pointing to a still smaller edifice on the adjoining corner. “That’s
where the lord mayor worships.” I learned then and there that only the
Church of England has the right to the name of church for their places
of worship (all others are chapels), and that there are no church bells
or chimes except in the Established Church. I drove back through Oxford
Street and Picadilly Circus to the Westminster Palace Hotel.
On returning to my hotel I sat down and addressed the following letter
to Mr. Spurgeon:
* * * * *
“WESTMINSTER PALACE HOTEL, June 3, 1879.
“REV. C. H. SPURGEON, Nightingale Lane.
“MY DEAR SIR: I am in London for the first time in my life and have set
my eyes on the great Tabernacle, which was the first object of interest
I wished to visit, as your name and your church have been almost a part
of my life for a number of years, being a fellow-Baptist.
“Inasmuch as you thought enough of a letter that I wrote you to publish
it in one of your books, I write to ask if I could have the pleasure of
an interview with you at your convenience. Meanwhile, if a note from you
would facilitate my getting a comfortable seat to hear you next Sabbath,
I would very much appreciate it.
“I am, yours very truly,
“J. B. POND.”
* * * * *
The next morning I received the following letter from Mr. Spurgeon:
* * * * *
“NIGHTINGALE LANE, BALHAM, SURREY, June 5, 1879.
“DEAR SIR: It will only be a waste of time for you to see me, as I am
not at all in your line, and I am happy to enclose your cards.
“Yours truly,
“C. H. SPURGEON.”
“Major J. B. Pond, Westminster Palace Hotel.”
* * * * *
There were two printed admission tickets to the Tabernacle. When Sunday
morning arrived, in company with a friend, I went early to the
Tabernacle in hopes of getting a comfortable seat. There was a great
throng on the steps, hundreds of people having already congregated there
while waiting for the doors to open. I noticed near the church an open
gate, through which people were passing to a side door. I tried to pass
in, but was stopped by a large, somewhat plain spoken, typical
Englishman, who told me that my tickets were good when the front doors
were opened.
I said, “Why can I not pass in here the same as others do?”
“Oh, you can by dropping something in the box.”
I then saw that people were dropping pieces of silver into the box and
passing in. I said to him, “How much am I expected to drop in?”
He replied, “Anything you please. A half crown is the usual amount.”
So dropping in two half crowns ($1.25) I was enabled to pass in at this
side door of the great Tabernacle, where a gentlemanly usher gave our
party good seats. Already several hundred people had entered in this
way, and before the doors were open the lower floor was about filled
with these contributors.
When the main doors were thrown open, there was a general rush of men
and women in all directions, carrying umbrellas and jumping over the
pews to get to the very nearest available seats, and almost immediately
every seat in the church was occupied and great crowds were standing
against the wall in the back galleries. I think I never witnessed such a
squabble of people rushing into a building. They created a dust that was
almost suffocating.
Very soon the great preacher appeared on a plain platform with no
rostrum or pulpit except a small table at his side, where lay a hymn
book and a Bible. Mr. Spurgeon immediately pronounced the invocation and
then read a hymn, which the congregation sang without organ
accompaniment or any other music except their voices. As the
congregation rose, clouds of dust seemed to rise with it, so that it was
almost impossible to distinguish the people in the top gallery.
It was a remarkable scene--a very devout crowd of worshippers who
entered into the spirit of the occasion and did worship the Lord and Mr.
Spurgeon with tremendous intensity.
I saw a number of Plymouth Church people near where I sat. I remember
asking one or two of them how this compared with Plymouth Church. They
all expressed disappointment. For intelligence, the congregation was not
to be compared with Plymouth; it was another class of people, of a much
lower order than I supposed could possibly form the congregation to
which Mr. Spurgeon had preached so many years.
Passing out through the crowd I shook hands with Mr. Spurgeon. He didn’t
recognize me. The following day I wrote him that before leaving England
I should very much like to pay my respects to the man I had read and
admired many years, making no reference whatever to my business. In
reply I received the following strange letter, which showed that the
great preacher really impugned my motives and thought I was bound to
secure him for a lecture tour in America:
* * * * *
“NIGHTINGALE LANE, BALHAM, SURREY, June 6, 1879.
