CONGREGATIONALISTS AND BAPTISTS.
Early in our religious history two theories as to Church and State were
developed. If the Presbyterians had gained the day in that time of
religious ferment--which had so melancholy a termination in the
restoration of Charles II., with his puppy-dogs and mistresses--we should
have seen the Church established independent of the State: the latter
acting as its servant, exercising the sword at its bidding and on its
behalf. The Churchmen of that day adopted a lower theory, as appears by
their favourite formulas--"the power of the magistrate in ecclesiastical
matters," and "passive obedience without limitations." In his zeal in
this direction, Archbishop Sancroft actually went so far as to alter the
rubric. If Bishop Cosin may be believed (the story is told by Calamy),
where it was said nothing was to be read in the churches but by the
Bishop's order, Sancroft took on himself to add, "or the King's order."
In short, the theory was then what Sir J. D. Coleridge only the other day
stated it, that "the Church was a political institution." Against this
theory, as dishonouring to God and degrading to religion, the Puritans
sternly protested, and at the peril of their lives. Naturally they fell
back upon such texts as, "My kingdom is not of this world," "Render unto
Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things that are
God's." More and more it became clear to them that the Church was simply
an assembly of believers; that Christ's kingdom was exclusively a
spiritual one; that the greatest service the State could do to religion
was to leave it alone. They argued, and not without some show of
plausibility, that the faith enunciated by the carpenter's son,
disseminated through the world by tent-makers and fishermen; the faith
which had found its way into the hearts of the stubborn Jews; which had
been more than a match for the pride of Rome or philosophy of Greece--for
which the multitude, the grey-haired sire, the high-spirited lad with
life with its golden prospects opening all round him, the tender and
delicate maiden, had gone smilingly to die--the faith immortal with the
immortality of truth, required not the vulgar patronage of worldly men,
or that the State should attempt bribery on its behalf. Of course they
were wrong; for only last session of Parliament the present Archbishop of
Canterbury, in his place in the House of Lords, on the night of an
important debate, denominated a religion thus supported as a spurious
one; and it was only within the memory of living men that Nonconformists
were permitted to be parish constables or town councillors.
Nevertheless, half the worshippers of England and Wales are
Dissenters--that is to say, are of this spurious religion, and pay their
own ministers, and build their own chapels, without asking a farthing
from the State. Their leading denominations are the Baptists and
Congregationalists; and it shows how terribly Dissent undervalues the
historical element when I state that the Independents now prefer to call
themselves Congregationalists. There is an historical halo around
Independency. Mr. Brodie remarks that "the grand principle by which the
Independents surpassed all other sects was, universal toleration to all
denominations of Christians whose religion was not conceived to be
hostile to the peace of the State--a principle to which they were
faithful in the height of power as well as under persecution." Nor
should it be forgotten that Locke, the first of our philosophers to argue
on behalf of toleration, gained, as his biographers confess, his
enlightened views from the Independent Divines.
Speaking relatively, Dissent is a thing of yesterday. It was born of the
Puritanism which filled the gaols and fed the fires of Smithfield, when
there were men and women ready to die for Christ and his Cross. Wycliffe
was one of our earliest Dissenters. What he taught was the study of the
Bible as the source of religious faith and the rule of a religious life.
At college he was known as the Gospel doctor.
Queen Elizabeth ever believed in the invocation of saints; the worship of
the Virgin Mary; thought it sinful for priests to marry, and had a couple
of lighted candlesticks on her altar; but the country was full of learned
divines, who had come from Geneva or Frankfort with a contempt for such
papistical ideas, and with a more keen appreciation of the spiritual
character of true religion. About twenty years after her accession, the
principles of Independency were openly taught by Robert Brown, a relative
of Cecil, the Lord Treasurer. When Black Bartholomew came, Puritans and
Presbyterians were alike driven out of the Church. Owen, Vice-Chancellor
of the University of Oxford, Baxter and Calamy, might have been Bishops,
but they held that they could not assent to the teaching and ritualism of
the Church, and be false to conscience and to God. For this they had to
endure hardships, poverty, imprisonment, of all kinds--when Charles II.,
who obtained the Crown of England under false pretences, though he did,
as Pepys tells us, take the Sacrament on his knees, received from his
pliant Bishops his title of most religious King. Calamy, when a lad,
wondered why the old ministers who led peaceable lives, and always prayed
for the King, were persecuted, and in our day the feeling of wonder still
exists.
