original Statement of July and September 1886, in the possibly ambiguous expression “ moral and religious ”, is clearly fixed : “ The aims of the Society ”, we read, “ are religious in the sense that they are directed towards the purification and elevation of the ideal of Human Life.” Here we have the further implication that the object of the Society is not only religious but pracLical, since “ the aims of the Societv are . . . directed towards the purification and elevation of the ideal of Human Life.” The same idea is stressed in the first sentence of this new Statement : “ ... there is at

¶128“From this account of the aims and methods of the Society it will be obvious that it does not propose to enter into competition with existing organisations. It does not propose, as has been thought, to open new channels of religious worship and devotion. The aims of the Society are religious in the sense that they are directed toward the purification and elevation of the ideal of Human Life. But the Society has no intention of founding a Church or offering to its members anydiing that could properly be called religious worship or organisation.

¶146“ From this account of the aims and methods of the Society, it will be obvious that it does not propose to enter into competition with existing religious organisations. It does not propose, as has been thought, to found a new religious worship. It merely aims at disentangling what is distinctively moral from the more transient forms of doctrine and ritual in which it is embedded. At a time when these forms arc being subjected on all hands to a critical and destructive analysis, it is felt that such a disentanglement is of supreme importance and is specially incumbent upon those who have the moral education of young people entrusted to them.

¶370In the spring of 1887, the Committee of the South Place Religious Society, chiefly at the instance of its retired Minister, Dr. Moncurc D. Conway, decided to invite Dr. Stanton Coit, “ a gentleman well known in the United States in connection with the Ethical Culture Movement ”, to address the Society for several consecutive Sundays. Dr. Stanton Coit accepted the invitation and in September of the same year he delivered four discourses at South Place, speaking on the 4th on “ The Death of Socrates ”, the nth on “ The Ethics of Shakespeare ”, and on the i8th and 25th on “ Ethical Culture as a Religion for the People ”.

¶371As these lectures were the first ethical discourses Dr. Stanton Coit delivered in Great Britain and as the double address on “ Ethical Culture as a Religion for the People ” led to an invitation for Dr. Coit to become the Minister of the Society, it will be in place to quote here some passages from this address : —

¶372'* Ethical Culture, as a religion for the people, offers in the place of God’s vigilance an adequate increase of men’s vigilance, in the place of a presence believed in, a presence actually seen and felt and heard — men and women looking and hearing, preventing, warning, condemning, rescuing. The dread of being caught hy one’s fellow-men offers, I believe, the strongest check that can be found to one’s evil impulses. The possibility of incurring the contempt even of strangers, holds us back from our sweetest transgressions; and the thought of the merest chance of being found out by those who respect us and love us tenderly, cuts into the soul like a knife, it spreads sharp pain through the finest pleasure, so that we recoil from our fondest schemes.” (p. 152.) — “ Next to the fear of being caught in evil-doing, the motive most powerful foi good over the minds of ordinary men, and especially of the poor and illiterate, is the desire for personal approbation when they have done well, and the fear of offending and disappointing someone who cares for them. This longing for personal fellowship in the inner moral life is, I believe, the deepest need of the human heart.” (p. 153.)—” Friends, if you hold up the Christian’s ideal of a loving God in the strongest light of your moral insight, you will see that it is in outline the perfect human character projected outward, that it is a vision which the human soul throws out from its own depths upon the clear blue sky of inward meditation. No sadder error has ever been committed than to mistake it for a reality and rest in the sight of it. We must make it a reality, else it has no existence. . . . But because we do not mistake it for a real existence, but regard it as a thing to be made real in our lives and in society, we maintain that ethical culture in this respect is better fitted than theistic religion to bring religion to the people.” (p. 157.)—” It is one thing to say as atheistic ethics docs ; ‘ There is no personal G^, therefore let us take up with the next best thing, and love our fellow-men’; and quite another — as different as day from night — to say:

¶373‘ The highest thing is to love where there is the greatest need. . . . Because fellowship with living men bears upon it the sovereign seal of the moral sanction, therefore will I know no oAcr fellowship until that be perfected.* ” (p. 162.)^” Duty is a jealous God. . . . ‘ What, am I not the highest.? * says the voice of Duty, ‘ Thinkest thou that if the veil were rent and diou stoodest face to face with what is now the mystery of being, thou shouldst find it fairer than I am? Then hast thou never known me*.” (p. 162.) — “If we do not base ethics on atheism, or theism, or agnosticism, or positivism, what

