CHAPTER VIII
RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
The name of Glasites or Sandemanians is given to a small sect of Christians which separated from the Scottish Presbyterian Church about 1730 under the leadership of the Rev. John Glas. Most of the congregations which sprang up in England were formed in consequence of the dissemination of the writings and by the preaching of Robert Sandeman, son-in-law and successor of Glas. Hence the double name. The Sandemanian Church in London was constituted about 1760. It still has a chapel in Barnsbury, though the sect as a whole—never numerous—has dwindled to a small remnant.58 The religious census of 1851 showed but six congregations in England and six in Scotland. As it never was a proselytising body, it is probable that it has diminished since that date. John Glas was deposed in 1728 by the Presbyterian Courts from his position as minister in the Scottish Church, because he taught that the Church should be governed only by the doctrines of Christ and His apostles, and not be subject to any League or Covenant. He held that the formal establishment by any nation of a professed religion was the subversion of primitive Christianity; that Christ did not come to establish any worldly authority, but to give a hope of eternal life to His people whom He should choose of His own sovereign will; that “the Bible,” and it alone, with nothing added to it nor taken away from it by man, was the sole and sufficient guide for each individual, at all times and in all circumstances; that faith in the divinity and work of Christ is the gift of God, and that the evidence of this faith is obedience to the commandment of Christ.
The tenets of Glas are somewhat obscure and couched in mystical language. They prescribe a spiritual union which binds its members into one body as a Church without its being represented by any corresponding outward ecclesiastical polity. He died in 1773. Sandeman, who spent most of his life in preaching these doctrines, died about the same time in New England. He caused to be inscribed on his tomb that “he boldly contended for the ancient faith that the bare death of Jesus Christ, without a deed or thought on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners spotless before God.”
The Sandemanians try—so far as modern conditions permit—to live up to the practice of the Christian Church as it was in the time of the Apostles. At their chapel they “broke bread” every Lord’s day in the forenoon, making this a common meal between the morning and afternoon services, and taking their places by casting lots. And weekly, at their simple celebration of the Lord’s Supper at the close of the afternoon service, before partaking, they collect money for the support of the poor and for expenses. In some places they dined together at one another’s houses instead of at the chapel. “They esteem the lot as a sacred thing. The washing of the feet is also retained: not, it would seem, on any special occasion, but the ablution is performed ‘whenever it can be an act of kindness to a brother to do so.’ Another peculiarity of this religious body is their objection to second marriages.”59 Members are received into the Church on the confession of sin and profession of faith made publicly at one of the afternoon services. In admitting a new member they give the kiss of charity. They deem it wrong to save up money; “the Lord will provide” being an essential item of faith. Traces of this curious fatalism may be found in one of Faraday’s letters to his wife (p. 52). He seems always to have spent his surplus income on charity. The Sandemanians have neither ordained ministers nor paid preachers. In each congregation, however, there are chosen elders (presbyters or bishops), of whom there must always be a plurality, and of whom two at least must be present at every act of discipline. The elders take it in turns to preside at the worship, and are elected by the unanimous choice of the congregation. The sole qualification for this office, which is unpaid, is that earnestness of purpose and sincerity of life which would have been required in Apostolic times for the office of bishop or presbyter. No difference of opinion is tolerated, but is met by excommunication, which amongst families so connected by marriage produces much unhappiness, since they hold to the Apostle’s injunction, “With such an one, no, not to eat.”
