In the times of Robert Hall, when the talents of that rather over-rated
orator gave the Baptists a lift in public estimation, and made them
respectable, save in the eyes of gentlemen of very strict Church
principles, the Rev. Mr. Kinghorn, a strange spare man, a keen debater,
and a great Hebrew scholar, presided over a select Baptist congregation,
at St. Mary's, Norwich.
Norwich at that time was very literary. William Taylor, the first
Englishman to sound the German Ocean, and to return laden with its spoils
of heresy and erudition, lived there; as did also Wilkin, the Editor of
the best edition of that rare light of Norwich, Sir Thomas Brown, and
William Youngman, a severe critic, though a writer little known beyond
the city in which he so long resided. At that time Norwich drove a
considerable trade in logic as well as in woollens. The whole city had a
disputatious air. The weaver-boys--and William Johnson Fox, now M.P. for
Oldham, was one of them--learned to dispute and define and doubt. There
Harriet Martineau philosophised in petticoats, and George Borrow, at its
grammar-school, fitted himself for the romance of his future life. In a
city thus given to thought were required, in the pulpit, men of superior
power--especially in the Dissenting pulpit; for, while the clergyman of
the Establishment can say "Hear the Church!" his Dissenting brother can
only say "Hear me!" and that he must say to people, the condition of
whose existence is free thought.
At Norwich, Mr. Kinghorn, it was considered, was equal to his post, and
held it long. He gathered around him a congregation rich and
intelligent. He instilled into their minds the strictest principles of
Baptism. To their communion-table none were to be admitted--no matter
how pure their creed, how consistent their life, how Christian their
heart--unless they had been the subject of water immersion. It seems
strange that men should ever have quarrelled about such trifling matters;
and yet to their heaven Mr. Kinghorn and his flock would admit none but
the totally baptised. (If sectarians had their own way, what a place
this world would be!) But, in time, Mr. Kinghorn obeyed the common law
and died, and the church had to seek out a successor.
After several ministers had preached on probation, the choice fell upon
the Rev. William Brock--then, I believe, a student fresh from the Baptist
College at Stepney. The choice was a happy one. The cause prospered,
the church increased, the place was enlarged, and still the pews were
full. It was considered a great treat to hear Mr. Brock. Of course the
female sex fluttered round the new pastor. Of course the gentlemen
fluttered round them. An air of taste pervaded the chapel. It was
called "the fashionable watering-place."
But this was not to last for ever: a time was coming when the pastor
would be removed. Amongst the great railway contractors, one of them, it
seems, was a Baptist, and an M.P. Sir M. Peto--for it is he to whom I
allude--became M.P. for Norwich, and bought an estate in the
neighbourhood. This naturally led to his connection with Mr. Brock, and
this connection led to Mr. Brock's removal to London. In the immediate
neighbourhood of the baronet's residence, Russell Square, there was no
popular Baptist preacher. To go every Sunday to Devonshire Square, where
the _elite_ of the Baptists did congregate, was a long and dreary ride.
It were far better that the mountain should come to Mahomet than that
Mahomet should go to the mountain. Sir M. Peto did not wish in vain.
These great railway contractors can do what they like. In a very short
while a very fashionable chapel was built in the neighbourhood of Bedford
Square. It stands out in bold relief by the side of a tawdry
Episcopalian chapel-of-ease and a French Protestant place of worship. As
soon as the new chapel was completed, Mr. Brock was duly installed as
pastor.
Mr. Brock's _debut_ in London was a decided success. The chapel, which,
I should think, could contain fifteen hundred hearers, is invariably
crammed. If you are late, it is with difficulty you will get standing
room. The genteel part of the chapel is down stairs, and if you do get a
seat, you will find it a very comfortable one indeed. In a very snug
pew, at the extreme end on the right, you will see Sir M. Peto and his
family. Half-way down on your left you will see the spectacles and long
head of Dr. Price, Editor of the 'Eclectic Review.' Lance, the beautiful
painter of fruits and flowers, also attends here, but I believe you will
find him in the gallery. The people all round you look comfortable and
well fed, and no one presents a more comfortable and well-fed appearance
than the Rev. W. Brock himself.