¶374THB SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

¶375do we base it upon? We answer : Ethics is the science of good character and right conduct, and it is based on our moral experience and our moral judgment, and should be kept independent of all theology, just as the science of correct thinking is, or political economy, and all other sciences of the mind and society, and as all practical arts arc. We are pledged to no philosophical theory as to the nature of God and the universe, or as to the limits of human knowledge. And so long as the atheist, or theist, or agnostic, or positivist does not derive his sanctions to right actions from his speculative theories, we gladly welcome him. We would leave the speculative thought of each individual as untrammelled as you do here at South Place, and assert that character and conduct arc independent of philosophical speculations. We would then unite on the basis of character and conduct, and try to build up these as best we can in ourselves and others.” (p. 163.) — “ But to seek out Christ as the unique sustainer and inspirer of our moral life, as the only name whereby a man can be saved, is again anti-social. It lets Christ do what we ought to do, the higher work.” 165.) — “ In the place of heaven

¶376which awakens contemplation, we set before men the vision of a glorified earth. Stung by its splendours, men will leap to create it. It was always the glorified earth that the heart of man longed for. It was only as the hopes of our realising it faded away that the vision of another world began to shed its strange unnatural light over this earthly existence.” (pp. 167-168!;— ” Ethical Culture is a religion for the illiterate, because it intends and hopes to do away with illiteracy altogether; it sees that illiteracy ought not to be; furthermore, it is demonstrating that it need not be.” (p. 169.)— ‘‘The doctrine that our Moral impulses do not well up out of our own nature, but arc injected upon supplication to a superhuman being for help, is so palpably false and degrading that it should be silenced. . . . The power to do right is a part of ourselves. It is as much a part of ourselves at least as the power to think, to see or to eat, and there is no more need to ask some superhuman being for it than for these. There is only need of exercising it, no matter how weak it may be.” (p. 170.) — ‘‘What, then, have we to offer? To the neglected, a friend; to those in moral danger, a guard; to the weak, encouragement; to the erring, self-respect; to the ignorant, knowledge; and unto the sorrowing, an inward joy.” (p. 171.) — (Last paragraph.) ‘‘The light which streams from conscience bathes in opal beauty every individual life; it penetrates and makes radiant with the splendour of pure joy every family on earth; the city where it gleams has no need of the sun, neither oi the moon; blessed too are the nations that walk in the light of it. The warmth of its beams reaches to the uttermost limits of mankind; yea, it floods the universe with its effulgence inexhaustible. We behold a glory in the sea and sky, and on the distant mountains, which is not their own. We lose ourselves in light. Such is the poetry of the moral life. Such is the gospel of ethics.” (p. 174.)

¶393The question of changing the name of the Society was raised at a Special General Meeting of Members on 21st December 1887, and was resolved in the affirmative. At the same meeting Dr. Coit was formally elected Minister, but several months had to elapse before his arrangements permitted him to enter upon his ministerial duties. The Committee heartily congratulated the members on the change in the affairs of the Society and looked forward hopefully to a new and long career of usefulness for South Place and its Minister.

¶3942. The Earlier History of South Place.

¶395At this point it may be of interest to insert an account of the general history of South Place before it became an Ethical Society. The account is reproduced from a pamphlet issued by the Society and entitled A Short History of South Place Ethical Society and an Urgent Appeal, published in September 1927

¶396‘‘ Our Society is the direct descendant of ‘ The Philadelphians’, or Loving Brothers, a Society founded in 1793 at Parliament Court Chapel, Artillery Lane, Bishopsgatc, by the Rev. Elhanan Winchester, an American ex-Baptist preacher and a pioneer of clerical disbelief in the doctrine of Eternal Hell. Winchester was followed by the Rev. William Vidler, who added Unitarianism to Winchester’s affirmation of universal salvation, and upheld with great courage the principle of religious liberty.

¶397” Vidler died in 1816, and was succeeded by William Johnson Fox, the

¶398famous politician, orator, and preacher. In his introductory address to the congregation at Parliament Court, Fox made the following declaration, ‘I believe in the duty of free inquiry, and in the right of rdigious liberty*, and in 1842 he re-affirmed this confession of faith in an address at the twentyfifth anniversary of his settlement with the Society. The Chapel flourished under his ministry, and Fox also exercised great public influence by his eloquence and his broad and elevated views upon the questions of the day. The Society, outgrowing its home in Parliament Court, decided to obtain larger quarters, and in 1823 South Place Chapel was built. It was opened by Fox on February i, 1824, as a Unitarian place of worship, and Fox continued as minister until 1852. During his ministry his religious views became less and less sectarian and theological. He passed from Unitarianism to Theism, and, as was the case with his predecessors and with his successors, carried the congregation with him in his changes of opinion. . . .