There have been times when the religious life of England has been utterly
divorced from the Church. Such were the times when George II. said all
the Bishops were infidels; such were the times when the clergy read to
their congregations the Book of Sports, enforcing on their hearers
dancing, jumping, archery, Whitsun ales, May-poles, and Morrice dances on
a Sunday; such were the times when the Methodists were expelled Oxford,
and when old John Newton wrote, that besides himself, there were only two
pious clergymen in London. It is impossible to overrate the obligations
of this country to Dissent. It saved England from Popery. It laid the
foundation of the mightiest republic the world has yet seen. It crushed
the despotism of the Stuarts, while the Church was indecently declaring
that a royal proclamation had the force of law. It gave us civil and
religious liberty; the wonderful change for the better which within the
last thirty years has come over the Church life of this country is due to
the fact that, rivalling the Establishment in zeal and good works, has
been an ever-growing, intelligent, and educated Dissent.
What are the doctrines of orthodox Dissenters? I reply, as regards
Baptists and Congregationalists, they are very much the same. The real
question at issue, whether adults or infants are the proper subjects of
baptism, and whether the rite should be administered by baptism or
immersion, really being but of little more importance than that of the
Big Endians and the Little Endians of Gulliver. The Congregational Union
issue a statement called "The Principles of Religion," which they
publish, not as a bond of union or as a series of articles to be
subscribed to, but as a summary of what is commonly believed amongst
them. In this document they state they believe the Scriptures of the Old
Testament as received by the Jews, and the books of the New Testament as
received by the Primitive Christians from the Evangelists and Apostles,
to be divinely inspired and of divine authority; they believe in one God
as revealed in the Scriptures as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in the
fall of man; in the existence in man of "a fatal inclination to moral
evil utterly incurable by human means;" in God, before the foundation of
the world, designing the manifestation of his Son in the flesh for our
salvation, to attain eternal salvation for us. They believe that the
Holy Spirit is given to quicken and renew the soul of man; that all who
will be saved were the objects of God's electing and eternal love; in the
perseverance of the Saints; in the perpetual obligation of baptism and
the Lord's Supper; in the coming of Christ to judge all flesh; that the
righteous will receive life everlasting, and that the portion of the
wicked will be everlasting punishment. As I have stated, such is a rough
outline of the common belief in Congregational and Baptist Chapels. It
is to be questioned, however, whether it would receive the unanimous
assent and consent of Baptist and Congregational ministers.
As regards Church order and discipline, I may attempt the following
summary, which I believe is as true of Baptist as of Congregational
Churches.
A Church, according to them, is a society of believers meeting
voluntarily together to observe religious ordinances; to promote mutual
edification and holiness; to perpetuate and promulgate the Gospel in the
world; and to advance the glory and worship of God through Jesus Christ.
The New Testament exclusively is their authority for Church customs, and
Christ is their only head; they elect their own officers, whether bishops
or pastors, and deacons. They believe that no person should be received
as members of Christian Churches but such as make a credible profession
of Christianity; are living according to its precepts, and attest a
willingness to be subject to its discipline. They believe that the power
of a Christian is purely spiritual, and should in no way be corrupted by
union with temporal or spiritual power.
In London there are 220 Congregational churches and 210 Baptist; some of
the latter being very small, and the ministers illiterate and
narrow-minded more than is usually the case. The Congregationalists are
chiefly incorporated in a body known as the Congregational Union, which
meets twice a year to deliberate; once in London, and once in such
provincial city or town as shall previously have been resolved on.
