return from the Serjeant’s house in Russell Square, where he had been
dining, that this then well-known orator of the law courts had relaxed
and refreshed himself by referring to the old Kensington days, and the
old chapel, and singularly enough, the old hymns of Dr. Watts, which he
had once rather disdained. ‘Do you remember,’ said he to my father, ‘how
we used to sing that hymn—one of Watts’s best—
“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count my loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride”?
And do you remember how heartily we used to join in the last verse:
“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so Divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”’?”
Another family, less known to fame, was Mrs. Bergne, of Brompton Row, and
her two sons. The eldest of them was John Bergne, for fifty years clerk
in the Foreign Office, and during the latter part of the time
superintendent of the French department,—an office which brought him into
association with many foreign and home celebrities. A man of high
culture, great conversational power and exuberant wit, he was
nevertheless decidedly religious, and remained steadfast in his
nonconformity to the end of life. He was a most attentive hearer, and
wrote down many of his pastor’s sermons, chiefly from memory. He
carefully preserved two quarto volumes filled with a course of lectures
on “The Acts,” which I read when I was young, and they gave me a good
idea of the preaching then heard at Hornton Street. A younger son,
Samuel, entered the ministry during Dr. Vaughan’s pastorate, and with
him, as well as his brother John, I enjoyed a lifelong friendship most
intimate, most endeared. He became well known as pastor of the Poultry
Chapel, and as Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The
family lived at Brompton, but year after year made their way morning and
evening to Kensington Chapel; and with them I may couple the family of
the Gainsfords, who resided in Piccadilly. Such circumstances show the
distances which in those days people walked to the house of God. It is
remarkable how many branches of old Nonconformist families included in
our history have since risen to eminence. Here I may mention Dr. Bruce,
the learned archæologist in Newcastle, who married Miss Gainsford; also
their son, the present Recorder of Bradford.
Another family may also be mentioned, though not I believe members of the
Church, as were most of those whom I have just recorded:—
“Amongst the attendants on his ministry (says Mr. John Leifchild,
speaking of his father) were Lord and Lady Molesworth. They had
derived benefit from his pulpit instruction, and became his attached
friends. He often referred in particular to the mother, Lady
Molesworth, a truly pious elderly lady, who had apartments in
Kensington Palace. She had two strong reasons for her attachment to
my father’s ministry: one being the benefit which she herself had
obtained from it; and the other being the influence which it had
exercised on a favourite son—Lord Molesworth. Lord Molesworth, her
younger son, had heard Mr. Leifchild at Hornton Street Chapel, and
though very wild and thoughtless at that time, was so affected by
what he heard as to alter his mode of life. Another, and the elder
son, was then in India, where, being laid on a sick bed, he
remembered the psalms which his father, Viscount Molesworth, had read
and expounded when he was a child at home, showing their reference to
the Messiah, and thus confirming the truth of Scripture. I believe
he came home, and it was then that he also attended the ministry at
Hornton Street Chapel. He now became devoted and useful; and having
obtained an appointment in Ceylon, he repaired thither, and there
continued his usefulness by distributing religious publications. His
father dying, he succeeded to the title, and having acquired property
in Ceylon, he determined to return home, assist at the chapel, and
spend the remainder of his days with his aged mother. He notified to
his mother the time of his embarkation, and she, calculating the
length of the voyage, expected at a certain day to enfold her son in
her embrace. She was disappointed, and the reason soon appeared in
the reception of the melancholy intelligence that the vessel in which
he had trusted himself, his wife, and all his acquisitions, had gone
down at sea, and every life had been lost. ‘I feared,’ says my
father, ‘on hearing the sad news, to call upon her; but on doing so I
found her calm. And with erect and majestic figure, looking at me,
she said: “Dear pastor, God sustains me. I utter not a murmuring
word. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the
name of the Lord.”’”