“DEAR SIR: I am not at all afraid of anything you could say by way of
temptation to preach or lecture for money, for the whole of the United
States in bullion would not lead me to deliver one such lecture. It
would only waste your time and mine for you to see me, though I feel
sure you are one of the pleasantest men on earth. Your good-natured
pertinacity is so admirable that I trust you will not waste it upon an
impossible object, but be content to have my acknowledgment that if
success could have been achieved, you would have achieved it.
“Yours very truly,
“C. H. SPURGEON.
“Major J. B. Pond, Westminster Palace Hotel.”
* * * * *
I returned home without the sight.
I revisited England in 1886 with the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.
Remembering the cordial letter Mr. Spurgeon had written me on my
previous visit, I thought it no more than proper to drop him a line,
stating that I was again in London and asking if he was of the same
opinion still, and disinclined to allow me the privilege of a call to
pay my respects, stating that I was visiting England with the Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher. I didn’t even suggest that Mr. Beecher would like to meet
him, as that was not a part of my interests. I received the following
letter in reply:
* * * * *
“WESTWOOD, BEULAH HILL, UPPER NORWOOD, July 13, 1886.
“DEAR SIR: I have, in as plain a manner as possible, on former occasions
declined to make your acquaintance, and I beg with all courtesy and
decision to do the same again. I know your business, and I have no wish
to enter upon it further. I can communicate with Mr. Beecher myself
should I wish to do so. At present I have no object for which to seek an
interview.
“Yours truly,
“C. H. SPURGEON.”
* * * * *
The morning I received the above letter from Mr. Spurgeon I breakfasted
with Dr. and Mrs. Parker at their home in Daleham Gardens, where a
number of distinguished ministers and friends had been invited to meet
Mr. and Mrs. Beecher. There were present Mr. James Clarke, editor of
_The Christian World_; the Rev. Dr. Simon, pastor of Westminster Chapel;
the Rev. Dr. Henry Allon, Union Chapel, Islington; and the Rev. Dr.
Clifford, Westbourne Park Chapel.
During the conversation some of the ministers present were of the
opinion that Mr. Beecher should deliver his last lecture in London in
the great Tabernacle, as it was the most appropriate auditorium in
London and could accommodate the largest number of people. I said that I
thought it impossible for Mr. Beecher to preach in the Tabernacle, as I
did not believe that Mr. Spurgeon was friendly to Mr. Beecher. This
seemed to surprise Dr. Parker, as well as the other representative
ministers present. Dr. Parker suggested that Dr. Allon and Mr. Spurgeon
were the greatest of friends, and he was sure that Mr. Spurgeon would be
delighted to extend the invitation to Mr. Beecher; and Dr. Allon was of
the same opinion. I remember that he said, “ Most assuredly Mr. Spurgeon
would expect to invite Mr. Beecher to occupy the Tabernacle.” I handed to
Mr. Beecher Spurgeon’s letter, which I had just received. As he read, I
noticed a smile come on his face. He passed the letter to Dr. Parker,
who also read it, and then to Dr. Allon, who, I think, passed it back to
me. The enthusiasm for Mr. Spurgeon and the Tabernacle suddenly ceased.
On the occasion of Mr. Beecher’s first sermon in London, July 4, the
congregation was admitted by ticket--the church members first and then
the public, to the capacity of the auditorium. Hundreds, and I might
say thousands, came who had to be turned away. As the congregation had
to be admitted by ticket, and as many were unable to secure these, a
rumor easily started in one of the religious papers that Mr. Beecher was
preaching the Gospel for money, and that the tickets to hear him preach
were sold at the doors of the house of the Lord. The secular press took
it up. Newspaper correspondents cabled it to their representative
journals across the Atlantic. London _Truth_ enlarged upon it, and
Labouchere’s letter to _The New York Herald_ repeated it.
One of the first comments on the story was in _The Baptist_, a paper of
which Mr. Spurgeon was supposed to be one of the editorial writers--an
article which found a place in nearly all of the leading papers where
Mr. Beecher was booked to lecture or preach. So I wrote the following
letter to that paper, which was published without comment:
* * * * *
CHARGING TO HEAR THE GOSPEL.
“31 MONTAGUE ST., LONDON, W. C., July 25, 1886.
“TO THE EDITOR OF _The Baptist_.