In London the Congregationalists have two or three Colleges for educating
young men for the work of the Ministry--the principal one being the New
College, St. John's Wood. This College is in connexion with the London
University, where some of the students graduate. The Baptists also have
a fine College in the Regent's Park, the students of which also
occasionally are in the class lists of the London University. But the
real fact is that in all the Dissenting Colleges the men who take
university honours are the exception, not the rule; the reason is the
course extends over but four or five years--and so much of that time is
devoted to theological study and pulpit preparation that there is not the
time to attain to the high standard prescribed by the London University.
The student has often had but an average middle-class education. He
feels an impulse, or, as it is technically termed, "a call" to the
Ministry. He has been found acceptable as a Sunday School teacher, or in
other ways has demonstrated his ability and religious character and zeal.
With the sanction of his Minister and the Church with which he is
connected, he is sent to College, where he remains till his professional
education is complete. Occasionally young men seek to enter the Ministry
with very humble views. Recently I heard of such a one. His pastor
having indicated his doubt as to the possession of the requisite ability,
the reply was: "Oh, sir, I know I never could be a learned man like you,
but I thought I might make a hignorant Minister like Mr. ---," naming a
well-known and popular Minister of another denomination.
The Baptists have also their Baptist Union sitting in London, and
occasionally in the Provinces. The first General (Arminian) Baptist
Church is said to have been formed in London in 1607. The first
Particular (Calvinistic) Church in 1616. I fancy that in some of the
Baptist Bethels and Cave Adullams, an Antinomian, or, at any rate, a more
decided Calvinism exists than prevails in the Independent Churches. As
regards Church government, their ideas are the same. One necessity of
this state of things is that their ministers must have some preaching
ability, a thing which is quite an accident in the Church of England;
another advantage is, that there are few pecuniary attractions to tempt
men to undertake duties for which they are unqualified.
The leading bodies connected with Church work in London are as
follows:--1. The Congregational Chapel Building Society, of which the
twentieth anniversary was held last year. We gather from the facts laid
before the meeting that during the 21 years (including 1869) of the
Society's existence it has materially assisted in the erection or
purchase of 87 chapels--representing a contribution from it in grants and
free loans of 110,000_l._ towards an aggregate outlay of 360,000_l._, and
providing (exclusive of intended galleries) nearly 80,000 sittings for
adults. Dividing the 21 years of the Society's history into three
periods of seven years each, in the first period its list comprises 17
chapels, in the second 26, and in the third 44. The Society is at
present engaged, with Mr. S. Morley, M.P., in the erection of 24 chapels,
to each of which Mr. Morley contributes 500_l._, and the Society 500_l._,
half of the last being free loans. The success of the Society is largely
owing to its loan fund, now amounting to 11,006_l._ 19_s._, from which
loans are made free of interest to committees engaged in the erection of
chapels. This fund remains intact, and will be carefully preserved for
the object. The grant fund is, however, just now nearly exhausted, while
the liabilities of the Society on this account reach 2000_l._ Among
other particulars, it may be stated that the Society has been
instrumental in saving from extinction the two metropolitan chapels of
George Whitefield--Tottenham Court Road Chapel, and the Tabernacle,
Moorfields. Indeed, with the exception of Spa Fields Chapel, the
Countess of Huntingdon's followers may be said to be absorbed in the
Congregational body.
The London Congregational Association has four District Missions. It has
aided in planting and sustaining eight Churches and Missions in four
districts. They ask 1000_l._ a year, with which, aided by local support,
they undertake to plant ten new district Missions in spiritually
destitute localities, and sustain them until they are enabled to support
themselves. As an illustration of what may be done in this way I give
the following account of the District Mission established by the Church
and Congregation under the care of the Rev. Dr. Raleigh, of Hare Court
Chapel, Canonbury, as drawn up by the Rev. J. H. Wilson, of the Home
Missionary Society.