When I first went to Kensington, I was requested to visit an old member
of the Church, a shoemaker by trade, who I learnt had been converted
under the ministry of Dr. Leifchild. I went and found him bedridden. He
was a remarkable man, with a handsome face, but a cripple. In very
humble circumstances, and uneducated, except in things pertaining to the
kingdom of God, he had a good deal of that natural politeness which
appeared all the more striking from its humble surroundings. He won my
affections; and I delighted to sit by the good man’s bed when he would
describe, in emphatic language and with strong emotion, his strange
life-story. Good-tempered from a boy, ready for fun and frolic, and of a
daring spirit, he plunged one day, if I remember right, into the thick of
the traffic in the high road, and was so crushed under a cart wheel, that
it was a wonder he survived the accident. He had mixed with dissolute
company, and been accustomed, as he loitered about the end of an alley
opposite the church, to insult those who passed by on the way to worship.
His habits did not improve when he became a married man, and his
notoriety for evil was a village scandal. But two of his children went
to the Sunday school, and they persuaded their father to come to chapel.
Dr. Leifchild preached from the words of St. Jude: “Preserved in Jesus
Christ, and called,” and spoke of the remarkable preservation of sinful
people before they were called and converted. He happened to relate an
anecdote of Mr. Cecil, who, previously to his becoming decidedly
religious, narrowly escaped with his life, when thrown by his horse
across the track of a wagon, which in passing only crushed his hat. The
incident struck the listener. It resembled his own experience, and
rivetted his attention. When the preacher followed up the illustration
with a characteristic appeal, addressed to such as were still unconverted
after signal providential deliverances, the cripple trembled from head to
foot. Greatly impressed, he went to chapel again and again, till he
found himself another man, “a new creature in Christ Jesus.” He would
weep as he told the story, and go on to speak of his subsequent spiritual
joy. “I am a wonder unto many,” he would say, and then sing:—
“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.”
Before I knew him a chair was made, in which he was wheeled from place to
place, and was conveyed to the chapel where God’s grace touched his
heart. He loved the memory of the minister who had led him to Christ;
and that minister relates: “Whenever he heard that I was about to
re-visit the town, which I had subsequently left for another sphere of
labour, he caused his little carriage to be wheeled out to meet me. I
saw his eyes glistening with emotion, and the tears rolling down his
cheeks, as I approached him, and then he invariably exclaimed aloud, ‘I
am a wonder to many, sir; but God is my strong refuge.’” {47}
This remarkable conversion came to be common talk, and reached the ears
of the Vicar, the Rev. Thomas Kennell.
“Shortly afterwards (says Dr. Leifchild) the Vicar called upon me and
entered into familiar conversation with me on the great truths of the
Gospel, evidently as the result of the impression which the
shoemaker’s wonderful conversion had produced. Thenceforth his
kindly feeling toward me never decreased, and this was the more to be
remarked on account of his standing in the Episcopal Church, as
respected his learning, oratorical power, and zeal for God according
to his knowledge. He was comparatively young, but with a magnanimous
mind he had early determined to appreciate truth and goodness
wherever they were to be found, and to follow them whithersoever they
might lead. Soon afterwards he fell into a decline, and one evening
while we were holding a prayer-meeting, news was brought us of his
dangerous illness. I immediately requested those who led our
devotions to bear him on their minds before God, and afterwards
desired that no mention might be made of this circumstance, as I did
not wish to draw attention to ourselves. But a report of it reached
his sick chamber, and shortly after, upon the occasion of his removal
for the benefit of change of air, I received from him the following
note:
‘_April_ 29_th_.
‘I cannot leave Kensington without expressing to you my grateful
feelings for the truly kind and Christian manner in which, during a
very critical period of my illness, you were pleased to direct the
prayers of your congregation to the throne of grace for my recovery.
It has made a deep impression upon my mind.
‘Those prayers were mercifully heard, and, by the blessing of God, I
trust that I am in a state of progressive amendment. Slow indeed
have been my advances, insomuch that even now I am totally incapable
of the ordinary exertions of life; but I trust that a good
Providence, whose mercies have indeed been around my path and about
my bed, will, in His good time, perform the perfect work of
restoration.’”
