AT COLLEGE.
What more natural than that a son should wish to follow in his father's
steps? I had a minister for a father. It was resolved that I should
become one. In Dissenting circles no one was supposed to enter the
ministry until he had got what was denominated a call. I persuaded
myself that I had such a call, though I much doubt it now. I tried to
feel that I was fitted for this sacred post--I who knew nothing of my own
heart, and was as ignorant of the world as a babe unborn. I was sent to
a London college, now no more, and had to be examined for my
qualifications by four dear old fossils, and was, of course, admitted. I
passed because my orthodoxy was unimpeachable, and I was to preach--I,
who trembled at the sound of my own voice, who stood in terror of
deacons, and who had never attempted to make a speech. I hope at our
colleges they manage these things better now, and select men who can show
that the ministry is in them before they seek to enter the ministry. As
it was, I found more than one of my fellow-students was utterly destitute
of all qualifications for the pastorate, and was simply wasting the
splendid opportunities placed within his reach. The routine of college
life was not unpleasant. We rose early, attended lectures from our
principal and the classes at University College, and took part in
conducting family service in the hall. Occasionally we preached in the
College chapel, the principal attendant at which was an old tailor, who
thereby secured a good deal of the patronage of the students. By
attending the classes at University College we had opportunities of
which, alas! only a minority made much use. They who did so became
distinguished in after life, such as Rev. Joseph Mullens, Secretary of
the London Missionary Society; and John Curwen, who did so much for
congregational singing; Dr. Newth, and Philip Smith, who was tutor at
Cheshunt, and afterwards Headmaster at Mill Hill. Nor must I forget Rev.
Andrew Reed, a preacher always popular, partly on his own and partly on
his father's account; nor Thomas Durrant Philip, the son of the
well-known doctor whose splendid work among the Hottentots is not yet
forgotten; nor Dr. Edkins, the great Chinese scholar; nor the late Dr.
Henry Robert Reynolds, who won for Cheshunt a world-wide reputation. As
regards myself, I fear I took more interest in the debates at University
College, where I made acquaintance with men with whose names the world
has since become familiar, such as Sir James Stansfeld, Peter Taylor,
M.P. for Leicester, Professor Waley, of Jewish persuasion, C. J.
Hargreaves, Baron of the Encumbered Estates Court, and others who seemed
to me far superior to most of my fellow-students training for the
Christian ministry. I was much interested in the English Literature
Class under the late Dr. Gordon Latham, the great Anglo-Saxon scholar,
who would fain have had me Professor in his place.
I cannot say that I look back with much pleasure on my college career.
We had two heads, neither of whom had any influence with the students,
nor did it seem to me desirable that they should. One of them was an
easy, pleasant, gentlemanly man, who was pleased to remark on an essay
which I read before him on Christianity, and which was greeted with a
round of applause by my fellow-students, that it displayed a low tone of
religious feeling. Poor man, he did not long survive after that. The
only bit of advice I had from his successor was as to the propriety of
closing my eyes as if in prayer whenever I went into the pulpit to
preach, on the plea, not that by means of it my heart might be solemnised
and elevated for the ensuing service, but that it would have a beneficial
effect on the people--that, in fact, on account of it they would think
all the better of me! After that, you may be sure I got little benefit
from anything the good man might feel fit to say. As a scholar he was
nowhere. All that I recollect of him was that he gave us D'Aubigne's
History of the Reformation in driblets as if we were rather a superior
class of Sunday scholars. Mr. Stowell Brown tells us that he did not
perceive that the members of his church were in any respect better than
those who were hearers alone. And to me something similar was manifested
in college. We pious students were not much better than other young men.
It seemed to me that we were a little more lazy and flabby, that was all.
As a rule, few of us broke down morally, though such cases were by no
means rare. I cannot say, as M. Renan did, that there was never a breath
of scandal with respect to his fellow-students in his Romanist Academy;
but the class of young men who had come to study for the ministry was
not, with very rare exceptions, of a high order, either in a religious or
intellectual point of view. In this respect I believe there has been a
great improvement of late.
My pulpit career was short. At times I believe I preached with much
satisfaction to my hearers; at other times very much the reverse. De Foe
writes: "It was my disaster first to be set apart for, and then to be set
apart from, the honour of that sacred employ." My experience was
something similar. I never had a call to a charge, nor did I go the
right way to work to get one. I felt that I could gladly give it up, and
yet how could I do so? I had a father whom I fondly loved, who had set
his heart on seeing me follow in his honoured steps. I was what they
called a child of many prayers. How could I do otherwise than work for
their fulfilment? And if I gave up all thought of the ministry, how was
I to earn my daily bread? At length, however, I drifted away from the
pulpit and religious life for a time. I was not happy, but I was happier
than when vainly seeking to pursue an impossible career. I know more of
the world now. I have more measured myself with my fellows. I see what
ordinary men and women are, and the result is--fortunately or not, I
cannot tell--that I have now a better conceit of myself. I often wish
some one would ask me to occupy a pulpit now. How grand the position!
how mighty the power! You are out of the world--in direct contact with
the living God, speaking His Word, doing His work. There in the pew are
souls aching to be lifted out of themselves; to get out of the mud and
mire of the world and of daily life; to enter within the veil, as it
were; to abide in the secret place of the Most High. It is yours to aid
them. There are those dead in trespasses and sins; it is yours to rouse
them. There are the aged to be consoled; the young to be won over. Can
there be a nobler life than that which makes a man an ambassador from God
to man?
Yet they were pleasant years I spent at Coward College, Torrington
Square, supported by the liberality of an old wealthy merchant of that
name, the friend of Dr. Doddridge, and at Wymondley--to which Doddridge's
Academy, as it was termed, was subsequently moved--where were trained, at
any rate, two of our most distinguished Nonconformists, Edward Miall and
Thomas Binney. I am sorry Coward College ceased to exist as a separate
institution. We were all very happy there. We had a splendid old
library at our disposal, where we could learn somewhat of
Many an old philosophy
On Argus heights divinely sung;
and for many a day afterwards we dined together once a year. I think our
last dinner was at Mr. Binney's, who was at his best when he gathered
around him his juniors, like himself, the subjects of old Coward's
bounty. It was curious to me to find how little appreciated was the good
merchant's grand bequest. I often found that in many quarters,
especially among the country churches, the education given to the young
men at Coward's was regarded as a disqualification. It was suspected
that it impeded their religious career, that they were not so sound as
good young men who did not enjoy these advantages, that at other colleges
the preachers were better because not so learned, more devotedly pious
because more ignorant. It was held then that a student might be
over-educated, and the more he knew the more his religious zeal
diminished. In these days the feeling has ceased to exist, and the
churches are proud of the men who consecrate to the service of their Lord
all their cultivated powers of body and mind. The Christian Church has
ceased to fear the bugbear of a learned ministry. One can quite
understand, however, how that feeling came into existence. The success
of the early Methodists had led many to feel how little need there was
for culture when the torpor of the worldly and the poor was to be broken
up. The Methodists were of the people and spoke to them in a language
they could understand. Learning, criticism, doubt--what were they in the
opinion of the pious of those days but snares to be avoided, perils to be
shunned? For good or bad, we have outgrown that.