_PARISH WORK_
Some men are in great request as preachers and speakers outside their
parishes, but for some reason or other they are not very useful at home.
It was not so with the subject of this memoir. The prophet in this case
was honoured in his own country. On Sunday mornings, three-quarters of
an hour before service began, many aged and poor parishioners might be
seen making their way into the church to secure good seats. In Holy
Trinity the free seats are more in number than those that are
appropriated, and some of the former are in the best part of the church;
all these were filled long before the hour for the commencement of
service. As eleven o’clock drew near the congregation were in their
places, and the aisles were filled with strangers in every available spot
waiting in the hope of some possible seat. It was a common thing in the
summer for as many as a hundred to go away unable to get accommodation.
The writer well remembers the profound impression which the Sundays used
to make upon his mind. The old Vicar and his curates were in the vestry
in good time robed and ready; {174} having knelt in prayer, there was a
silent interval, and exactly to the moment when the clock in the tower
struck, the vestry door was opened and they passed out into the church.
Sometimes this was a slow work, as the people stood close together; some
were sitting on the pulpit stairs, and the clergy had to thread their way
to the chancel rails.
When service began the cushions at the rails were all occupied by
worshippers kneeling upon them. Canon Hoare generally took part in the
service, which was conducted in the simple old-fashioned way, read, not
“toned down” in the manner now so prevalent.
When the preacher ascended the high pulpit it was an impressive thing to
see that great congregation, over sixteen hundred in number, ranged
beneath in the body of the building and around him in the deep galleries,
waiting for his words. His prayer before the sermon was a very striking
one, and it was always in the following words: “Almighty God, our
Heavenly Father, who hast purchased to Thyself an universal Church by the
precious blood of Thy dear Son, and hast promised that the Holy Spirit
should abide with us for ever: may we now enjoy His sacred presence! May
He direct the word which shall now be spoken, and apply it with Divine
power to all our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Those sermons were wonderful, delivered so well that few could believe
them to be written discourses, which they were; with changes of tone
which made the sentences impress themselves upon the memory; the manner
so solemn, as befitted the ambassador, and yet so pleading, as became the
father. The eloquent language attracted the intellectual mind, and the
remarkable simplicity of expression appealed to the simplest
understanding. The _matter_ of these sermons was, however, their great
charm.
The atonement wrought by Christ was their great theme. Many preachers,
when enlarging upon other subjects, bring in this doctrine at the close
of their discourse, but with Canon Hoare the great foundation of our
faith, viz. the substitution of Christ for the sinner, and His finished
work of propitiation applied by the Holy Spirit, was always visible, not
as a thing to be brought in at the end, but _already there_, as the
centre and pivot of all that he said; hence no doubt the power of his
words, and withal as a thing much to be observed was the extraordinary
freshness with which he was able to present, Sunday after Sunday, the old
story of the Cross, old but ever new.
Very powerful were those discourses, for they were full of teaching. The
preacher was a deep student of his Bible,—“After diligently working down
into it for fifty years,” he used to say, “I am still only scratching the
surface!”—and he possessed moreover an unusual power of imparting
knowledge; he was pre-eminently a teacher, and among the many privileges
which his curates enjoyed none was so great as the Scriptural teaching
which they received in their Vicar’s sermons. After the preacher had
concluded there was a short prayer, followed by the blessing, and then,
with nothing to take away the impression of the solemn words to which
they had listened, the congregation dispersed. There were three or four
services in the Parish Church every Sunday, besides the shortened Morning
Service in the hospital and Mission Service in the large Parish Room;
there were also five Sunday Schools, and many classes on the same day for
old and young men, women, and senior girls.
Though in his vigorous days he always preached twice, he was in the habit
of opening the principal boys’ school every Sunday morning, and in the
afternoon visiting one or other of the various schools and classes,
finishing all by slipping into the afternoon service in time to hear the
sermon preached by one of his curates. By these means he kept in touch
with everything going on in the parish.
The weekday work was enormous and varied. The Parish Room, so
called—really a large building containing a hall and different rooms—was
occupied nearly every hour of every day in some part or other; and in the
parish at large every conceivable kind of agency for the temporal and
spiritual good of rich and poor was to be found, all animated by real
energy and spiritual power. Many a time have the workers heard from
their Vicar’s lips, “Let us not be content with machinery; what we want
is _Life_.”
The Sunday Evening Services in the Parish Room were deeply interesting.
For half an hour beforehand the volunteer choir sang hymns to attract the
people in, and workers went into bar-rooms and common lodging-houses to
bring in any who would come.
It was a very moving sight, about three hundred people, some of them
degraded in vice, packed close together, joining in the familiar hymns,
and listening with attention to the speaker. Canon Hoare often said
that, intensely as he delighted in the opportunity, it was at times more
than he could bear to realise the depth of sin in which many lived who
were gathered together at these services—the responsibility of the
preacher seemed on such an occasion to be so enormous.