Another remarkable fact must not be passed by:
“One sabbath morning (says the pastor) a singular lapse of memory
befell me, which I had never before and have never since experienced.
When I rose from sleep I could not recollect any portion of the
discourse which I had prepared on the day before; and, what was most
strange, I could not even remember the text of the prepared sermon.
I was perplexed, and walked out before breakfast in Kensington
Gardens. While there a particular text occurred to my mind; and my
thoughts seemed to dwell on it so much that I resolved to preach from
that without further attempting to recall what I had prepared, a
thing which I had never ventured to do during all my ministry.
“From this text I preached, and it was ‘Weeping may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning.’ I preached with great
liberty, and in the course of the sermon I quoted the lines:
‘Beware of desperate steps! the darkest day—
Live till to-morrow—will have passed away.’
“I afterwards learned that a man in despair had that very morning
gone to the Serpentine to drown himself in it. For this purpose he
had filled his pockets with stones, hoping to sink at once. Some
passengers, however disturbed him while on the brink, and he returned
to Kensington, intending to drown himself in the dusk of the evening.
On passing my chapel he saw a number of people crowding into it, and
thought he would join them in order to pass away the time. His
attention was rivetted to the sermon, which seemed to be in part
composed for him; and when he heard me quote the lines alluded to, he
resolved to abandon his suicidal purpose.”
Another incident deserves relation:
“A bricklayer came one evening drunk, yet towards the close was
impressed. The next Sunday he came again, and I noticed him as one
of the two young men who had behaved rudely the Sabbath evening
preceding; but he had been cut to the heart. ‘I,’ said he to
himself, ‘am the man intended.’ He soon fell ill, when the good work
deepened. He is now consistent.”
Dr. Leifchild left a list of thirty-two persons to whom he had been
useful, and under each name a notice of particulars connected with it.
{49}
There lived in one of the stately houses in Kensington Gore a gentleman,
commanding in person and polished in manners, who was drawn towards the
Dissenting pastor, though he had no affection for Dissenters. “He
laughed at _them_ and liked _him_. He was a staunch churchman, but came
occasionally to the chapel, where, as also in other places, he might be
distinguished by the flower always fastened in the buttonhole of his
coat.”
At the table of this hospitable gentleman the Kensington pastor met
Serjeant Goulburn, then a young man; Mr. Stephen, of anti-slavery renown
and Wilberforce’s friend; Miss Edgeworth, the novelist; and the John
Owen, early Secretary of the Bible Society. The cheerful host
experienced a great reverse, lost a fortune on the Stock Exchange, but
bore it with equanimity, saying, when he came home and was asked by his
wife how he was, “Pretty well, my love, for a ruined man.” Dr.
Leifchild, through the medium of rich neighbours, befriended him in his
trouble, for which he was ever afterwards grateful; and in subsequent
years I enjoyed the friendship of one of his daughters, who with her
husband, a Governor of the Bank of England, attended Hornton Street
Chapel when I was minister. Her sisters also, who attained rank and
fortune, always felt kindly towards the place where their father
worshipped; but I knew nothing at that time of the circumstances
respecting him described in the “Life of Dr. Leifchild.”
Mr. Leifchild met with curious characters in Kensington:
“The Honourable Mrs. S— lived next door to him. One morning she said
to him, looking over the garden wall, ‘Leifchild, can I come in; I
want to speak to you?’
“‘Certainly, Mrs. S—,’ was the reply, and they were soon together in
my father’s parlour, when the following conversation took place, the
lady commencing abruptly as follows:
“‘Leifchild, I want a spade.’
“‘A _spade_, madam!’ exclaimed her neighbour in astonishment.
“‘Yes, a spade!’ was the rejoinder.
“‘But, Mrs. S—, your garden is always in good order.’
“‘Nonsense! you know what I mean.’
“‘Well, I will send the servant round with a spade.’
“‘Nonsense! you know I do not mean that.’
“‘Excuse me, Mrs. S—, I really do not know what you mean.’
“‘Well, then, you frightened me yesterday by saying that very few
were converted after fifty years of age, and I am now forty-nine.