“DEAR SIR: May I be allowed to correct a statement made in your
excellent paper of the 23d inst. concerning Mr. Beecher and his lectures
and sermons?
“Mr. Beecher does not charge for preaching outside his own pulpit in
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. I have managed all his lecture tours for the
past eleven years, and I have always arranged that he should preach on
the Sabbath while absent from home, and that under no circumstances was
there to be a charge of any kind made for hearing him preach the Gospel.
True, when in other cities, in order to protect pew-holders and members
of the regular congregations, it has been necessary to issue tickets of
admission to the side doors before the house was opened to the general
public.
“Mr. Beecher is a lecturer as well as preacher. He delivers on an
average one hundred and fifty lectures a year, and has during some
seasons lectured upward of two hundred times, besides preaching every
Sabbath. He lectures because he finds it profitable both to himself and
to those who are glad to pay their money to hear him; but _never_ has he
received a _penny_ for preaching outside his own pulpit; and if London
were bullion, and he could have it for preaching one sermon here, it
would not even tempt him.
“Mr. Beecher receives from me the same pay per lecture that I give him
in America. My business is furnishing lectures and high-class
entertainments to lyceums and lecture associations in America. I supply
lecture and musical societies throughout the United States with the best
talent to be had. It is part of the American system of education, and
the Americans are educated to it, and generally prefer it to trashy
shows. They expect great men to address them; and when Dean Stanley,
Professor Huxley, and Herbert Spencer came to America, I had hundreds of
applications from all parts of the land asking their terms and
approximate date; and when I replied that these men could not be
secured, many of my constituents accused me of shiftlessness and neglect
of business, and poured upon me all sorts of abuse because I did not
supply them. I have ‘imported’ a great deal of English talent: George
Dawson, Canon Kingsley, Bellew, Matthew Arnold, and last season Canon
Farrar, who made a great deal of money in America, lectured every day
and preached twice every Sabbath for three months. He was not abused nor
falsely accused because of his success. Thousands tried to get tickets
to hear him preach. They were not to be had, as the church congregations
where he preached had them for themselves and friends. Canon Farrar
received £200 each for his last three lectures in America, and the
management made something too. The public were not only satisfied, but
grateful that so rare an opportunity had been offered them.
“Mr. Beecher is not a rich man, nor a money-lover. He does not know what
becomes of his money. He lives the Gospel that he preaches. He has many
drafts on his purse that he would like to meet. He does all that he can
to assist the needy. He has two thousand eight hundred members in his
church, all as dear as his children to him. Reverses overtake many. His
name is the first that goes on a note to give a deserving friend a new
start in life. Could you but know a hundredth part of the good he is
constantly doing, you would be as ardent a believer as I am. I bring him
to England during his summer vacation to lecture. He gets every penny
from me for his lectures that he gets from any service in Great Britain.
He wants to preach every Sunday, so I leave Saturdays open, and place
the Sundays where he likes to preach. If it were money we were after, I
would have him lecture Saturdays and rest Sundays, and make £25 to £100
myself, and be £50 better off (every week) so far as this world’s goods
are concerned. The ministers for whom he preaches manage their own
congregations, and Mr. Beecher does not know as much about it as you do.
“Referring to Mr. Spurgeon on this subject of ‘charging to hear a
sermon,’ where ‘the managers charged a shilling to hear him preach,’ and
he remarked that ‘if he had known it he never would have preached,’ I
will ask you to kindly explain the difference between charging a
shilling and doing as I have on two different occasions when I went with
some friends to hear Mr. Spurgeon. By putting money in a box at the side
door I was allowed to go in and get seats, and I always found that a
good-sized congregation was accommodated in this way by ‘paying what
they liked,’ before the main doors were opened to the general public.
“If this is not charging an admission, I want to know what it is. I
certainly could not have got a comfortable seat unless I complied with
this custom.
“I am, yours very truly,
“J. B. POND,
“Manager of Henry Ward Beecher’s Lectures.”
* * * * *
[Illustration: RT. REV. HENRY C. POTTER]
BISHOP HENRY C. POTTER of New York is the one clergyman of all that I
know whom I most wish was a lyceum lecturer. It seems as though he is
about the only one of his class of great and lovable clergymen that has
been spared to us, now that Chapin, Beecher, and Phillips Brooks have
passed away. He is ever going about doing good, and is as much at home
and as well appreciated among the very poorest people as among those in
the very highest station of life.