Except as occasional workers, he never would allow the regular
church-goers to attend the Mission Room services. “This service is not
for you,” he used to say; “it is a stepping-stone to the church.” And
such it was. The process of transformation used to be watched with
interest in those cases where some poor degraded creature, either there
or at the Temperance meetings, was led to “take the first turn to the
right, and then go straight on,” as Bishop Wilberforce once tersely put
it. Soon the ragged clothing improved, the whole appearance altered;
after a while it might be said of such that, clothed and in their right
mind, they sat at the feet of Jesus; and then by degrees moving on to the
church, they might be seen at the Lord’s Table, or sitting in the adult
Confirmation Class in preparation for that sacred privilege.
There were low slums in that parish, but, as Canon Hoare used often to
say, “The Church of England can and does reach the lowest of the low, and
can bring the Gospel to bear upon the vilest, _without the aid of a
fiddle or a flag_!” One practical difficulty met him at first in the
Parish (or Mission) Room services. Many a poor tramp, weary and
footsore, used to say when asked to come in: “I have eaten nothing since
the morning. Can you give me food? I want that more than the service.”
When these answers were reported to him Mr. Hoare used to say, “And if I
were in their place I should make the same reply.” It then became a
matter of consideration what could be done to remove this difficulty, and
yet not give anything like a bribe to induce people to come to these
services for a paltry motive. After a great deal of thought and
consultation with the workers, it was determined to give a slice of bread
and cheese to any poor hungry ones who were not residents, but passing
through the place, and in the cold weather a mug of coffee was added.
This plan worked admirably; only a few asked for the food, but those
received it, and what had been a very real hindrance at the first was
satisfactorily removed.
Most if not all of our Religious Societies were well supported in the
parish, but the three in which Mr. Hoare seemed to take the warmest
interest were the Church Missionary Society, the Church Pastoral Aid
Society, and the Irish Church Missions. For the first and last of these
three there were, besides the Great Hall meetings, crowded gatherings for
the poorer parishioners in the Parish Room. Canon Hoare was an
incorporated member of the S.P.G., and had an annual sermon for that
society, but of course the Church Missionary Society had the love of his
whole heart. What he was to that society every one knows, and he infused
some of his missionary enthusiasm into the town, and especially his own
parish.
The Church Missionary Society anniversary was indeed a “field-day.” Long
prepared for, it was anticipated with keen interest; the best deputations
came down, and nearly every church in the town joined in the celebration.
Canon Hoare generally preached in the old Chapel of Ease in the morning,
but always occupied his own pulpit in the evening of that day, and what a
thronged congregation there was on these occasions! The whole soul of
the preacher seemed to go forth in his subject, and his hearers were
thrilled by the trumpet call of that missionary sermon. In later years
the thought of his dearly loved son and daughter working for God in China
brought a special and personal interest into his words—not that he spoke
of them, but somehow one could feel that they were in his thoughts. The
collections on these occasions were very large; in former years £100 was
thought the proper thing as the result of the Anniversary Services in
Trinity Church, but gradually the amount crept up until about ten years
before his death, when on one anniversary, in his absence through
illness, it was suggested by the evening preacher that it would be a
cheer to their beloved Vicar if £200 were reached; and right liberally
was the appeal answered. After the sermon two gentlemen came into the
vestry to inquire the amount collected, “for,” said they, “whatever the
deficit may be, we will make it £200”; but their kindly help was not
needed, as more than that sum was already counted out upon the vestry
table!
From that day £200 was looked upon as the proper sum from Trinity Church
for the Church Missionary Society anniversary.
The parish schools for boys, girls, and infants were all first-rate, and
Canon Hoare prided himself upon having the best boys’ school in the
diocese; but he was not content with the welfare of his own schools—it
was his wish to strengthen all Church schools in the town. We hear now a
good deal about the confederation of Church schools. More than
twenty-five years ago the Vicar of Holy Trinity started such a
confederation. Every Church school in Tunbridge Wells elected its
members, and sent them to the periodic meetings, where matters of
interest were discussed, weak points strengthened, and preparation made
for dangers that threatened. This was only one of the many things in
which his statesmanlike ability showed itself; Edward Hoare was one of
those “men that had understanding of the times, to know what (the
spiritual) Israel ought to do.” The power of such men is readily felt
and acknowledged. “All their brethren are at their commandment.”
It would be impossible to write about the work in Holy Trinity parish
without alluding to the Ladies’ Bible Class. This was a remarkable
feature of his ministry, and, like most of his works, was going on before
it had been suggested or thought of in other places.
This was not a Bible-reading, but a class for teaching by preparation
beforehand, and at the time by question and answer. The answering was,
of course, not compulsory, but nearly every one present in the large
assembly of ladies took part.
