Salem Chapel.
Close to the entrance of the village, at the top of the main street,
and within five minutes' walk of the railway station, stands the
Methodist New Connexion Chapel of Berry Brow. It is situated on the
right-hand side of the street coming from Huddersfield; being on lower
ground than the road, it has from this point a stunted appearance.
Pursuing the decline and curve of the street a little further brings
you to the vertex of a triangle of level ground, on the base of which
the chapel stands. It is fronted by a graveyard, whose two sides
gradually converge towards a little iron gateway at the entrance.
Seen from here the chapel presents a more pleasing appearance, though
even now an observer could not fail to be struck with the dwarfish look
of the building; there is a want of height to give it proper
proportion. It shows a plain stone front, which suggests that the good
people who built it had no money to spend in costly ornamentation.
SALEM, the honoured name of the chapel, is inscribed on the front. The
Sunday-school, which is of more recent date, stands adjoining it on the
left; the foreground treasures up the dust of many pious pilgrims who,
in the days gone by, came to this house of peace. The chapel has two
doors in the front; inside, the appearance is exceedingly plain; the
pulpit is stationed with its back against the front wall, and is
enclosed by a pew that was formerly occupied by the choir, but now
mostly by the speakers at the public meetings, for, being somewhat
elevated, it serves as a permanent platform. The plan of the sittings
is a simple rising gallery, springing from the floor half-way to the
ceiling, and traversed by two aisles leading direct from either
doorway; in a recess abutting through the right-hand wall, the organ is
fixed. The chapel is capable of accommodating about three hundred
persons, though there have been times when, somewhere or other, it has
afforded room to much larger numbers of people that have crushed within
its limited space. Altogether, it is a plain, unpretentious structure,
by no means equal to the growing requirements of the prosperous Church
that worships there in these days.
Salem Chapel, like many other places of worship, has its story, full of
sacred incident and interest. It has been the religious birthplace of
hundreds of precious souls, many of whom are now in glory, while others
are journeying thitherward. Many of the ablest ministers the Methodist
New Connexion has ever had, have counted it a joy to preach in that old
sanctuary.
Several revivals of the work of God have broken out within those walls,
and spread with such rapidity and power through the neighbourhood, that
Satan's strongholds have trembled before them; and in the great day of
the Lord it will be said of Salem, "This and that man were born there."
But before it was built the people used to attend the High Street
Chapel, Huddersfield, which involved a walk of over two miles each way,
and this in unfavourable weather was no light task. The time came,
however, when they began seriously to entertain the idea of having a
place of worship in their own village.
Abe Lockwood was among the chief advocates of this scheme, and it was
mainly owing to his activity in the matter that the undertaking was at
length commenced and completed. In the month of July 1823, Abe, full
of the new Chapel enterprize, entered a harvest field belonging to Mr.
S---- of Armitage Fold, where several members of the Society were at
work, and took upon himself to announce that there would be a meeting
in a certain house that night, for the purpose of considering whether
they were to have a Chapel in Berry Brow. The meeting was held, and
the decision taken in favour of the movement. They would arise and
build, so in God's name they began the work.
It was a serious undertaking for them, as most of the members were poor
working people, but they were in earnest, and at once opened a
subscription list, each of them promising something to the fund before
they went outside to solicit help from any one else. They then
obtained further promises from others, and arranged to gather the money
by weekly instalments, some being as little as a penny. Then, in order
to save cost as much as possible, the men themselves went and delved in
the quarry for stones, and borrowed horses and carts of the farmers to
remove the material to the chapel site, and when it sometimes happened
that they could not obtain the use of horses, they got the loan of
carts, and the men, old and young, took the horse-work themselves, and
drew the stones to the building place.
In all this Abe was a foremost worker, toiling early and late, and
asking any one and every one to come to their help, by which means they
got many of the wild young men of the village to assist in the work.
This did not, however, meet with universal approval; there were some
few very good people, who mostly employed themselves in looking on,
giving directions, and finding fault, who said it was not right to
bring a lot of ungodly young men into a work so sacred; they
expostulated with Abe on the subject, he being the chief cause of their
enlistment, but he replied, "Not roight for them to help in building
th' Lord's haase! It must be roight; if they soil th' stones with
their fingers, God will put them roight again when He gets into it. I
wouldn't care if th' devil hissen were to come and drag stones for th'
place, if only Jesus is preached in it afterwards;" so the croakers
didn't gain anything by their complaints, except rejoinders from Abe,
which taught them a little good sense, and they went on with the
building.
The foundation stone was laid on Shrove Tuesday 1824, and the chapel
was opened for religious services on Good Friday 1825. The Rev. Thomas
Allin preached on that occasion with his usual extraordinary ability.
From that time until now the cause has never looked back, but has
maintained a steady onward course. Seasons of trial and depression
have occasionally gathered over it like dark clouds, but the earnest
band of Christian people it has drawn together, have been conducted
under the clouds in safety, and have lived to come out again into the
sunshine of prosperity.
There is not a trouble or a joy, not a throb of sorrow or a thrill of
delight that ever came to that church during those years, which Abe
Lockwood did not feel. He was so mixed and wrapt up in its history and
workings that he counted its very pulsations as distinctly as he felt
his own. In later years, when other labourers were brought into the
church, and his services as a local preacher came into greater demand,
many of the duties involved in conducting the cause fell into other
hands; but Abe's love for Salem never did and never could diminish; to
him it was the most beautiful sanctuary in the Circuit or out of it;
and there it stands as a monument of the zeal and devotion of those
earnest men who more than fifty years ago laid its foundations, and
reared its sacred walls in the name of the Lord.
They are nearly all gone to their reward, Abe among them, but in no
sense more than this is the Scripture fulfilled, "He being dead yet
speaketh."