London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
THE FOUNDERS OF THE ORATORIO.
The reference to music on the first day of the week brings me naturally to that product of the followers of St. Philip Neri, the oratorio. The good Italian priest founded his oratory in Florence centuries ago, and, thanks to Cardinal Newman and Father Faber, branch establishments have appeared in Birmingham and London since . To the casual Londoner the Brompton Oratory is a magnificent church used frequently during the season for-as the papers have it- But the excellent Fathers have duties other than presiding at nuptials of the blue blood of Catholic Society. The Fathers have who, on the first day of the week, meet together for pleasant chat and chess and other innocent distractions. On the Feast of St. | |
23 | Cecilia there is an oratorio held in their own private chapel, at which the best music is performed, to the delight of the audience, or should I say-for a sermon is a part of the proceedings-the congregation ? What that excellent institution the Y.M.C.A. is to non-Catholics the Little Brothers of the Oratory are to members of the Church of Rome. And here I may call attention to the change of tone that has taken place during the last thirty years anent the question of I have in my mind as I write the case of a youngster of sixteen, whose religious belief altered in the early sixties. His career had been marked out for him. A great friend of his dead father was a titled stock-broker, who had most kindly promised the lad a seat in his counting-house with a junior partnership in the future. The moment the news reached the City that the boy had 'Verted the kind offer was withdrawn. The elder brother of the youngster suggested as a mode of out of him, turning him into the workhouse, and, as a matter of fact, penniless and without food, the young gentleman had to seek a breakfast, the outcome of hospitable benevolence. At the end of this century such a case would be impossible. Now-a-days a religious belief is regarded with as much tolerance as opinions anent politics. A man is allowed to follow the teachings of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Cardinal Vaughan, or Dr. Parker, or the Rev. Price Hughes, as the spirit |
24 | moves him. So long as he is a good fellow, which is another term for a gentleman in its right sense, it matters little to the vast majority whether he be Anglican, Catholic, or Dissenter. The old feeling of hatred and all uncharitableness which, perhaps, was a legacy from the times of the Puritans, and later on the Jacobites, has disappeared, and London is the better for it. |
