Is the language of the Psalmist, descriptive of himself, universally
true? Is it true that man is born in sin, and shapen in iniquity; that
he is depraved; that he hates what is good, and loves what is bad? If it
be so, that fact, of itself, sufficiently accounts for the war ever
carried on between faith and reason, the church and the world. If it be
so, it is vain that philosophy attempts to break down the line of
demarcation, and to lead men to what it deems a purer faith. At its best
and highest it is powerless--nothing better than, in the language of
Carlyle, 'Thrice refined pabulum of transcendental moonshine.'
The only remedy for this is to return to the practice of the Wesleys and
the Whitfields of an earlier day, to proclaim the naked truth: That man
is a rebel against God--that he is destined to eternal perdition--and
that every step he takes, till his heart be touched by divine grace, and
won by the attraction of the cross, leads him further and further in his
downward way. It is a terrible doctrine, this; yet, strange to say, it
is a popular one. The men who preach it are the most popular preachers.
Their Gospel tramples on intellect, and they do the same. According to
them, the weak things of the world, and the things that are despised, are
powerful to bring to nought things that are; and, therefore, they take
their stand above the science and literature and philosophy of man, which
they hold but as dirt in comparison with the truths they teach and the
discoveries they reveal. Their appeal is not to the intellect or the
taste. For neither do they care. They display no pride of learning, no
affluence of imagination, no pomp of words. They abound with no thoughts
rich and rare. The perilous paths which the human intellect finds for
itself, when in wandering mazes lost, they altogether ignore.
Hence their immense success. The common mass of church and chapel goers
are not given, by mental speculation, to trains of abstract and
protracted thought. Generally, their education is of the most limited
description, consisting of little more than is requisite for the ordinary
business of ordinary life. The London _bourgeoise_ are not a very
learned folk. Were a Coleridge set down amongst them they would say,
'Much learning hath made this man mad.' They would at any time prefer a
Hall to a John Foster, or such a man as Robert Montgomery to Professor
Maurice or Mr. Lynch. But they can be reached through the heart, and
they love so to be reached. Nor on religious matters is this very
difficult to do so. The chief requirements are simplicity and
earnestness--that you should not reason, but command and appeal. The
more simply and authoritatively this is done, of course, the better it is
done. An audience does not love to be distracted, or to have its mental
powers severely taxed; but it comes to be excited, to be quickened, to be
delivered for a time from the things which are seen and temporal, and to
realise those which are unseen and eternal. The men who aim straight at
this end--if they have at all the requisite amount of voice and
manner--are sure to have an audience fit, and not few.
Thus Mr. Martin has won his way, and become a power in the pulpit. About
fifteen years since, he came to London from a provincial college--a
college which the self-satisfied young gentlemen of Highbury, with their
acknowledged popular preaching talents, regarded in much the same way as
Nazareth was regarded by the Jews. A new chapel had just been erected in
Lambeth by the Congregationalists, and immediately Mr. Martin filled it.
Where there had been a few wretched hovels there rose up a temple crowded
with worshippers. Every part was full. The preacher was young; his
style was exceedingly simple; but he had the calm self-possession of a
man with a mission to men's souls, and he had a clear voice, and a manner
grave and, at times, pathetic or severe. It was seldom that men had
seen, on such young shoulders, so old a head; and the Dissenting world
rushed to hear the boyish preacher who seemed miraculously endued with
the wisdom and gravity of age, and whose popularity even seemed to have
left him simple and unaffected, in spite of it all. In time, a new
chapel was erected in Westminster, not far from the residence of royalty;
and of that chapel Mr. Martin became the minister. There he yet remains,
and there his popularity is as great as ever. You are lucky if you get a
seat, the chapel, which has recently been enlarged, being always full.
Mr. Martin's forte is seriousness. He appears always solemn and devout.
In the man himself you see no sign of great intellectual power. Dressed
in sober black, close buttoned to the chin, you see a young man, with a
pale heavy face, worn down by work. You may listen a long time before
fire flashes from those eyes and lips, or before that brain thinks out of
the commonest style of pulpit thought. It is really remarkable with how
little instrumentality Mr. Martin produces so great an effect. He looks
perfectly unimpressible--as if the world's vanities never could charm
him--as if he passed his life in some hermit's dismal cell, and not in
the city's passionate and restless crowd. You would fancy that he was
the inhabitant of an altogether different sphere, that he never laughed
or smiled or read 'Punch;' and this appearance, I take it, is some help
to his pulpit success. Charles Fox said it was impossible for any one to
be as wise as Lord Thurlow looked. I would not go so far as to say that
no man can be as devout as Mr. Martin looks, but certainly his appearance
must be in his favour with the large class who attend public worship,
although his nasal twang is not very agreeable, and his face itself is
more indicative of the priest of narrow thought and of ascetic habits,
than of the man with glowing sympathies and generous life.
In the pulpit all this tells. Wait awhile, if you are sceptical, and you
will soon be convinced of the fact. The mass around you will soon be
permeated by the preacher's power. As he unfolds his subject--as he goes
directly to the point--as, with plain and terrible language, he warns men
of sin, and of its fearful results--as he expatiates on the terrors and
splendours of a world to come--as he realises the day when the trumpet
shall sound, when the grave shall give up its spoil, when the dead, small
and great, shall stand before God--you see that he has got at the heart
of his audience--that it hangs upon his lips--that he sways it at his
will--that at his bidding it trembles and despairs--or that it believes
and hopes, and loves and lives. And all this seems done with little
effort, in the boldest and plainest language possible.
A man of one book is always a formidable foe. Mr. Martin is a man of one
book. That one book, as he reads it, proclaims one fact--salvation by
the cross; and to proclaim that fact is the one mission of his life, and
the one message on his lips. Out of that book other men may get more;
out of it Mr. Martin gets but one great and all-absorbing idea. This
being the case, one is not surprised that Mr. Martin is not met with
frequently out of the pulpit, or that what little he has published has
been in the sermon line. He has identified himself with Ragged Schools
and the Early Closing Movement, and the United Kingdom Alliance for the
Suppression of the Liquor Traffic; and has, I believe, written and spoken
in their favour. But the pulpit is his peculiar sphere: there he is
great--there he has no rival near the throne--there he speaks as one
having authority, as an accredited ambassador from God to man. In thus
acting he shows his wisdom; for there he has achieved a success which men
of greater brilliancy, of wider intellectual power, have often sought in
vain. Cowper draws his model preacher:
--'Simple, grave, sincere--
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impress'd
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds
May feel it too; affectionate in look,
And tender in address, as well becomes
A messenger of grace to guilty man.'
Mr. Martin might have sat for the portrait.