George MacDonald: Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood

Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, published in 1867, is the first of three novels by George MacDonald about the fictitious Rev. Harry Walton, a parish priest of the Church of England. After the remarkable success of such early novels Scottish novels as David Elginbrod (1863) and Alec Forbes of Howglen (1865), MacDonald, now well established in London as a rising young novelist, turns to write a story with a purely English setting.





The prevalent theme in MacDonald's early novels is that of acquiring an education and proper orientation to life, and here he concerns himself with a cleric who is learning how to become an effective minister. Written in the first person, the story presents Rev. Walton, now aged, recalling his learning experiences in his first full-fledged pastoral charge. "I had formerly officiated as curate in a proprietary chapel," he recalls (that is, he acted as a chaplain to a family of sufficient means to have their own curate). "Alas, I had now to preach . . . to a company of rustics, of thought yet slower than of speech, unaccustomed in fact to think at all. . . ." He has considerable lessons to learn of the quality of ordinary people.





One cannot but ask why MacDonald, who as a Scottish Presbyterian was raised in the dissenting tradition, educated at Highbury Congregational Seminary in London, and served for three years as pastor to a Congregational flock in the southern coastal town of Arundel, would undertake to write about a cleric in the Church of England. Why not write about a dissenting pastor?





It is true that, attracted to the ministry of F. D. Maurice in London, he joined the Church of England in 1866, no doubt while he was writing this novel, so he can now presume to speak as a member of that denomination. But, alas, he has a quarrel with the priesthood. "For the priesthood passes away," Walton remarks," "the brotherhood endures. The priesthood passes away, swallowed up in the brotherhood. It is because men cannot learn simple things, cannot believe in the brotherhood, that they need a priesthood. . . . And I, for one, am sure that the priesthood needs the people much more than the people needs the priesthood (22)." The priesthood, in other words, however necessary, is not in itself desireable.





One has but to consider the role of the priest in MacDonald's time to understand his sentiment. The priest was too often simply a sort of social leader. From the upper classes, trained at Oxford, a young man, choosing from among the professions, could see the priesthood as a desireable choice: acting as a role model of the English gentleman, his presence would be expected at dinner parties and balls, and his duties amounted to little more than reading Sunday services and preparing short, anemic homilies. The nineteenth century English novels, such as those of Jane Austen or of Anthony Trollope, afford one notable examples.





MacDonald wants to speak to this situation, illustrating what a priest should be. The tact and winsomeness with which he undertakes his task, attempting to recommend a very different model, is fascinating. Note how he gently begins in the opening paragraph of the first chapter. Having supposed himself "a mere onlooker" to life, Walton recalls how "the compulsion of my office," "the leading of my heart," and "destiny" drew him into "the very vortex of events."


He identifies his "destiny" is the engulfing love of God which "to us is known as an infinite love, revealed in the mystery of man." The concept of the love of God being revealed in the mystery of man is profound and beautiful. Why did God create man? Simply to bestow his love upon him. This is the destiny of all peoples: all are objects of the passionate love of God. To express this truth is the compulsion of his office and the reason for his undertaking to speak from his heart to that of his readers. The calling of the priesthood is to secure the recognition and acceptance of that love by individual hearts.



Rev. Walton has learned to make a firm distinction between describing externals and speaking "heart to heart." The former constitutes a "vision"; the latter a "revelation." The former speaks only to the intellect, and the intellect but considers and judges. It is the heart that receives, and receiving is transformed into a new creature in Christ. Revelations to the heart preclude all deceiving appearances and impact one's innermost being with truth.



Walton learned the importance of this distinction from early experience, for in his former position as "curate in a proprietary chapel" he "had been inclined to exalt the intellect at the expense of the heart" (7). In his writings GMD often makes this point: it is in the threefold relationship of God, others, and self that a person encounters reality and the truths of life are grasped, rather than supposing that the intellect is autonomous and the abstract systems of thought it devises are authoritative.



From his two initial encounters in the village of Marshmallows he learns two foundational truths for his ministry. From Old Rogers he acquires the first lesson: it is of vital importance to the laity that the priest be the same person in the pulpit as he is out of it. And from the naive remark of a little child he learns the importance of seeing his office as one of working with God: ". . . if any man's work is not with God, its results shall be burned, ruthlessly burned, because poor and bad" (16). For everything that happens in life--not just occasional occurrences--is providential.

The chapter closes repeating the idea of the opening paragraph: that true meaning and worth in life arises, not from intellectual analysis, but from relationships. Providence presented Rev. Walton, on his first day in Marshmallows, with "an old man whom I could help, and a child who could help me; the one opening an outlet for my labour and my love, and the other reminding me of the highest source of the most humbling comfort,--that in all my work I might be a fellow-worker with God" (17).

After his first Sunday in the pulpit, in which he feels the intense scrutiny of this people, he ventures into the village to to make individual calls. As one would expect, each of those he meets--the woman of strange reserve in her shop, Old Rogers and those of his family in the mill, Weir the carpenter fashioning his sister's coffin, Mrs Oldcastle and her grand daughter, and Mr. Brownrigg the church warden--will all figure in the episodes that are to follow, as Rev. Walton continues to learn from his experiences what it truly means to be a faithful priest.