He is recognized by all who meet him on the street, and something kind
is said as he passes by. If he would only be a lecturer! Thousands would
pay to see and hear him, because they would know that they were to have
something worth while in return for what they gave.
There is no great function, public or private, that he is not one of the
first to be invited. He marries sons and daughters of the millionaires,
and the poorest people as well, and all along the intermediate classes.
In the Episcopalian families no name is more generally known, respected
and loved.
The bishop is one of our very best public speakers. His addresses under
all conditions abound with wit, humor and pathos, and sound sense. It is
the simplicity, modesty, and real manliness of his make up that causes
him to be just what he is and what he cannot help being. In every sense
that the word implies, to every one who knows the meaning of the word,
he is a _man_.
He told me of an incident that occurred as he was passing along Fourth
Avenue. Some urchins were playing in the street, and he overheard one of
them say: “There goes the Bish. He’s no chump.” I would rather have that
eulogy from that urchin than from any statesman I know of.
THE VERY REV. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, dean of Rochester, was engaged by me for
a lecture tour in America during the season of 1894-95. Since Canon
Farrar lectured in America there has been no clergyman of the Church of
England that I considered of sufficiently high standing to supply the
demand that came most especially from the Episcopalian churches and
societies. One of the best proofs that Dean Hole was such a man, if he
could be secured, was the fact that as soon as it became known that
negotiations were pending, the Lotus Club wrote to him tendering him a
dinner on his arrival.
[Illustration]
He came in October, with Mrs. Hole, and put up at the Everett House. He
arrived on the 24th, and he was at once interviewed by representatives
of all the newspapers. The next day he and Mrs. Hole received calls from
many clergymen and their wives, and from nearly all the horticulturists
in the vicinity. Roses in great profusion, of every form and variety,
were sent in, for the Dean is known all over the world as the king of
rose growers. Never was there a finer collection of roses than those
which came to the Everett House during the Dean’s stay.
Then he yielded to Sarony’s invitation to come over and be photographed.
The scene between the Dean and Sarony was indeed picturesque. “When the
great photographer and artist found an interesting subject his
enthusiasm was intense. The magnificent stature of the Dean fairly
captivated him. He reached up (whoever knew Sarony will understand) and
caught the Dean’s hand, exclaiming, as he looked at me:
“Major Pond, you have at last brought me a subject that I can enjoy.
We’re going to have a good time.”
“I’d just like to hug you, sir,” said the artist, turning again to the
Dean.
“I’ve not the slightest objection,” the Dean replied, and Sarony tried
to encircle the big man with his arms. The famous artist, Mr. Herbert A.
Olivier, who accompanied the party from England, made a sketch of the
scene at that time, which is as correct in detail as a photograph could
be.
On Saturday, the 27th, came the dinner at the Lotus Club. Dean Hole’s
“Reminiscences” had made him widely known as the friend of Dickens,
Thackeray, Leech, and other great Englishmen of the past generation. A
distinguished company gathered to meet him, including the president,
Frank R. Lawrence, the Rev. Morgan Dix, rector of Trinity Church; Dr.
Arthur Brooks, Rev. Dr. David H. Greer, President Schurman, of Cornell
University; the Rev. Dr. James MacArthur, and many other distinguished
guests of the club.
Even at his advanced age Dean Hole looked stout and lusty. He is six
feet three inches in height, and his body is built on the typical lines
of John Bull. As one of the New York journals expressed it, he “is
certainly one of the finest specimens of Elizabethan ecclesiastical
architecture that England has ever sent to this country.” His head is
large and covered with a mass of silvery gray hair. His features are
strong and have an expression of benevolence and good humor.
In introducing the guest, Mr. Lawrence said:
“Two occasions come to my mind this evening--the Lotus Club’s receptions
to Charles Kingsley and Dean Stanley. To-night we are equally honored in
the privilege of meeting Dean Hole. We cannot greet him without
recalling the facts which his ‘Reminiscences’ have made familiar here.
We recall him as one who clasped hands with Thackeray and was the
friend of Dickens; but it is his own individuality as a man and author
that makes him dear to us.”