¶399“ The retirement of Fox was followed by an interval during which various preachers occupied the pulpit, but in 1864 Moncure Daniel Conway became the permanent minister. He held this position until 1884, under his teaching the Society gave up all theological dogma, and was re-named the South Place Religious Society. . . .

¶453Dr. Stanton Coit began his ministry on ist September 1888. But already the Annual Report for 1888 spoke very hopefully of the situation. “ There is indeed ”, the Report states, ” but one fact of importance to put on record, the coming amongst us of Dr. Stanton Coit, as permanent Minister, and that event is as yet too recent for its full significance to be appreciated, although the results, both moral and material, are already suHiciendy obvious to warrant an expression of satisfaction at the course taken at the end of last year.” And a litde further on we read : “ Immediately Dr. Coit commenced his active duties in September, a marked improvement was manifested in the attendance on Sunday mornings.”

¶484The year following (1891/92) the Society passed through a grave crisis. Dr. Stanton Coit informed the Society that he could only remain its Minister if five proposals, which he specified, were accepted in substance. After discussion, followed by divisions protracted through two General Members’ meetings, his proposals were substantially accepted. One of these conditions, however, required ratification by a two-thirds majority in a meeting convened specially for the purpose. This meeting was duly held on 15th December 1891, but negatived the motion “ That it is desirable that Dr. Coit be ex-officio a member of all committees in this Society.” Thereupon Dr. Coit unconditionally resigned, his resignation to take effect ist January 1892.

¶485The Society’s Annual Report commented as follows on the situation created : —

¶486“ Three years is not a very long time in the history of an institution, but it is enough for the knitting of ties and the kindling ot personal attachment. Our recent Minister had a rare gift of stimulating young and ardent minds, and there arc probably few of any age who have not b^n impressed by his evident sincerity and zeal for the elevation of the people. It was not extraordinary, therefore, that many were prepared to go great lengths in suppressing private predilections, either theoretical or practical, to retain the services

¶487of SO earnest a public worker. The late troubles seem to yield at least one clear lesson, namely, that the condition of success few South Place in the immediate future consists in a fusion of the traditional encoura^ment of unrestricted intellectual activity, and a practical earnestness which is the keynote of the movement for ethical culture. Whether a Society with such positive and inclusive aims be styled religious or ethical, is of secondary moment. More than names are needed moral truth and enthusiasm, and the right men to expound and evoke them.”

¶494After five years of the happiest relations between him and his Society he was, however, regretfully compelled to terminate his ministry at the end of June 1897, owing to the continued serious illness of Mrs. Conway. He concluded his farewell address on 27th June 1897, on “ Cabot Discovering America, 1497 ”, with the following words : —

¶502“ The object of the Society is the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment, the study of ethical principles, and the promotion of human welfare, in harmony with advancing knowledge.*’

¶503This statement was amended in 1930 to read as follows : —

¶504“ The objects of the Society are the study and dissemination of ethical principles and the cultivation or a rational religious sentiment.”

¶505In 1893/94 the Committee reports “ the united action of the several London Ethical Societies for the purpose of guiding opinion on the vexed question of religious instruction in Elementary Schools ”. Since that day the South Place Ethical Society has co-operated on many occasions with the other London Ethical Societies. The following year the Committee speaks of “ the good plan of the different Ethical Societies meeting when their common interests are affected ”. And, in connection with the Sunday School, we read (in 1894/95) : “ An effort is being made to bring the teachers and children connected with the various Ethical Sunday Schools into touch with one another. This has been effected to some extent in the Annual Children’s Services in the Chapel, and during the past year two or three exchanges of lessons have been made.” In pursuance of this policy, the South Place Ethical Society became later affiliated to the Moral Instruction League.

¶506The outstanding event of 1893/94 was the publication of Dr. Conway’s memorable Centenary History of the South Place Society. The same year, surveying the subsidiary activities of the Society, the Committee stated that “ there never was a period in the whole history of the Society when more well-directed activity could be seen ”.

¶507In 1894/95 the Junior Ethical Union was re-organised under the name of the South Place Discussion Society. During the year, the first issue of The South Place Magazine appeared. This Magazine was succeeded in October 1909 by the Monthly List. Since March 1920, it appears under the title The Monthly Record of the South Place Ethical Society.