The foregoing summary is needed to enable the reader to comprehend the relationship of Faraday to this body. His father and grandfather had belonged to this sect. In 1763 there was a congregation at Kirkby Stephen (the home of Faraday’s mother) numbering about thirty persons; and there appears to have been a chapel—now used as a barn—in Clapham. A strong religious feeling had been dominant in the Faraday family through the preceding generation. James Faraday, on his removal to London, there joined the Sandemanian congregation, which at that time met in a small chapel in St. Paul’s Alley, Barbican, since pulled down. It had, when founded in 1762, held its first meetings in the hall of the Glovers’ Company, and later in Bull and Mouth Street, till 1778. James Faraday’s wife, mother of Michael Faraday, never formally joined the Sandemanian Church, though a regular attendant of the congregation. Michael Faraday was from a boy brought up in the practice of attending this simple worship, and in the atmosphere of this primitive religious faith. Doubtless such surroundings exercised a moulding influence on his mind and character. The attitude of abstinence from attempts to proselytise, on the part of the church, finds its reflex in Faraday’s habitual reticence, towards all save only the most intimate of friends, on matters of religious faith. “Never once,” says Professor Tyndall, “during an intimacy of fifteen years, did he mention religion to me, save when I drew him on to the subject. He then spoke to me without hesitation or reluctance; not with any apparent desire to ‘improve the occasion,’ but to give me such information as I sought. He believed the human heart to be swayed by a power to which science or logic opened no approach; and right or wrong, this faith, held in perfect tolerance of the faiths of others, strengthened and beautified his life.”
Of his spiritual history down to the time of his marriage very little is known, for he made no earlier profession of faith. It is not to be supposed that he who was so scrupulous of truth, so single-minded in every relation of life, would accept the religious belief of his fathers without satisfying his conscience as to the rightness of its claims. Yet none of his letters or writings of that period show any trace60 of that stress of soul through which at one time or another every sincere and earnest seeker after truth must pass before he finds anchorage. Certain it is that he clung with warm attachment to the little self-contained sect amongst whom he had been brought up. Its influence, though contracting his activities by precluding all Christian communion or effort outside their circle, and cutting him off from so much that other Christian bodies hold good, fenced him effectually from dreams of worldliness, and furnished him with that very detachment which was most essential to his scientific pursuits. One month after his marriage he made his confession of sin and profession of faith before the Sandemanian Church. It was an act of humility the more striking in that it was done without any consultation with his wife, to whom he was so closely attached, and who was already a member of the congregation. When she asked him why he had not told her what he was about to do, he replied: “That is between me and my God.”
In 1844 he wrote to Lady Lovelace as follows:—
“You speak of religion, and here you will be sadly disappointed in me. You will perhaps remember that I guessed, and not very far aside, your tendency in this respect. Your confidence in me claims in return mine to you, which indeed I have no hesitation in giving on fitting occasions, but these I think are very few, for in my mind religious conversation is generally in vain. There is no philosophy in my religion. I am of a very small and despised sect of Christians, known, if known at all, as Sandemanians, and our hope is founded on the faith that is in Christ. But though the natural works of God can never by any possibility come in contradiction with the higher things that belong to our future existence, and must with everything concerning Him ever glorify Him, still I do not think it at all necessary to tie the study of the natural sciences and religion together, and, in my intercourse with my fellow creatures, that which is religious and that which is philosophical have ever been two distinct things.”
His own views were stated by himself at the commencement of a lecture on Mental Education in 1854:—
High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that future cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers, however exalted they may be; that it is made known to him by other teaching than his own, and is received through simple belief of the testimony given. Let no one suppose for a moment that the self-education I am about to commend, in respect of the things of this life, extends to any considerations of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning could find out God. It would be improper here to enter upon this subject further than to claim an absolute distinction between religious and ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weakness of refusing to apply those mental operations which I think good in respect of high things to the very highest. I am content to bear the reproach.
One of his friends wrote: “When he entered the meeting-house he left his science behind, and he would listen to the prayer and exhortation of the most illiterate brother of his sect with an attention which showed how he loved the word of truth, from whomsoever it came.”
“The most remarkable event,” says Dr. Bence Jones, “of his life in 1840 was his election as an elder of the Sandemanian Church. During that period when in London he preached on alternate Sundays.” This was not an entirely new duty, for he had been occasionally called upon by the elders, from the date of his admission in 1821, to exhort the brethren at the week-day evening meetings, or to read the Scriptures in the congregation. Bence Jones says that, though no one could lecture like Faraday, many might preach with more effect. The eager and vivacious manner of the lecture-room was exchanged for a devout earnestness that was in complete contrast. His addresses have been described as a patchwork of texts cited rapidly from the Old and New Testaments; and they were always extempore, though he prepared careful notes on a piece of card beforehand. Of these, samples are given in Bence Jones’s “Life and Letters.” His first discourse as an elder was on Matt. xi. 28–30, dilating on Christ’s character and example. “Learn of Me.” The ground of humility of Christians must be the infinite distance between them and their Pattern. He quoted 1 John ii. 6; 1 Peter ii. 21; Phil. iii. 17; 1 Cor. xi. 1; and 1 Cor. xiv. 1.