The Dean, on rising, said:
“I can assure you, gentlemen, that when I received your invitation,
having heard so much of the literary, artistic, and social amenities of
your famous club, I resembled in feelings--not in feature--the beautiful
bride of Burleigh, when--
“‘A trouble weighed upon her,
And perplexed her night and morn,
With the burden of an honor
Unto which she was not born.’
“I could have quoted the words of the mate in Hood’s ‘Up the Rhine,’
when, during a storm at sea, a titled lady sent for him, and asked him
if he could swim. ‘Yes, my lady,’ says he, ‘like a duck.’ ‘That being
the case,’ says she, ‘I shall condescend to lay hold of your arm all
night.’ ‘Too great an honor for the likes of me,’ says the mate.
“Even when I came into this building--though I am not a shy man, having
been educated at Brazennose College, and preposterously flattered
throughout my life, most probably on account of my size--I had lost this
sense of unworthiness; but your gracious reception has not only
reassured me, but has induced a delicious hallucination that, at some
period forgotten, in some unconscious condition, I have said something,
or done something, or written something, which really deserved your
approbation. To be serious, I am, of course, aware why this great
privilege has been conferred upon me. It is because you have associated
me with those great men with whom I was in happy intercourse that you
have made my heart glad to-night.
“It has ever been my ambition to blend my life, as the great painter
does his colors, ‘with brains, sir,’ and I venture to think that such a
yearning is a magnificent proof that we are not wholly destitute of this
article, as when the poor wounded soldier exclaimed on hearing the
doctor say that he could see his brains: ‘Oh, please write home and
tell father, for he has always said I never had any.’ Be that as it may,
my appreciation of my superiors has evoked from them a marvellous
sympathy, has led to the formation of very precious friendships, and has
been my elevator unto the higher abodes of brightness and freshness, as
it is to-night.
“Yes, my brothers, it is delightful to dwell ‘with brains, sir,’
condensed in books in that glorious world--a library--a world which we
can traverse without being sick at sea, or footsore on land; in which we
can reach the heights of science without leaving our easy chair, hear
the nightingales, the poets, with no risk of catarrh, survey the great
battlefields of the world unscathed; a world in which we are surrounded
by those who, whatever their temporal rank may have been, are its true
kings and real nobility, and which places within our reach a wealth more
precious than rubies, for all the things thou canst desire are not to be
compared with it.
“In this happy world I met Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper,
Hawthorne, Willis, Longfellow, Whittier, and all your great American
authors, historical, poetical, pathetic, humorous, and ever since I have
rejoiced to hold converse with them. Nevertheless, it is with our living
companions, with our fellow-men, who love books, as we do, that this
fruition is complete, and so it comes to pass, in the words of one whose
name I speak with a full heart, Oliver Wendell Holmes, that ‘a dinner
table made up of such material as this is the last triumph of
civilization over barbarism.’
“We feel, as our witty Bishop, afterward Archbishop, Magee described
himself, when he said, ‘I am just now in such a sweet, genial
disposition that even a curate might play with me.’ We are bold enough
to state with Artemus Ward of his regiment, composed exclusively of
major generals, that ‘we will rest muskets with anybody.’
“‘Linger, I cried, O radiant Time, thy power
Hath nothing else to give. Life is complete.
Let but the happy present, hour by hour,
Itself remember and itself repeat.’
“And yet one more quotation, wherewith to make some amends for the
stupidity of him who quotes lines most appropriate, by Tennyson, from
‘The Lotus Eaters,’ and repeated by one who has just crossed the
Atlantic:
“‘We have had enough of action and of motion we,
Tossed to starboard, tossed to larboard, when the surge
was seething free,
And the wallowing monster spouted his foam fountain on the sea;
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind;
In this hollow Lotus land to live and lie reclined
(Here where the Queen of Clubs so royally we’ve dined),
On the hills, like gods together, careless of mankind.’
“And now, gentlemen, let me give--
“‘Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor.’”
Then President Schurman of Cornell welcomed the Dean on behalf of the
universities. He was followed by Dr. MacArthur, who made a fine speech
and paid a splendid tribute to the guest of the evening. Mr. Brooks was
the next speaker. Dr. Greer raised many a laugh by his witty remarks.