The parent Church selected necessitous districts, in which they have
opened schools and mission-rooms; in these a number of the congregation
begin to labour as teachers, visitors, evangelists, &c. The result is
the early formation of a branch Church, where the poor people secure all
the privileges of Christian fellowship, and the fine feeling of a
Church-home, a place which they call "our Chapel," and where they look up
to some one whom they call "our pastor," and soon those so gathered
together become co-workers with the parent Church in extending its
influence in the locality--rising out of these movements, the Church at
Hare Court Chapel have now five branch Churches. From the last report
(1868) it appears that there are now three rooms for religious service
for the young, and several others for meetings with the poor and
ignorant; three day schools, and five Sunday or ragged schools; two large
week evening schools, and several smaller ones; seven mothers' meetings;
a district nursery for children and infants, whose mothers require to
leave them during the day; coal clubs; home for little boys, where thirty
are fed and clothed; three paid ministers; six lay evangelists or
pastors; two Bible-women; six paid teachers, and seven paid monitors for
day schools; and to aid them, there are from 300 to 400 members of the
Church and congregation earnestly engaged as evangelists, pastors,
teachers, helps, visitors, Scripture readers, &c. During the year about
120 had joined the Church. The Sunday and ragged schools are attended by
1300 children; the day schools by 900, and the evening schools by upwards
of 400. Besides, there are temperance societies and Bands of Hope, and
in the summer months out-door services.
Another society worked by the Congregationalists is the Christian
Instruction Society, founded in the year 1825, to aid in evangelizing
London. House-to-house visitation was from the beginning and still is
its main characteristic. Its other agencies are lay-preaching in and out
of doors; the Sunday afternoon opening of places of worship; lectures on
prevailing immorality and vice, and united quarterly prayer meetings.
This society, however, is by no means sectarian. At its united quarterly
prayer meetings ministers of the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Independent
denominations join.
THE SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS.
As you go down Leman Street, Whitechapel, on your left, nearly at the
bottom, stand two public-houses--one the Shamrock, the other, if I
mistake not, the Brown Bear. Between them is a narrow little passage; on
the right is a Gospel Hall, facing you is a plain brick-built
Meeting-house, with a door which at certain times opens in vain, and with
a window which is covered with wire of a very suggestive character.
Above the window is an inscription, stating that it was rebuilt in 1790,
but that it was founded more than a century before that. A side door
leads you into a grass-grown and quiet enclosure. There are a few
gravestones there, recording, in illegible characters, the piety and
virtues of those who have gone before. At the back of the Meeting-house
is the minister's residence. In the same square resides the pew-opener,
with her little family, who seem fresher and livelier than you would
expect in such a place. Outside rush along the Fenchurch Street trains
to and fro, sometimes with a scream which, as you will by-and-by find,
will drown the preacher's voice. Outside there are factories and
warehouses darkening the air; outside there are heathens--baptized I
daresay, but nevertheless heathens--as complete and entire as any
discovered by Captain Cook; outside go up and down all day the sailors of
every country under heaven, at all times when on shore a disorderly lot,
with a strong tendency to get drunk and quarrel; outside are the
lodging-house keepers, and Jew slop-sellers, and foul women and crimps,
who lie in wait for poor Jack; outside, nightly and daily, on Sundays and
week-days, once a week and all the year round, is the ever-deafening and
ever-growing roar of London life.
On Saturdays this little old-fashioned meeting-house is opened twice a
day. Of sects, as we all know, there are many Lilliputian varieties.
One of the smallest of these is that of the Seventh-day Baptists. In
this country there are two congregations of them; one in Mill Yard, and
one far away in Gloucestershire, where, according to the common proverb,
"God is." At one time they were a sect, as they are I believe at this
time in America. Here, in England, they have dwindled down to two
skeleton congregations, an endowment, and a Chancery suit. As there is
money a form of worship is kept up, though for all practical purposes the
cause is dead. There may be four grown-up persons besides the pew-opener
to form the morning service: there are just as many in the afternoon.