The teaching was marvellous; sometimes it was a topic or a life in
Scripture, sometimes a portion of the Prayer-Book or the Articles. The
mastery of the subject and the power of conveying the same clear
knowledge to other minds were very striking. Some have even said that
they considered this class to have been his greatest work in Tunbridge
Wells. The enthusiastic letters which have been received during the past
thirty years from generations of young people who, having been taught by
him, went forth into life educated and fortified in religious truth,
testify to the fact that these classes formed in many an instance the
real turning-point of life.
Twice in the period that he was Vicar of Holy Trinity a Parochial Mission
was held, the respective missioners being the Rev. Rowley Hill,
afterwards Bishop of Sodor and Man, and the Rev. H. Webb Peploe. Each
time it was a grand success, greatly owing, under God, to the prayer and
preparation which preceded it. The second mission was remarkable for the
number of men whom it reached; at the services for men only there used to
be two thousand listeners crammed into the church. Being well followed
up, these missions left a glorious mark in the parish. Canon Hoare used
often to quote the words of some foreign pastor, “The Church of England
is the best in the world at throwing the net, but the worst at drawing it
in,” and he always added, “Let _us_ not fall into that error, but draw in
the net”; and so he did. How familiar to the ears of his old curates
were the words that he often said on Sunday morning from the pulpit at
the close of some instructive sermon, “If there are any who would like
this matter explained further, I shall be glad to see them this afternoon
in the Parish Room at a quarter past four”; and he has often remarked, “I
have never given this notice without getting some earnest souls who
wanted help.”
“Pray for people and look out for God’s answer,” was the direction that
he used to give to his workers, and in this lay surely one of the secrets
of his great success as a pastor. The characteristic of Holy Trinity
parish was “Life”; the Holy Spirit was manifestly at work in the place,
blessing the various agencies among rich and poor, young and old,
arousing, renewing, converting, and edifying.
One of his loving fellow-workers thus recalls an experience of this in
the earlier years of Canon Hoare’s ministry at Tunbridge Wells:—
“I recollect well a great spiritual movement that took place over the
whole parish, then undivided except by St. John’s. People, men and
women, came to us, chiefly of course to him, asking for help in their
spiritual state—people who had been living entirely secular lives.
There seemed to have been no special cause for it—no mission—no
exciting preaching; it was caused by his careful parish work and
ministry. This went on for, I think, about two months; we kept it
very quiet, spoke of it only to a few prayerful people, but they were
praying for it; at length, however, it got out, and a few unwise
persons—some of whom were Church people and some were not—got down
Revivalists and hired the Town Hall to throw excitement into the
work. Immediately it ceased! I build no theory or argument upon the
fact, I merely say what I noticed.”
The same writer continues thus:—
“About that time we began the Evening Communion, and I recollect well
our astonishment at the result. Such a number of new faces whom
either we did not know or never saw at Holy Communion! Servants,
lodging-house keepers, wives of working men, whom practically we had
been excommunicating by having the Holy Communion only at the hours
when we had hitherto celebrated it.”
All who had the sacred privilege of working with Canon Hoare in his
splendidly ordered parish will agree in this, that two clauses of our
Church’s Creeds were ever before his eyes: one was the note of all his
preaching; the other, the motive and reward of all his work.
“I believe in the Forgiveness of Sins.”
“I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life.”
This chapter, which describes some of the parochial work of the parish,
would not be complete without a reference to a great organisation which,
though not of the parish, yet annually assembled in it, viz. “The
Aggregate Clerical Meeting.” Shortly after his appointment to Tunbridge
Wells, at a time when no conferences of clergy, now so common, had been
thought of, the idea of the great spiritual benefit to be gained by such
an annual gathering made Mr. Hoare determine to try the experiment.
Having consulted with some friends, he sent invitations to the members of
seven “Clerical Societies” in the neighbouring parts of Kent, Sussex, and
Surrey, to assemble in Tunbridge Wells in the month of June for a series
of meetings, not for the public, but for themselves, lasting over two
days, with a sermon in Trinity Church on the evening of the first day and
a celebration of the Holy Communion in the morning of the day following.
All invited guests were given hospitality in the houses of kind friends.
The Conference thus assembled met annually for about forty years, and
from the first to the last meeting Canon Hoare was its President,
although on two occasions illness obliged him to depute another as the
chairman. From its small beginning it soon spread, sending its
invitations through the South-East of England, although drawing the
greater part of its members (who numbered altogether nearly five hundred)
from the three counties named above. Laymen too, “introduced by a
clergyman,” were invited to attend, and gladly availed themselves of the
opportunity. Most of the great Evangelical men have preached at its
annual gatherings, and papers and addresses of the greatest possible
interest have been given at these meetings. All however who have
attended on these occasions will agree in this, that the one thing to
which every one looked forward was the closing address of the President.
Precious words were always given him to speak, full of spiritual
experience and loving exhortation.
The value of conferences like these is now acknowledged everywhere, but
it is only due to the one whose memory we affectionately cherish that the
credit of originating them should be here given to him whose foreseeing
mind recognised the blessings such meetings would confer.