Next in estimation in this great democratic country to a real live lord
is a real live lord's relative. If you can't shake hands with a real
peer, it is something to shake hands with his brother. It is impossible
to get people to believe that human nature is everywhere the same; that
God has made of one blood peers and people, black and white. In this
unsettled age, perhaps, faith in the peerage is as abiding a conviction
as any whatever. Nor is it limited to what is called the world. The
Church participates deeply in the folly; no piety is so acceptable, has
so genuine an odour, as piety in high life; no homage is considered so
graceful to the Lord as the religion of a lord. A lord at a Bible
meeting--a lord stammering a few unconnected common-places about
Missionary Societies or the conversion of the Jews--a lord writing a book
on the Millennium, throws the religious world into a state of heavenly
rapture.
This, I take it, is the origin of the success of the Hon. and Rev.
Baptist Noel as a preacher in this great metropolis. If Baptist Noel is
not a lord himself, he is of lordly origin. His mother was a peeress in
her own right, and, as a tenth son, he must have a little blue blood in
his veins. His sister is, or was, a lady in waiting to the Queen. His
brother is an earl. He himself, at one time, was one of the royal
chaplains. He is redolent, then, of high life: what a delightful thought
for the London shopkeepers and tradesmen, who were wont to resort to St.
John's Chapel, Bedford Row! I really believe that these good people felt
that by going to hear him they were killing two birds with one
stone--getting into the very best society, and at the same time
worshipping the God of heaven and of earth.
But this is not Baptist Noel's only claim. His position has done much
for him; but his real merits have done much more. It is something to
find a man who is brought up to the Church, honestly devoting himself to
his sacred calling; scorning the pomps and allurements of the world; in
season and out of season a faithful minister of Christ. With his high
rank, with his family influence and the family livings--for to suppose
that the family has not such, is to deny that it is a respectable family
at all--though a younger son, Baptist Noel might have led a haughty and
luxurious life--a life of sensual indulgence or lettered ease. For such
a course he could have quoted precedents enough. But religious truth had
sunk deeply into his heart. His creed was no scholastic dogma, but a
living faith. With his inner eye he had seen the vanities of this world,
and the awful realities of the next; that all men were guilty before God;
and that it was only by faith in the atonement that the guilt could be
wiped away. Hence his perseverance, his single-mindedness, his zeal, He
preached, not to please men's fancies, but to save men's souls--not to
lull them into a deceitful peace, but to induce them to fly for mercy
from the wrath to come. True to this unvaried theme, Baptist Noel leaves
to others gorgeously to declaim, or learnedly to define, or coldly to
moralize. Evidently with him, for such matters, life is too short and
eternity too long.
Hence he is one of the plainest preachers of the metropolis. He aims at
your heart, not at your head. He touches your affections, if he cannot
master your understanding. He may win you over by his gentleness, though
he fail to convince you by his power.
Such, as a preacher, is Baptist Noel. Immediately he rises in the pulpit
you feel that you have that undefinable mystery, a gentleman, before you.
Few, indeed, are the gentlemen who surpass him in elegance of appearance,
or urbanity of manner. He is about fifty-five years of age, tall, and of
a fine figure; his hair is of a light brown colour, his complexion is
fair and pale, his face long, and his features handsome. He has a high
forehead, deep-set blue eyes, a long and rather aquiline nose, and an
expressive mouth. His voice is rich and silvery, not 'harsh and
crabbed,' but
'Musical as is Apollo's lute;'
and so indeed it ought, for Baptist Noel rarely concludes his sermons
within an hour. If his eloquence be compared to that of a stream, it
must be that of no mountain country, but of peaceful plains, of one of
which it may be said that
'through delicious meads
The murmuring stream its winding water leads.'
He is remarkably fluent; his sentences are particularly smooth and well
constructed, and his voice gently modulated: of action, he can be said
scarcely to have any. Baptist Noel is a thorough Englishman in this
respect.
As a thinker, he has been more remarkable for his freedom and candour
than for his consistency and depth. He has always held, in the main,
what are called Evangelical views, but his views have not always been on
all matters the same. At one time he was an opponent of Millenarian
views--he then became strenuous in their favour--now he has returned to
his original opinions, and opposes them as warmly as before. He acted a
similar part with reference to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and
his amiable little tract, on the Unity of the Church, was considered very
inconsistent, by Churchmen and Dissenters alike, with his position as a
minister of the Establishment.
As a writer Mr. Noel's principal work has been that on the Union of
Church and State, in which he justified, at considerable length, his
secession from the Establishment. He has also published an account of a
tour in Ireland, to which he was sent on a visit of inspection by the
Whigs a few years since; and he has also written a little poetry, some of
which has found its way into print. It is hardly necessary to say that
it is of that common character which it is said neither gods nor men
allow.
To many, Mr. Noel's whole career as a Churchman was very offensive. They
had no idea of a clergyman of the Church of England standing on the same
platform with a Dissenting brother. I believe, by his conduct, Baptist
Noel drew down upon himself more than one Episcopal rebuke; and,
therefore, few were surprised when the time came when he burst the bonds
that had long held him, and became the minister of the Baptist church,
John Street, Bedford Row--a church formed by the Rev. John Harrington
Evans, like Mr. Noel, originally a clergyman of the Establishment. Still
the effort was a bold one. By such a step he had nothing to gain, and
much to lose. Worldly considerations would have prompted him to remain
where he was. I honour him that he obeyed the dictates of conscience.
Men do so rarely, and, when they do so, they are but rarely honoured.
The religious world made much more of Baptist Noel when he was in the
Church than now. Scarcely a religious public meeting was held in the
metropolis without Mr. Noel being put down in the bills as one of the
speakers: now his voice is rarely heard.
This is strange, but true. Regret it as we may, such is the fact. It
was when Baptist Noel preached at St. John's that he was run after. What
crowds filled that dreary place! How difficult it was to get a seat
there! The dingy, dirty old building itself was enough to draw a crowd.
It was built for that fiery, foolish priest, Sacheverell. Scott, famed
for his Commentary on the Bible, was a curate there. There also preached
the scarcely less celebrated Cecil. In his steps followed Daniel Wilson,
the Bishop of Calcutta. Wilberforce had worshipped there. The building
itself was a fact and a sermon as well. The place had a religion of its
own. The neighbouring pulpit in which Baptist Noel now officiates has
nothing of the kind. Perhaps, however, the less Dissent is encumbered
with tradition or history the better. As it is, the soul is sluggish
enough. Leaden custom lies too heavy on us all.