And then you spoke of the diligent husbandman, and said we must all
set to work. Now, I mean to work, and that is why I want a spade.’
“‘You shall have one, madam, and gladly too. We have abundance of
work, and shall be most thankful for your help.’” {51}
Prosperity attended the labours of Dr. Leifchild. The congregation
greatly increased; galleries had to be erected and enlarged; and the
income, once estimated at £160 a year, rose to more than double that
amount. Many were admitted to communion, but in what way exactly does
not appear, as the record of affairs respecting that period deals more in
temporal than spiritual matters. No ecclesiastical contentions, properly
so called, ruffled the stream; but there seem to have been frequent
debates in the vestry about the state of the exchequer as regards paying
for the gallery, and defraying other incidental expenses. Music created
more serious strife. Mr. Broadwood, naturally enough, wished for an
instrument to help the singing, and liberally offered to place an organ
in the chapel, which Mr. Grey, a more true blue Presbyterian, did not
approve. Correspondence arose and vestry meetings were held, in all of
which Mr. Broadwood appears to have acted most kindly, but the
conscientious scruples of his colleague could not be overcome. The
latter left the chapel, and ultimately an organ was erected; but that did
not end all trouble, for the organist incurred criticism; and whilst some
good folks aimed at musical harmony, they were the occasion of
considerable social discord. It is the old story; but no serious
division occurred, and after a slight storm there came a pleasant calm.
In our historical sketch it would be bad taste to pry into domestic
secrets, but the married life of Dr. Leifchild was so mixed up with the
interests of the congregation, that this part of our narrative would be
incomplete if no notice was taken of Mrs. Leifchild. She was his second
wife, whom he married during this his first pastorate, and the idea he
entertained of this excellent lady appears in memoirs of her from his own
pen, entitled, “The Minister’s Helpmeet.” She lightened his cares by
undertaking, at his request, the management of pecuniary matters, in
which, according to his son’s account, he does not appear to have been
particularly skilful. “He abhorred all figures, but those of speech, and
the latter were too unsubstantial for the support of a household. He
would prefer any book to his bank book (a figure of speech, for in truth
he never required one); and though not to be accused of extravagance, he
certainly was chargeable with some thoughtlessness.” {52} “She was a
shrewd, discerning woman, with a keen insight into character—a quality of
priceless value in a minister’s wife. She was generally correct in her
opinions of people, and her boldly pronounced forecasts of merits and
demerits in the circle of her acquaintance made a deep impression on her
family, whatever might be thought of them outside if revealed, which one
would hope they were not always.” Her share in conducting the psalmody,
visiting the congregation, and promoting religious and charitable objects
was a topic of talk for years after she left the neighbourhood; and the
mutual affection of the genial couple supplied materials for pleasant
reminiscences in the minds of many an old friend. Dr. Morison, of
Brompton, used to relate how he walked home from Kensington one old
year’s night or new year’s morning, as the moon shone brightly over the
frosty road, and hearing in the distance musical voices, he found, as he
came nearer, that two people were singing,—
“Come, let us anew
Our journey pursue,
Roll round with the year,
And never stand still till the Master appear.”
What was Dr. Morison’s surprise to find at last that the words proceeded
from the lips of the Kensington pastor and his wife. As she was beloved
of him, so he was beloved of her. I have heard her in later days extol,
in no measured terms, the excellences of his preaching, and also tell how
she liked to accompany him to village services, and visit cottages in the
neighbourhood, beating up recruits for the rustic congregation. Once,
after a sermon in a little country chapel, I saw her go into the vestry
and lovingly kiss the old prophet, exclaiming with genuine fervour, “God
bless you, John.” Such affection and admiration in an ancient lady seem
to me truly beautiful, and I trust no reader will think the incident two
trivial to be noticed here.
Some difference of judgment between the pastor and managers respecting
the mode of meeting incidental expenses led to a conference, when Dr.
Leifchild hinted at the possibility of his removing. He did not approve
of the management scheme, and the managers immediately retired. Their
letter of resignation was accepted at a Church meeting in December, 1821.