¶512Dissatisfied with the discontinuity in the lectures, the Committee arranged in 1899 with Mr. Herbert Burrows, Mr. J. A. Hobson, and Mr. John M. Robertson that they should confer among themselves and with the Committee upon the course of thought to be presented, and the subject and mode of treatment of the lectures, these three lecturers to occupy the greater number of the available Sundays. In 1901, the experiment started with a course of lectures on ‘‘ The Nineteenth Century ”. The scheme, in this form, was, however, found difficult to realise. Accordingly, from 1903/04, the speakers referred to simply took the place of a minister, speaking on any subject that appeared to them appropriate. With slight variants this scheme has been adhered to ever since, the present official lecturers being Dr. C. Delisle Burns, Mr. John A. Hobson, Mr. S. K. Ratcliffe, and Mr. John M. Robertson. But, as before, nonofficial lecturers occupy the platform at frequent intervals.

¶5261922. — Hon. Bertrand Russell, Frecthought and Official Propaganda.

¶5341930. — Julian S. Huxley, Science, Religion and Human Nature.

¶546Building operations commenced in 1928 and the Inaugural Meeting was held on Monday evening, 23rd September 1929, in the Large Hall of the new building. Dr. Delisle Burns presided over a large and enthusiastic gathering and speeches were delivered by Prof. Gilbert Murray, Miss Athene Seyler, Mr. John A. Hobson, Prof. Graham Wallas, Mr. Richard Walthew, Mr. Albert Halstead, and Dr. Stanton Coit.

¶557“ At the Annual Meeting last year Mr. Delislc Burns [who joined the staff of South Place lecturers in 1918/19] expressed the opinion that if the Society is to attract new members, ‘ we have to experiment : experiment in the form of service; experiment in new methods; experiment in the social side of the Society. We have to modify our customs and traditions so that we may take a live institution into new surroundings.* Acting in the spirit of these suggestions, the Committee has made a number of experiments during the year under review. After careful consideration it was decided that, in view of the special interest taken by Mr. Delislc Burns in the Society’s work and the general appreciation of his discourses, arrangements should be made, subject to approval by the next Annual Meeting, for him to deliver at least 25 discourses during 1925. Experiments have also been made with regard to the music at the Sunday morning services by the occasional substitution of instrumental music for the hymns and anthems. Efforts have been made to improve the congregational singing by holding a practice at the close of the service. Arising out of the changes made, the Committee have thought it desirable to ask the congregation to refrain from applause on Sunday mornings.”

¶563“ The Committee are pleased to report that the first full financial year at Conway Hall has more than justified the most optimistic expectations. The vision of those who agitated and worked, more than twenty years ago, for rebuilding, has materialised, and the new home of the Society hums with

¶564activity. From October to April there is hardly an evening without some intellectual or social function. It is only necessary to mention the new activities which have y)rung into being since Conway Hall was opened, to realise the re-vivifying effect of a building possessing beauty of architecture and utility of design. The Joint Conway Discussion Circle, The Study Circle, The Poetry Reading Circle, ^e Sunday Afternoon ‘ At Homes ’, the Country Dance Class, all these attract members, new and old, and the other activities have acquired fresh life. The influx of new members and associates, chronicled in last year’s Report, continues, and we now number nearly 600 in all. As will be seen from the financial paragraph on a later page, the Treasurer’s accounts arc the most satisfactory for many years. The lettings have exceeded any estimate made when the probable income for Conway Hall was considered.”

¶565The Society has always been noted for its manifold activities. We saw what these were in 1887 and in the early ’nineties. To-day, as wc shall now learn, they are not less varied. We quote from the Annual Report : —

¶566‘‘ The attendance at the Sunday morning services is maintained, and efforts are now being made to advertise them more widely. . . . The twenty-first Conway Memorial Lecture, delivered by Mr. Julian Huxley on October i, entitled ‘ Science, Religion and Human Nature ’, was certainly the most popular of the series. . . . On Sunday, September 28, a large gathering of members and friends of the Ethical Movement met at the Annual Soiree, when Prof. Graham Wallas spoke on ‘ Science and Ethics ’. The Sunday Concert Committee are to be congratulated on the successful completion of their 45th season. The artists give of their best and the crowded audiences arc attentive and enthusiastic. . . . Twenty-seven concerts were given, bringing the total to i,iio. The Conway Discussion Circle, arranged under the joint auspices of the Rationalist Press Association and the Society, has for the second year provided a most interesting series of discussions. . . . One of the most healthy signs of renewed vigour in the Society is the formation and rapid growth of the Study Circle. . . . The average attendance numbers over twenty.

