[Picture: Rev. Colmer B. Symes, B.A.]
“GOD buries His workers, but carries on His work.” It is this faith that
leads a Church, even under the shock of a bereavement as severe as this
one had been, to turn with unabated determination to the prosecution of
the work. The more nearly a Church of Christ attains the standard of the
Master, the less it depends on any mere human instrumentality for its
success. It is not the person of the preacher, but the Person of the
Christ and the love of His work, that forms the sacred tie between the
members. This it is that prevents the work of God from suffering, and
gives permanence to His cause. It was truly with a sad heart that the
Church assembled at this time to consult about a successor to Dr.
Raleigh; but the claims of “the work” were paramount, and there was a
plain but difficult duty before them. Our critics are not slow to remind
us that the gravest defect of the Congregational system lies in the fact
that, during the period when a church is without a minister, a system of
competition among rival candidates is pursued, which is humiliating to
the self-respect of those who preach, and calculated to provoke division
and contention among those who sit in judgment. This evil is, we
believe, being resolutely redressed in most of our Churches to-day, and
the Kensington Church has never suffered from it at any period of its
history. A trusted committee made careful inquiries with a view to
discovering some minister who seemed to be adapted, alike in character
and abilities, to the special wants of this neighbourhood. Opportunity
was then sought of introducing him to the pulpit, and if he manifestly
commended himself to the whole Church—and not a mere majority of the
Church—he was invited to become the minister. This admirable plan has
averted anything like the evils sometimes associated with a change of
pastorate. In the instance before us the committee’s attention was
directed to the eminently successful ministry of the Rev. Colmer B.
Symes, B.A., of Exeter. In that corner of England Mr. Symes had most
worthily maintained for several years the office of the Christian
ministry, and had exercised a great power for good. All who knew him
esteemed him for the loftiness of his Christian character, as well as for
his ministerial gifts. As a man of culture and wide reading, he seemed
to be conspicuously suited to the special needs of a locality, where the
problems of modern thought occupied the minds of a large proportion of
the population. Mr. Symes preached at Kensington, with no intention
whatever of being a “candidate”: but as there was an immediate response
to his message, a unanimous invitation was sent to him to become the
pastor of the Church, and in January, 1881, Mr. Symes was recognised as
the minister. The Church records contain many testimonies to the power
of the ministry thus begun. The number of Church members steadily grew.
The monthly Church meetings were times of continual rejoicing over
accessions to the ranks of those who had solemnly taken the sacred pledge
of loyalty to Christ. So high was the spirit of the Church, that, in the
second year of Mr. Symes’ ministry, it was decided vigorously to pursue
the movement, initiated in Dr. Raleigh’s pastorate, of building a new
Congregational church at West Kensington. Nothing was more
characteristic of the new minister than the cordiality with which he
furthered a scheme that must inevitably diminish, at any rate for a time,
his own Church and congregation. Thinking, rather, of the necessities of
the rapidly growing neighbourhood of West Kensington, Mr. Symes and his
Church threw themselves nobly into the enterprise. At a meeting held in
the Vestry Hall, Kensington, it was announced that no less a sum than
£12,084 had been promised, and the whole cost of over £15,000 was raised
at the opening of the church.
[Picture: West Kensington Congregational Church. From Photo. by Mr. S.
Davie]
Not thirty years had passed since the opening of Allen Street Chapel, but
the new church at West Kensington would seem to indicate a remarkable
change in taste and idea as regards the character of ecclesiastical
buildings. It is a conspicuously handsome building, with a massive
central tower, a chancel, and a general elegance of structure not
unworthy to rank among the very best of modern Nonconformist Church
edifices. We are all of us familiar with the natural law which leads
parents to be far more lavish in expenditure for their children than for
themselves. We are consequently not surprised to find that the Church at
Allen Street spent twice as much on a building for this child of its own
training as it did on the building in which the mother Church still
worships. At a special Church meeting, that strikingly recalls the
moving and interesting gathering when the first branch Church removed
from Kensington to Notting Hill, nearly thirty members took a farewell of
Allen Street, and went to the new and difficult work of building up a
strong church in West Kensington; and with them went naturally a
considerable number of seat-holders, supported in their action by the
generous encouragement of the Allen Street minister. Thus the second
colony was planted from the mother Church. She had given lavishly of her
own life and treasure for the enrichment of others; and by the eternal
law of the Cross she reaped her reward in the fuller and deeper life
bestowed upon those who remained. There only remains to add that, after
years of hard and discouraging labour, the new Church appears to be
slowly and steadily rooting itself, and to be destined to become a
spiritual power in the locality.
Uneventful years followed. Those who best know the character of modern
Kensington are best able to appreciate the difficulty there is of
gathering a strong evening congregation. With his previous successful
experience at Exeter so fresh in his memory, it is no wonder that Mr.
Symes felt, even more acutely than many do who are called to minister in
the West of London, this grave discouragement to the preacher. Many of
his expedients to meet the difficulty were for a time successful.
Largely-attended evangelistic services were periodically held; but the
permanent evening congregation did not grow. Still more serious a
problem to one of Mr. Symes’ intensely earnest temperament was the
decline in the number of those who were led to public acknowledgment of a
change of life. He could not reconcile his own conception of what
justifies a ministry in any place with the absence of this note of
success; and hence, in a characteristically beautiful letter to the
Church in March, 1887, he placed his resignation in their hands. The
remarkable meeting at which the congregation presented to Mr. Symes a
large portrait in oils of himself, and an illuminated address, was the
occasion of a demonstration of the affection and regard in which he was
universally held. There have been resignations of ministers who have
been determined in their action by a variety of considerations that have
led them to give the preference to one sphere of labour over another.
But surely the highest of all considerations is contained in so deep a
sense of the spiritual mission of the minister, and in so lofty an ideal
of his work, that even a qualified response to the public and private
ministrations suggests that a continuance of the ministry may cause the
interests of the Kingdom to suffer. The Kensington Church had had many
lessons before this time, from those who had made great and cheerful
sacrifices for its interests; but such a lesson was never taught it with
more of real Christian dignity and chivalry than when Mr. Symes laid down
the office of minister; thus ending a six years’ pastorate for which very
many of the congregation to-day continue to thank God.