An exceedingly vivid view of Faraday as elder of the Church was given in 188661 by the late Mr. C. C. Walker, himself at one time a member of the Sandemanian congregation in London; a congregation, moreover, which included several persons of distinction—Cornelius Varley, the engraver, and George Barnard, the water-colour painter.
At Faraday’s chapel there was a presiding elder, supported by the rest of the elders on two rows of seats elevated across the end of the chapel, one row above the other. The ground floor was filled with the old-fashioned high pews, and there was a gallery above on both sides, also with pews. Faraday sat in a pew on the ground floor, about the middle. There was a large table on the floor of the chapel in front of the elders’ seats. The presiding elder usually preached. Such was the place Faraday worshipped in, situated at the end of a narrow dirty court, surrounded by squalid houses of the poorest of the poor, and so little known that although I knew every street, lane and alley of the whole district, and this alley itself, at the bottom of which the chapel was, I never knew of the existence of the meeting-house till I learned about thirty-five years ago that there was a chapel there to which the world-renowned Faraday not only went, but where he preached. This led me to make a search, and to my great delight, I found it, though with some difficulty. Although the neighbourhood was uncleanly, not so was the interior of the chapel, nor the dining room, with its tables and forms, all of which were spotless.
Faraday’s father was a blacksmith, and worshipped here. He brought up his family religiously, and Faraday from his earliest days attended the chapel. Here he met Miss Barnard, his future wife. Mr. Barnard was a respectable “working silversmith,” as manufacturing silversmiths were then called, to distinguish them from the shopkeepers who then, as now, called themselves “silversmiths,” though frequently making none of the goods they sell. His manufactory was for a time at Amen Court, Paternoster Row; afterwards it was removed to a large building erected by the firm at Angel Street, near the General Post Office, and the business has since been carried on by the sons and grandsons.
Mr. Barnard and his family worshipped at the Sandemanian Chapel. To this chapel Faraday walked every Sunday morning from his earliest days; he never kept a carriage, and on religious principles would not hire a cab or omnibus on the Lord’s day.62
The service commenced at eleven in the morning and lasted till about one, after which the members—“brothers and sisters,” as they called each other—had their midday meal “in common” in the room attached to the chapel, which has already been referred to. The afternoon worship usually ended about five o’clock, after partaking of the Lord’s Supper. The services were very much like those of the Congregationalists, and consisted of extempore prayers, hymns, reading the Scripture, and a sermon, usually by the presiding elder. Faraday had been an elder for a great many years, and for a considerable time was the presiding elder, and consequently preached; but during this time relinquished his office. There was one peculiarity in the service; the Scriptures were not read by the presiding elder, but he called on one of the members to read; and when Faraday was there—which he always was when in London—the presiding elder named “Brother Michael Faraday,” who then left his pew, passing along the aisle, out of the chapel, up the stairs at the back, and reappeared behind the presiding elder’s seat, who had already opened the large Bible in front of him, and pointed out the chapter to be read. It was one of the richest treats that it has been my good fortune to enjoy to hear Faraday read the Bible. The reader was quite unaware what he was to read until it was selected and when one chapter of the Old Testament was finished another would be given, probably from the New Testament. Usually three chapters were read, and sometimes four, in succession; but if it had been half a dozen there would have been no weariness, for the perfection of the reading, with its clearness of pronunciation, its judicious emphasis, the rich musical voice, and the perfect charm of the reader, with his natural reverence, made it a delight to listen. I have heard most of those who are considered our best readers in church and chapel, but have never heard a reader that I considered equal to Faraday.
At this distance of time his tones are always in my ears.
I was told by members of the chapel that he was most assiduous in visiting the poorer brethren and sisters at their own homes, comforting them in their sorrows and afflictions, and assisting them from his own purse. Indeed, they said, he was continually pressed to be the guest of the high and noble (which we may well believe), but he would, if possible, decline, preferring to visit some poor sister in trouble, assist her, take a cup of tea with her, read the Bible and pray. Though so full of religion, he was never obtrusive with it; it was too sacred a thing.