It was in August, 1824, that he received an invitation from Bristol, and
his acceptance of it he thus intimated to his people:—
“Mr. Leifchild addressed the meeting, and stated that, from a variety
of circumstances, he had seen it his duty to accept of an invitation
to the pastoral office of Bridge Street, Bristol. He assured the
meeting that this step arose from no uncomfortableness in his present
situation inducing a wish to depart; from no decay in the interest
here; no want of attendance; no diminution in the affections of the
people; nor from any pecuniary motives, as the salary proposed at
Bristol was the same which he received here, £350 per annum, and that
he had no prospect of its increase there which he had not here. But
his chief motives were the state of his health, which he hoped might
be improved by a residence at a greater distance from the metropolis;
the prospect of more extensive usefulness at that city; and above
all, many indications to his mind that such was the will of
Providence. He concluded by requesting any one who was not
satisfied, and wished for further information, to put any question to
him to that effect, as he had nothing to conceal. No question having
been put, the meeting was dissolved with prayer.” {54}
Mrs. Leifchild might well be proud of her husband; and here, in
conclusion, let me repeat what I have said elsewhere: his sermons were
constructed upon the principle of reaching a climax in the peroration.
All prepared for that, and he used to lay down this maxim for pulpit
oratory: “Begin low, proceed slow; rise higher, catch fire; be
self-possessed when most impressed.” Though he produced wonderful
effects at public meetings, the pulpit was his throne, where he ruled his
audience with a kind of imperial sway. His skill in the introduction of
religious topics into common conversation was very remarkable, and he
abounded in anecdotes illustrative of scripture truth and spiritual
experience. On his death bed he fancied himself entering within the
everlasting doors, and exclaimed, “Why, don’t you hear it, those
beautiful harps? You can’t all go in with me. I must go first; but keep
close behind me, and open the gates wide, wide, wide for all.” On his
tombstone are inscribed these words of his own: “I will creep as well as
I can to Thy gates. I will die at Thy door. Yea, I will be found dead
on the threshold of Thy mercy, with the ring of that door in my hand.”
{55}
IV. THE FOURTH PASTORATE.
_THE REV. ROBERT VAUGHAN_, _D.D._
1825–1843.
DR. LEIFCHILD relinquished the pastorate in August, 1824. Dr. Vaughan
received a “call” signed by about eighty members, and this he accepted in
February, 1825. His acceptance is dated from Worcester. “It is not,” he
says, “without being truly thankful for the many blessings which have
accompanied my religious connection in this city that I yield to the
influence of circumstances, which in my own view and that of the more
judicious of my friends, fully warrant the step which I now take in
freely stating my acceptance of your call. I do, however, wish you, my
dear friends, to be fully aware that I have not dared to proceed thus far
without confiding greatly in your deeper sympathies, and more fervent
prayers in my behalf. The doctrines I have preached in your hearing will
never I trust lose their prominence in my ministry. To my own heart they
yield its best, its only stay, and to apply them as a balm of
never-failing efficacy to your spirits is what I now propose as the one
object of my life while continued as your pastor.”
Dr. Vaughan was not educated at any of our colleges, but studied under
the Reverend William Thorp, of Bristol,—a man, the breadth of whose
intellect might be said to be symbolized by the extraordinary portliness
of his figure. As there was much nobility in his nature, he might, in
that respect, be likened to a monarch of the forest,—with this additional
and curious resemblance, that whereas a lion rejoices in having two cubs
at a time, so the leonine Bristol pastor never had but two pupils under
his care, and they came both at once—Robert Vaughan and John Jukes. The
latter presided over John Bunyan’s Church at Bedford; and I have heard
him and his friend at Kensington crack obvious jokes on their
relationship to each other, and to their remarkable instructor. After
entering on the ministry, Dr. Vaughan spent six years at Worcester in
hard study, preparing himself for what he afterwards became. There he
took an honourable position, but it could scarcely at first be augured
that he would rise to be what he ultimately was.