There is no week-evening service. At one time, many, many years ago,
there was a Sunday-school, but the scholars have grown up and moved away,
and none have come to take their vacant places. Inside the door you are
informed there are no pew-rents, no collections. Nevertheless, the
people keep away. In the pulpit is a learned man of an old-fashioned and
almost extinct type, and no one regards him; and yet I must confess there
was to me a fascination in the place. It was the ghost of what I knew in
youth. Long, long ago, there were just such old-fashioned meetings, with
just such sounding-boards over the pulpit, just such plain and high pews,
just such learned divines, just as deficient in all practical appeal. Up
in the window before me buzzed the very same bluebottle fly, only a
little more elderly and less active in consequence, which, in younger and
happier days, distracted the writer's attention, and interfered sadly
with what would have been otherwise a profitable opportunity. There are
no meeting-houses now. If you want to see one as they were, in all their
original nakedness and want of grace, go to Mill Yard, Whitechapel. We,
of course, have wonderfully improved, and yet I have a tenderness for the
old meeting-house. How learned were their ministers, how awful and
orthodox their deacons! With what fear did I eye the man who gave out
the hymn, and with what greater fear the watchful individual who poked up
with his long stick inattentive or sleepy boys!
But I return to Mill Yard. The Christian Church in our day has pretty
well agreed to get rid of or, at any rate, ignore what is read in the
Bible about the seventh day being "the Sabbath of the Lord your God." At
one time this was not so. Now the tide has receded and left the
Seventh-day Baptists stranded on the mud. In doing so, the Church, of
course, has increased the difficulty some feel about the Divine origin
and perpetual obligation of the Christian Sabbath. Archbishop Whately,
for instance, could reason with the Christian who had exchanged, in spite
of the literal command of God, the Christian for the Jewish Sabbath, but
his arguments would fail to touch the Seventh-day Baptist, who would
contend that he was doing that which God had commanded. But the fear of
this has not led Christians to abandon what, in the opinion of most of
them, is the apostolic plan of meeting on the first day of the week. It
is to be hoped the fund left for the benefit of the Seventh-day Baptists
is not a large one. The mouldy appearance of Mill Yard Meeting-house
indicates that it is not. But it is enough to retain at his post a
gentleman who, perhaps, would be more profitably engaged elsewhere.
Certainly it does seem like a waste of power to have a chapel and a
service lasting nearly a couple of hours for one grown-up adult male and
three adult females, excluding the chapel pew-opener. I must say, with
the exception of a young gentleman in knickerbockers, who was so
astonished at the apparition of a real stranger that he kept staring at
me all the time of singing, all seemed to do their duty. The
singing--and there was plenty of it--was really and truly Congregational.