There he stands, in that handsome pulpit, in that richly-ornamented
chapel, with all those genteel people beneath him and around him--a
stout, square-built man--a true type of Saxon energy and power--without
the slightest pretensions to elegance or grace. Such men as he are not
the men young ladies run after, fall in love with, get to write in their
albums, buy engravings of for their boudoirs; but, nevertheless, with
their strong passionate speech, and indomitable pluck, they are the men
who move the world. During the war, we are told, it was the weight of
the British soldiery that carried everything before it. The Frenchman
might be more scientific, more agile, more skilful every way, but the
moment the word was given to charge, resistance was hopeless--you might
as well try to stay the progress of a torrent or an avalanche. What the
Englishman is in the field, Brock is in the pulpit. You are borne down
by his weight. He gives you no chance. On comes the tide, and you are
swept away. You are learned--evidently the man before you has little
more than the average learning picked up in a hurry, in a second-rate
academic institution. You like to theorise on the beautiful and
divine--the preacher before you cares nothing for your flimsy network,
born of Plato and Schelling. You explain away and refine--Brock does
nothing of the kind: 'It is in the Bible--it is there!' he exclaims, and
that is sufficient for him. You may say it is absurd, it is opposed to
reason and common-sense. You can no more move Brock than you can the
Monument.
I take it, this is the secret of Brock's success: he is positive and
dogmatic, and people want something positive and dogmatic. It is only
one day in the week that Smithers can spare for theology; and, wearied
with the cares of six working days, he requires the theology he gets on
the seventh shall be positive and plain. With the monk in 'Anastasius,'
he feels that life is too short to hear both sides. The British public
does not like to be bothered. It likes everything settled for it, and
not by it. Hence it is Macaulay's 'History of England' is so popular.
Your popular preacher must be dogmatic: the more dogmatic he is, the more
popular he will be. Brock's earnest dogmatism does everything for him.
There is no great beauty in his style, there are no bursts of splendour
in his sermons, there is no speculation in his eye; but he has a vehement
tone, is plain, affectionate, practical, full of point and power.
Brock is one of the Catholic Baptists, and will admit to the table of
their common Lord all who believe in Christ as their common head. He has
not improved by his removal to London. He preached better sermons in
Norwich than here, and he has got a slight affectation which I don't
remember at Norwich. He mouths his a's as if he had, to use a common
phrase, an apple-dumpling in his mouth, and occasionally painfully
reminds you of a vulgar man trying to speak fine; but I believe this is
unconsciously done on his part. At Norwich he was an ardent politician,
advocated complete suffrage, defended the Anti-State-Church movement, and
is, I believe, one of the few leading London Dissenting ministers who
still fraternise with the Association now known as the Society for the
Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control. As a platform
orator, he is very effective: he is everywhere the same--everywhere you
see the same hearty dogmatism and genial sincerity. You may differ from
such a man, but you cannot dislike him; you would rather have him for a
friend than a foe. To his own denomination he is a tower of strength.
He is the first man who has made the Baptists popular at the West-end.
Till Brock came, the Baptist congregations in the neighbourhood were very
meagre. Brock cannot do for his sect what Hall did, or what John Foster
did. By his writing he does not appeal to the religious cultivated mind
of England, nor by his graceful eloquence does he commend it to men of
taste; but he speaks to the practical English mind, to the shop-keeping
middle class, of whom I believe he was originally one, and to the door of
whose instinct and hearts he evidently holds the key. Scarlett
succeeded, we are told, because there sat listening in the jury-box
twelve Mr. Scarletts. For the same reason Mr. Brock succeeds. The men
he speaks to are men of like passions with himself.