GA ANNIVERSARY SERMON April 2007:
"Liberty Bell"
By Rev. Brenda Catherall
If you stand on the steps of Bank Street Chapel in Bolton there are two things which immediately attract your attention.
If you face toward the road you realise the chapel is situated in the heart of Bolton's clubland, with three nightclubs facing the chapel in close proximity - one of them a lap dancing club! Unitarian minister by day...?
A while ago I wrote to the local newspaper at the time of the increased licensing hours to merely point out that we could not hold a late night Christmas Eve service because of the noise from the music and the revellers in the immediate vicinity. We were theologically elevated in the newspaper headline: "Midnight mass is cancelled - late night revellers too noisy".
The publicity attracted the attention of the local radio station and a reporter was sent to interview me. An historian, well-read in religious matters, he knew more about Unitarian history than I did and after a brief chat our radio interview began. "And here we are on the steps of the Unitarian Chapel in Bank Street, Bolton. Its puritan forbears would be turning in their graves for facing the chapel is not one, but three night clubs, one of them a lap dancing club!"
After a brief discussion with me the reporter said "We can already hear the busy traffic out here during the day and now in contrast Rev Catherall is to take us inside this historic chapel where we will sense its peace and tranquillity". I moved in a dignified manner toward the chapel doors and pulled on the handle. We had been locked out! After collapsing in hysterics on the steps of the chapel we composed ourselves and conducted the interview outside in the freezing cold. How wise I was to decline an interview with local television or I would have featured on out-takes for many a year to come.
If you stand on the steps facing the chapel doors, there on the wall on the right hand side of the building is a blue plaque bearing a sprig of lilac containing the words: "The institution of the love of comrades. This chapel and its school served as a meeting place for the Bolton followers of Walt Whitman known as the 'Eagle Street College', their wider circle included the writer Edward Carpenter (1844-1929)".
I had always wanted to find out what story lay behind the plaque and the invitation to preach this sermon led me to pursue my curiosity. Last year's anniversary preacher, the Rev Peter Hewis recalls that the first Unitarian wayside pulpit he ever saw was outside Bank Street Chapel, bearing the words of Walt Whitman.
Bank Street Chapel was just one of the places where the Bolton devotees of Walt Whitman used to meet and is one of the sites on a Walt Whitman trail which also takes in Rivington Unitarian Chapel, Bolton Library and Eagle Street (where JW. Wallace, founder of the group spent his early life).
Recognised as a major American poet before his death Whitman had also had a variety of occupations including journalism, printing and teaching. He also helped nurse the wounded in the American Civil War.
The Whitman supporters around Bolton devoted themselves to the reading and study of his poetry in the 1880's and socialist guests at gatherings included Keir Hardie and the writer Edward Carpenter who said of Whitman's collection of poetry 'Leaves of Grass' that it was the "meeting ground of the human race. There every nationality, every creed, every trade, every atom of humanity is represented, and all are fused in the great loving soul that overbroods them".
No wonder they revered his work for he spoke to them of freedom, of his love of nature and of the human race, a love of the divine mystery at the heart of life the encounter of which he displays so movingly in his 'Song of Myself'
"Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty four
And each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my
Own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that
Whereso'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
The meetings of Eagle Street College continued for some years and strong bonds of friendship were formed.
The major event on the Bolton Whitmanites' annual calendar was May 31st the anniversary of the poet's birth when they celebrated with songs and speeches and the passing of a loving cup (Whitman's) which had been presented to the group in 1894 by Whitman's American friends JH Johnson of New York. The loving cup and some of Whitman's work forming the largest collection outside the United States are housed in Bolton Library along with a much coveted artefact, Whitman's stuffed canary, subject of his unusual poem "My Canary Bird".
In the 1980's, one hundred years after the formation of the Whitman group, the birthday celebration was re-started and interest continues to the present day.
Whitman himself never came to England , he was too poor, and the friendships were formed toward the end of his life, but he wrote frequently to the group and several members of the 'college' made trips to visit the poet. Lilac boughs and blossoms would also feature at gatherings as the lilac was Whitman's favourite flower.