¶938In December 1891, as we learnt in Chapter II., Dr. Stanton Coit resigned his pastorate of the South Place Ethical Society. Not a few of those who had been among his admiring listeners at South Place Chapel, were consequendy eager to found a new spiritual home where

¶1059In all the above instances the past is qualitatively almost identical with the present. Not so with the West London Ethical Society. The present is in this instance vastly unlike the distant past. Here the reverse nolds : the past can only be read in the light of the present. Or we may explain this course of events by realising that Dr. Stanton Coit (born in 1857 in the United States) has been organically connected with the Society right from its beginning to the present moment and that, as he tells us,* when a mere youth he was already a disciple of Emerson and was most impressed by these words of his master: “Pure Ethics is not now formulated and concreted into a culms, a fraternity with assemblings and holy days, with song and book, with brick and stone. Why have not those who believe in it and love it left all for this.? ” Hence the seeds of the present Ethical Church lay compact in him who has been its guiding spirit throughout its long history. But for this personal factor, patently opemting without intermission, the chequered and arresting career of this Society cannot be understood. Its historic trend reflects, except for external circumstances, the trend of its leader’s mind, the mind of an “uncrowned king,” consecutively figuring in the list of officers as Organising Lecturer, Lecturer, Chairman and Organiser, President, Executive Officer, Chairman of Committee, but always giving a lead and leading.f To conceive the Society without him, would be even more confusing than to think of Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark left out — we should be almost entirely without a clue to the Society’s

¶15423. — Since the claim of the good life upon us is supreme, the moral ideal must be set up as the object of religious devotion— religion being allegiance to an object to which supreme devotion is regarded as due.

¶1553The final meeting concluded with carrying by 26 votes against i, the following consequential motion : “ That in Rule i of the Society the words the West London Ethical Society be replaced by Ethical Church.” Thus the West London Ethical Society became the Ethical Church, the original proposal having been that it should be called The Church of the Empire.

¶15623. — Since the claim of the good life upon us is supreme, the moral ideal must be set up as the object of religious devotion— religion being allegiance to an object to which supreme devotion is regarded as due.

¶1573X. God Indwelling in the British People. — ^Thc Power of Righteousness, expressing itself in the moral evolution of the British people and now moving with greater momentum than ever before towards a democracy of Social Justice as the goal of the Empire’s destiny, is God immanent, whom all British subjects should unite in revering and obeying.

¶1592Since the claim of the good life upon us is supreme, the moral ideal must be set up as the object of religious devotion — ^religion being allegiance to an object to which supreme devotion is regarded as due.

¶1597God Indwelling in the British People. — ^Thc Power of Righteousness, ex-

¶1619The benign and mighty Father of man’s spirit.

¶1645the following form. Some minutes before the Service begins, the organist plays a voluntary. On the speaker, the conductor, and the cantor (dressed in long black or red robes) entering, the congregation rises, the choir sings an introit, and the conductor then reads the Introductory Words. Then a canticle is chanted, the congregation participating. Then, the congregation resuming their seats, the conductor reads a Meditation, lasting some three minutes. This is followed by a two minutes’ period of silence. Then, the congregation rising, the pithy Statement of Belief, already quoted, is intoned. This is followed by an anthem, that by a lesson usually chosen and read by the speaker, that by a hymn (standing) and announcements, and that by an address of about 40 minutes* duration. After this the collection is taken whilst the organist plays; an anthem follows; then an invitation is extended to visitors to join the Church fellowship; and, the congregation rising, a hymn is sung, Dismissory Words are said, the choir sings an Amen or Blessing, and the congregation disperses or individuals come forward to converse with the speaker or for general conversation.’**' The Service occupies altogether about an hour and a half. All but the readings for the lessons are generally taken from Social Worship, which allows very considerable choice to the conductor and permits him to select appropriate passages in harmony with the discourse. But the conductor may also have recourse to other sources for his readings.

¶16468. The Basis for the Services.

¶1647The hymns, canticles, responses, and the words of the anthems, are to be found in volume 2 of Social Worship, the readings being in volume I, where they are arranged approximately in the order of the Service itself so far as this involves readings. It may be added that volume I of Social Worship is an ethical anthology, drawing and adapting freely from the works of many distinguished writers. This volume is one of the monuments the Society’s leader. Dr. Stanton Coit, has erected to himself, a volume which is highly appreciated by not a few ministers and laymen the world over. Volume 2, which is noteworthy as containing original forms of Canticles and Responses, was edited by Mr. Charles Kennedy Scott, the Church’s enthusiastic organist and musical director (since 1911), a well-known composer and conductor.

