Owing to the lack of monetary support the Birmingham
Bishopric Scheme is dead, or in such a very sound
trance that it is hardly likely to revive. At
its birth it was not very strong, and its early existence
was jeopardised by conflicting ideas among its sponsors,
chiefly caused by the difficulties in the way of raising
all the money required. Birmingham, therefore,
had to settle itself down and be content with a Suffragan
Bishop, at least for a time, and this, it is thought,
may prove to be a good long time.
In connection with the Birmingham Unitarians I may
here, perhaps, appropriately allude to a matter connected
with the growth of our modern city. The New Meeting
House of the Unitarians in which Dr. Priestley ministered
was situated on the east side of the town, and as the
congregation was migrating westward they desired to
have their place—I won’t say of worship,
but their place of meeting, nearer to their homes.
Moreover, moved by the advancing spirit of the age,
they wished for a more important and ornamental looking
edifice than the extremely plain, I might say ugly,
structure which their fathers had attended. Unitarians
may appear to be rather rigid and frigid, but they
have an intelligent appreciation of art and beauty.
Accordingly some forty years ago they selected a site
on the west side of the town, and erected what was
then considered a handsome place of meeting, which
they called the Church of the Messiah, and which was
opened in 1862. The architect of this Church did
not seem to be unduly weighed down with Unitarian
ideas. By accident or design he marked the edifice
with emblems of the Trinity, for at the very entrance
there is a large opening encircling three arches,
which are suggestively emblematical of the Three in
One.
The building of this somewhat florid structure, and
the move of the Unitarian church from east to west,
provoked a considerable amount of caustic comment
and humorous criticism at the time. These advanced
Unitarians were scoffed and sneered at for deserting
the simple tabernacle of their ancestors, and one
which was associated with the revered name of Dr.
Priestley. They were also mocked for their greater
iniquity in selling their tabernacle to the Papists.
Yes, the New Meeting House of the Unitarians became
a chapel of the Roman Catholics. They rendered
to the priests the things that were Priestley’s,
as they were reminded by a facetious paper published
at the time. But, however much the Unitarians
may have been chaffed and sneered at for abandoning
their old conventicle, they have lived it all down,
and, if I mistake not, Joseph and his brethren, the
Kenricks, the Oslers, the Beales, and others, now
congregate in peace in their un-Unitarian-looking Church
of the Messiah.