It was also a favourite of President Abraham Lincoln and consumed with grief following Lincoln's assassination Whitman wrote his moving elegy "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"
He wrote:" With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around
the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs-where
Amid these you journey.
With the tolling ,tolling bells' perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac".
When I started to think of this address I had no idea of the connections and coincidences that would run through it. Whitman and his Bolton connections, his devotion to President Lincoln, Lincoln's death on this day April 12, 1865, and a letter from Lincoln sent to the cotton workers of Manchester including workers from Bolton who had accepted hardships they suffered in helping toward the abolition of slavery in maintaining their stance during the cotton famine.
In a letter dated 1863 a year after the beginning of the American Civil War in which Whitman tended to and nursed the wounded, Lincoln wrote to the Manchester cotton workers: "I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the working people are called to endure in this crisis, an instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country... It is indeed an energetic and re-inspiring assurance of the inherent truth and of the ultimate and universal triumph of justice, humanity and freedom".
Only a couple of weeks ago on March 25 was the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Of course this did not mean the end of slavery and Unitarians among them the MP's William Smith and William Roscoe were among those striving to put an end to this human rights tragedy.
But the condemnation was not so overwhelming as was witnessed in the failure of the Bill to be passed earlier and Roscoe of course returned to Liverpool to rioting, his determination to end the slave trade costing him his seat in Parliament.
The Unitarian Women's Group this week at Assembly have rightly brought our attention to what has been described as the "monumental human rights tragedy of the 21st century", - sex trafficking, modern day slavery. Slavery continues in many forms and so many people are denied their civil and religious liberty.
A colleague of mine, a refugee from the African Congo, is now settled, safe and happy with his family after fleeing an oppressive situation in which his wife was tortured and his brother shot dead. But many more are not so fortunate and we know we still live in a world where people are treated as less than human, where their freedom is denied in a world where so many yearn for peace.
When I studied Latin many years ago at school I always wondered of what earthly use it would for me to be able to translate the fact that the Romans were always going into the Citadel!
Years later when my association with Unitarian College Manchester began I knew it had all been worthwhile when I found I could read the college motto: "Ubi Spiritus Domini Ibi Libertas " - Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty/freedom, the words St Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians.
The divine spirit which leads to freedom is surely born of love and it is in our love of God and one another that we find that peace which passes all human understanding.
The artist Vincent Van Gogh struggling with his inner turmoil wrote to his brother Theo in 1880 :"One cannot always tell what it is that keeps us shut in, confines us, seems to bury us; nevertheless, one feels certain barriers, certain gates, certain walls. Is all this imagination, fantasy ? I don't think so. And one asks "My God! Is it for long, is it forever, is it for all eternity?
Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is every deep, serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, that is what opens the prison by some supreme power, by some magic force. Without this, one remains in prison. Where sympathy is renewed, life is restored".
Carpenter described Walt Whitman's poetry as a meeting ground of the human race, all fused in "the great loving soul that overbroods them". A love which sets us free and Whitman's marvellous dream of freedom is beautifully summed up in his "Song of the Open Road".
Afoot and light hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy and free, the world before me.
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
This sense of freedom sums up Unitarianism at its best for me as each of us engage on our religious quest. There are those who think our religious diversity is a disadvantage and that it hinders our ability to articulate what is at the very heart of our faith communities.
But we know for sure that we are on a religious quest which asserts the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, a religious quest not bound by dogma or creed, a religious quest in which our spirits are free and with that precious gift of freedom we will strive to make the world a better place for all.
In 1791 a Bill to abolish the Slave Trade was defeated in the House of Commons by 163 votes to 88 and church bells rang out in celebration.
I thought of this appalling fact when I looked back to the experience of leaving Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral after the university graduation ceremony for hundreds of students including my daughter and the bells were ringing out in celebration. Filled with pride I have never heard such a beautiful sound.
For those of us with church and chapel bells let us ring them out with defiance this Sunday at the modern day slavery that still exists in its many forms. Ring out our church and chapel bells in celebration of our precious freedom, a religious freedom handed down to us by our Unitarian forebears that we may honour and cherish it to pass on to future generations.
Amen.
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