¶1648But this basis of the Services at the Ethical Church has in turn a basis. In 1907 and 1908 respectively. Dr. Stanton Coit published National Idealism and a State Church and National Idealism and the Boo\ of Common Prayer, two portly volumes. Here he incisively, cogendy, and brilliantly argues both in favour of an ethical ritual and of ethical churches and of the reinterpretation of the ritual of the orthodox churches on humanistic and non-supernaturalistic lines. Only a lengthy summary could even faintly do justice to these closely reasoned volumes. Accordingly, the reader is referred to the two works the aim of which may be

¶1675When we enter the semi-circular church, we note immediately in front of us an oak-panelled wall. The panelling reaches the height of the balustrade of the first gallery, the part of the wall behind the centrally placed pulpit being draped with a richly embroidered curtain. Above the panelling, or rather as part of it, is, in the centre, a framed tempera picture by Walter Crane, with the legend on the frame : “ Still the race of Hero Spirits pass the torch from hand to hand ”, words adapted from Charles Kingsley. (The pulpit, too, was designed by Walter Crane. “ His was also the general colour scheme of the interior of the Church, including the blue carpet in front of the pulpit and the gold-starred blue ceiling.”) Above this picture is a beautiful bust of Pallas Athene. The lower, central part of the panelling is replaced by a large pulpit, on the upper part of which we read the line from Wordsworth : ” Thanks to the human heart by which we live ”. On the right side of the pulpit, placed against the panelled wall, is a statue of Jesus the Christ and on the left one of Gautama the Buddha, each with appropriate quotations. To the left and right of Walter Crane’s picture, on the bare wall, is a caste relief by Lucca della Robbia. On the two extreme limits of the gallery in front, touching the panelled wall, are the busts of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius. (Thus West and East and Greece and Rome arc represented.) In the centre of the semi-circular space between the pulpit and the gallery stands, on a heavy blue carpet covering the whole floor space between the pulpit and the pews, a modern Skyess marble altar, with the following inscription for its four sides: An Altar to the Ideal / The True I The Beautiful f The Good, (This altar, designed by Mr. Vernon Hill, was provided during the year 1923/24.) There is much else of beauty to be noted in the Church, but here can only be mentioned a series of three stained glass windows, with Joan of Arc in the centre and Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale to the right and left of her, and, in a corner of the Church, a modern shrine containing an ancient porcelain statue of Kwan-Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, who, the legend says, refused to enter heaven so long as any one was denied admission.

¶1722“ The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Ethical Movement was celebrated at our Church by a United Service, representing all the English Ethical Societies. It was conducted by Mr. Dimsdale Stocker and Mr. Spiller, and addresses were delivered by Dr. Delisle Burns and Mr. John Murphy on behalf of the South Place Ethical Society; by Mr. Harry Snell, M.P., on behalf of the Societies in the English Ethical Union; and by Dr. Coit on behalf of the Ethical Church. After the Service a well-attended social gathering was held in the Church Hall.”

¶1755“ The detaching of the word God from the Source and the reattaching of it to whatever things are true, beautiful, and good, is, I believe, the only way by which religion and science can be reconciled, and also the only way in which communal worship can be made consistent with individual liberty of thought.

¶1756“ Furthermore, there are great religions on earth in which the word God does not point to a Personal Creator, but they all involve belief in a world of spiritual values. If the adherents of all religions could learn to transfer their heart’s supreme allegiance from the supposed Sources to the world of values, it would make it possible for all religions to unite in spiritual cooperation. The old creeds said, with Browning; —

¶1757God ! Thou art love ! I build my faith on Thee.

¶1758The new creed says : —

¶1759Love I Thou art God ! I build my faith on Thee 1 ”

¶1984** (g) The moral life involves neither acceptance nor rejection of belief in any deity, personal or impersonal, or in a life after death.

¶1991” To promote a Religion of Human Fellowship and Service.

¶1992“The Ethical Faith; —

¶1993“(i) The supreme aim of religion is the love of goodness and its fulfilment in the life of the world.

¶1994“ (2) Knowledge of the right has been evolving through the experience * of the human race, as the sense of kinship has widened, and as the individual has subordinated his personal interests and impulses to the good of the whole.

¶1995” (3) Religion increasingly reveals itself in the development of personal character, the promotion of the public good, and the cultivation of a finer sense of brotherhood between men and nations. These ends can be reached only through the organisation of the Moral forces of the world and a higher appreciation of spiritual values.

¶1996” (4) We are members one of another, and can progress only as all advance. Progress of the community therefore requires such social and economic readjustments as promote the physical, intellectual, and moral development of all.

¶1997“ (5) The life of humanity is continuous. We are inheritors of all the past which lives on in us, as we shall live on in all that come after us; and, being thus creators of the future, we have in it immortality.”

¶2215In 1896, at the inception of the Union, it consisted of the North, South, East, and West London Ethical Societies. But outside the Union there were also the London, the South Place, the Battersea, the Portsmouth, the Belfast, and the Cambridge Ethical Societies.