Tyndall has preserved another vivid reminiscence of Faraday’s inner life, which he wrote down after one of the earliest dinners which he had in the Royal Institution.
“At two o’clock he came down for me. He, his niece, and myself formed the party. ‘I never give dinners,’ he said; ‘I don’t know how to give dinners; and I never dine out. But I should not like my friends to attribute this to a wrong cause. I act thus for the sake of securing time for work, and not through religious motives as some imagine.’ He said grace. I am almost ashamed to call his prayer a ‘saying’ of grace. In the language of Scripture, it might be described as the petition of a son into whose heart God had sent the Spirit of His Son, and who with absolute trust asked a blessing from his Father. We dined on roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and potatoes, drank sherry, talked of research and its requirements, and of his habit of keeping himself free from the distractions of society. He was bright and joyful—boylike, in fact, though he is now sixty-two. His work excites admiration, but contact with him warms and elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but let me not forget the example of its union with modesty, tenderness, and sweetness, in the character of Faraday.”
There is a story told by the Abbé Moigno that one day at Faraday’s request he introduced him to Cardinal Wiseman. In the frank interview which followed, the Cardinal did not hesitate to ask Faraday whether, in his deepest conviction, he believed all the Church of Christ, holy, catholic, and apostolic, was shut up in the little sect in which he was officially an elder. “Oh, no!” was Faraday’s reply; “but I do believe from the bottom of my soul that Christ is with us.”
The course of Faraday’s eldership was, however, interrupted. It was expected of an elder that he should attend every Sunday. One Sunday he was absent. When it was discovered that his absence was due to his having been “commanded” to dine with the Queen at Windsor, and that so far from expressing penitence, he was prepared to defend his action, his office became vacant. He was even cut off from ordinary membership. Nevertheless, he continued for years to attend the meetings just as before. He would even return from the provincial meetings of the British Association to London for the Sunday, so as not to be absent. In 1860 he was received back as an elder, which office he held again for about three years and a half, and finally resigned it in 1864.
It is doubtful whether Faraday ever attempted to form any connected ideas as to the nature or method of operation of the Divine government of the physical world, in which he had such a whole-souled belief. Newton has left us such an attempt. Kant in his own way has put forward another. So did Herschel; and so in our time have the authors of “The Unseen Universe.” To Faraday all such “natural theology” would have seemed vain and aimless. It was no part of the lecturer on natural philosophy to speculate as to final causes behind the physical laws with which he dealt. Nor, on the other hand, was it the slightest use to the Christian to inquire in what way God ruled the universe: it was enough that He did rule it.
Faraday’s mental organisation, which made it possible for him to erect an absolute barrier between his science and his religion, was an unusual one. The human mind is seldom built in such rigid compartments that a man whose whole life is spent in analysing, testing, and weighing truths in one department of knowledge, can cut himself off from applying the same testing and inquiring processes in another department. The founder of the sect had taught them that the Bible alone, with nothing added to it or taken away from it by man, was the only and sufficient guide for the soul. Apparently Faraday never admitted the possibility of human flaw in the printing, editing, translation, collation, or construction of the Bible. He apparently never even desired to know how it compared with the oldest manuscripts, or what was the evidence for the authenticity of the various versions. Having once accepted the views of his sect as to the absolute inspiration of the English Bible as a whole, he permitted no subsequent question to be raised as to its literal authority. Tyndall once described this attitude of mind in his own trenchant way by saying that when Faraday opened the door of his oratory he closed that of his laboratory. The saying may seem hard, but it is essentially true. To few indeed is such a limitation of character possible: possibly it may be unique. We may reverence the frank single-minded simplicity of soul which dwelt in Faraday, and may yet hold that, whatever limitation was right for him, others would do wrong if they refused to bring the powers of the mind—God-given as they believe—to bear upon the discovery of truth in the region of Biblical research. Yet may none of them dream of surpassing in transparent honesty of soul, in genuine Christian humility, in the virtues of kindness, earnestness, and sympathetic devotion, the great and good man who denied himself that freedom.