¶2581Thus, according to the Annual Reports of the Union, altogether some 74 Ethical Societies have been started, to the Union’s knowledge, in Great Britain, the earliest of a definite type being the London Ethical Society, founded in 1886. Of these 74 Societies, no less than 46 passed through the Union, the smallest number of federated Societies at any time being 4 (at the Union’s inception) and the largest, 26 (in 1905/6). At present there are 10 Ethical centres in existence — the ^uth Place Ethical Society, the Ethical Church, the South London Ethical Society, the Hampstead Ethical Institute, Wimbledon Ethical Society, the Women’s Group, the Forest Group, the Young People’s Group, the University College (London) Ethical Union, and the Manchester University Ethical Society. The more vigorous newcomers began and continued to multiply from 1901 to 1909. After that date, the number of groups diminished and during and, especially, after the War most of them succumbed to the adverse social conditions prevailing universally.

¶2586The factors involved in the entire series of fluctuations have no doubt their definite antecedents. One crucial cause operating about 1900, was certainly the favourable social atmosphere, especially among the working class ^ite. However, there were also auxiliary factors at work which were no less crucial. Dr. Stanton Coit, with his enthusiasm, ability, and titanic energy, was a host in himself; but not satisfied with this, he gathered around the Union, besides a number of voluntary part-time helpers, quite a noticeably big group of largely whole-time workers (Mr. Harrold Johnson, Mr. Joseph McCabe, Miss Margaret McMillan, Mr. G. E. O’Dell, Mr. William Sanders, Mr. Harry Snell, Mr. G. Spiller, and others) who proclaimed the ethical gospel here, there, and everywhere in the land. Without them, ethical groups would have found it difficult to start and even more difficult to continue. And these missionaries not only went where they were invited, but they circumambulated the country. Even so, it would have been embarrassing “ to feed the flock,” had not Dr. Stanton Coit also established The Ethical World, a weekly (and later monthly) which from 1898 to well into the War period supplied the regular spiritual food required by the numerous scattered Ethical groups and, in addition, acted as a recruiting agent for new Ethical Societies. It will be understood, therefore, that when the funds for supporting the company of travelling missionaries dwindled, the outlook ceased to be promising.

¶2804“ The whole Service was well concluded within the ‘ dinner-hour * for which it was arranged. The services have been continued since Christmas. Mr. McCabe gave three addresses in January on ‘ The Failure of Dogmatic Religion ’, ‘ The Modern Cynic ’, and ‘ The Travail for the Superman ’, and then Dr. Coit resumed the conduct of the services. Although the DinnerHour Services have not been self-supporting, the Council considers them of great value and well worthy of increased support. The meetings are being continued to the end of June, and will begin again in October.”

¶2810in Religion.” Papers by Dr. L. P. Jacks, M.A., Editor of the Hibbert Journal, Principal of Manchester College, Oxford, The Rev. W. Manning, M.A., and Mr. Phillip H. Thomas, I.S.O. The Problem for Discussion: “ If we recognise that the historic churches fail to maintain the church-going habit, and that the various humanist movements have not succeeded in their efforts to organise the ethical or religious life, is the explanation to be attributed to (a) defects in the churches and movements themselves; (b) the growth of new forms of mysticism; (c) changing social conditions; or (d) such counter-attractions as literature, drama, music, etc.? ” Dr. Jacks will speak on “ Ethical and Religious Teaching from the Learner’s End.”

¶2830“ The statement having been frequently made at public meetings and circulated in the daily Press that all the parents of Board School children are satisfied with the religious teaching now given in the Board Schools of London, we, the undersigned, parents of such children, in order to prove to the Board the falsity of that statement, and to help towards the introduction of moral teaching which shall make no appeal to supernatural or superhuman motives, do hereby protest that in general such motives are not suitable to the understanding and character of children, and are particularly out of place when taught in State Schools, which are maintained at the cost of citizens of every creed and of no creed.

¶3270At an indoor congress of the Union of Ethical Societies members were invited to join the Forest Gate Ethical Church in a service in the open air. Sunday, July 5th, 1903, a brilliant summer day, saw parties of Ethical folk arriving at Loughton. Morning ramblers, picnicing on their way, met an afternoon group at tea at Oak Hill Farm, Theydon Bois. After a fraternal meal, 170 sat amid bracken in a glade nearby, joined in Ethical hymns and listen^ to Dr. Coit who pictured Ethical religion as one of the open air, devoid of mystery and reserve, as free to all as the sunlight.

¶3271Welcoming other societies, the convener told why they met in so unusual a spot. East London members loved their forest, for ages the haunt of men free in spirit and an inspiration to social reformers of their own time.

¶3272In that glade, near the ancient British Way, they held, maybe, the first religious meeting since Saxon priests sacrificed to Woden in Wanstead groves. Yet how different the scene. For them no weird spirits lurked in the thickets, no victims writhed in terror, no superstitious fears gloomed their minds. Friends to both men and beasts, confident of the essential beneficence of nature and humanity, they were co-partners in the woodland life sharing its healthful influence.

¶3273The forest that evening, beautiful with sunlit foliage, was by their act enriched with the sweetness and light of ethical communion, its delicate green aisles, aiding their natural and human faith, being no less consecrate than cathedrals fashioned in stone.

¶3274The woodland thrilled with joyous singing : —

¶3275In flowing fields with bees and birds The heart may leap and join their hymn ;

¶3276Worship is not confined to words In gloomy cells or cloisters dim.”

¶3352“The Ethical Movement is trying to establish a religion of the life we know, a religion of devotion to the Right. We start from the inevitable distinction between good and evil. We hold it a duty to seek after TruA regardless of authority. The Ethical Movement stands for Morality without Theology and elevates Goodness to the supreme place in the world.”

¶3504“In the spring of 1887, the Committee of the South Place Religious Society, at the suggestion of Dr. Moncure Conway, invited me to speak for the four Sundays in September of that year. Again I found myself in London, and staying at Toynbee Hall. Soon after my return in the autumn to America I received a unanimous invitation from the South Place Society to become their * minister *. But for me at that time to have become the lecturer of any society which did not call itself ‘ ethical ’ was a moral impossibility. It was, therefore, only to preserve the direction of my own deepest convictions that I replied to the generous invitation of the members that I would come on one condition — namely, that they changed the name of their Society to that of the South Place Ethical Society. Soon afterwards, I received word that they had acceded to my request. It was, however, only after I had actually come to London, and had begun my ‘ ministry ’, that I discovered that only by a very small majority had the change ot name been carried, and that even many of those who voted for it thoroughly disliked the change. The discovery of this attitude of mind was the first realisation of a difference in the direction of my own thought and enthusiasm from that of the South Place Society. A fuller realisation of the differences led to my resignation of my position in December, 1891.

¶3512“ Already at the age of fifteen, as far back as 1872, he counted himself a disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson. And the words in his master’s writings which appealed to him most profoundly are those the realisation of whidi have consistently and increasingly occupied his mind for over fifty years. His Ethical Church, at Bayswater, London, a kind of experimental station for developing a Rationalist religious service, represents a bold attempt to translate those words into fact. ‘ Pure Ethics ’, Emerson wrote, ‘ is not now formulated and concreted into a cultus, a fraternity with assemblings and holy days, with song and book, with brick and stone. Why have not those who believe in it and love it left all for this? *

¶3524(Reproduced from The Literary Guide, July 1929.)

¶3545and the final discovery, thirty years ago, of an abiding peace in the Ethical Movement? And how can those memories be recorded so that others may understand? I think that only those who were nurtured in the creeds of an English agricultural village more than half a century ago, can understand the shock and terror of the discovery that most of what one had been taught about religion and the Bible was utterly, demonstrably false. Only those who have passed through that dark valley of disillusionment can measure the desolation of the journey. Spiritual disturbance of that kind drives one type of mind to seek peace by closing the mind altogether and by falling back upon priestly authority; another type becomes tor[)id and accepts the peace of indifference, which is akin to death itself; yet a third type finds relief in angry resentment against the rejected creed : he desires to wound the thing which he had loved but which had deceived him. My first reaction was towards a passionate critical propaganda in which a search for new foundations occupied only a minor place. This was followed by an exploration of modern restatements of the Christian faith such as Unitarianism, none of which satisfied both brain and heart. Occultism never made the least appeal to me in any of its debilitating forms. Whatever happened, reason had to remain seated on her shining throne. It was through Mazzini and Emerson with, strange to say, a touch of Carlyle, that brought me to the borderland of a modern humanist faith, and when the Ethical Movement brought its serene sanity and its rationalised moral passion before me, I entered into its gates with thanksgiving. It has given me unremitting work and many anxieties, but I have found in it that abiding peace that passes understanding.'*

¶3599Society, which has some fifteen branches, was founded. It is a society which has had among its leaders many able and distinguished men, its President being Dr. Wilhelm Foerster, Professor of Astronomy at Berlin University^ and, until his retirement, Director of the Berlin Observatory. The Movement spread to Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, and the Colonics, and periodicals in English, German, French, and Italian have echoed the new views. There exists also an International Ethical Union, binding together the various national groups.” (G. Spiller, Faith in Man, London, 1908, pp. 183-185. Sec also Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, article “ Ethical Movement.")