Five or six parts of the Bible were read, and the congregation followed
with open Bibles. The preacher laboured at his discourse, and quoted
Hebrew and Latin as if we had all been learned divinity students. Nor
could he have prayed with more fulness and power had the benches been
filled with living souls waiting to draw near to the Father of spirits
and live. One could not but respect the preacher, however useless seemed
his learning and misdirected his research. Yet I would be sorry to stand
in his shoes. He had hearers once--Where are they? Dead, or moved away,
is the reply. He says in 1840 he began "to officiate as afternoon
preacher in the ancient Sabbath-keeping congregation in Mill Yard." He
talks of "nearly sixty years of close critical, philological, and
exegetical study of the sacred Scriptures;" of "more than thirty years of
constant and laborious exposition of them;" of his having fully, freely,
fearlessly, and repeatedly discoursed upon every part of natural and
revealed religion. In spite of his age, physically he is not unequal to
his work. He has a good voice, yet practically he beats the air. There
are few to listen to his words and respond to his appeal. I wonder--as
in his quiet study he reads the ancient versions of the Bible and
laboriously constructs his argument:--whether it ever occurs to him that
there is something better and grander than seventh-day baptism, or
systematic theology, and that is everyday Christianity. I wonder, too,
while looking on the dead graves and the long grass, whether it occurs to
him that in that region of all unclean and deadly sin it especially
behoves the preacher, in preference to ingenious speculation or
antiquarian research, to impress on the heart and consciences of men the
yearning, living love of God. It is not in the calm retreat, the silent
shade, that vice and irreligion can be confronted and changed into purity
and piety. One would fancy at Mill Yard the contrary opinion was held,
as the preacher goes on, expounding the Proverbs or the Book of Job to
empty benches, while close by the harlot plies her unhallowed calling,
the publican retails his vitriol gin, and mothers, with eyes artificially
black, knock about their little ones or cover them with kisses, as they
themselves are alcoholically stimulated into maudlin tenderness or
demoniac rage! If you want to see what an endowment can do for religion,
go to Mill Yard. No doubt those who left money for the place thought
they were doing God service. In reality, an endowment can but preserve a
corpse which had better be put away. We bury our dead out of our sight.
As it is in the material world so it is in the spiritual world. We love
to look on life; we shrink with abhorrence from the sight of death, when
Time's decaying fingers have dimmed the lustre of eyes once bright as
stars, and plucked from beauty's cheek the blushing rose.
A more curious spot in all London is not than Mill Yard Meeting-house.
The day I was there, after a service of nearly two hours, it was
established by the learned minister, who is an F.S.A., and calls himself
elder of the congregation (he must often stand a good chance of being
junior as well), that the title of the Book of Proverbs was only to be
applied to the first part, that it consisted of divers distinct sections,
and that generally the book was found in the Bible after the Psalms.
Evidently the preacher is a learned, painstaking student of the Dryasdust
school--full of crotchets; but the biggest crotchet of all is that he
should go on preaching year after year in Mill Yard.
* * * * *
Mr. Spurgeon's works and essays are so constantly before the public that
the briefest notice of them is all that is necessary here. In his great
Tabernacle near the Elephant and Castle, which is one of the sights of
London, he has a church alone consisting of 4700 members, and such is the
orderly arrangement that, as he said, if one of his members were to get
tipsy he should know of it before the week was out--a statement perhaps
true in reality if not literally. Enormous as his place of worship is,
it is always filled; but it represents, not so much a Christian Church as
a Christian community on a gigantic scale. In his Orphanage at Stockwell
some 135 boys are boarded, clothed, and taught. Then at Newington he has
established an Orphanage and School, and under his great Tabernacle is a
Pastors' College, which in a couple of years takes the raw student from
the shop or the counting-house and sends him forth into the world a
ready-made divine, occasionally not a little to the dismay of those who
consider a good training and a careful preparation great helps to
ministerial usefulness. The students are lodged in families around, and
on the Sunday are principally employed in preaching in various districts
near London. Some of the Baptist places are very small indeed, and very
badly attended. It were better, one would think, that they were shut up
and merged with other churches or denominations. There is something
inexpressibly melancholy in the long lists of Zions, and Bethels, and
Mount Sions, where the pastor and the people scarcely live. Amongst some
of the Baptists there are some of Antinomian tendencies, and the
preachers of such doctrines have very large congregations. They are the
elect of God, and can never sin. As to their doctrine and its results,
one illustration will suffice. A member of one of the largest of these
Antinomian places unfortunately got tipsy, fell out of the cart in which
he was riding, and broke his leg. "Ah!" said his sympathizing pastor
when he heard of it, "what a blessed thing he can't fall out of the
covenant." The Antinomian believes that Christ paid, with his death, the
price of the pardon of a certain number. These are in the covenant, and
out of that covenant they cannot fall. There are in the Church of
England those who preach this doctrine, but their number is rare. Up in
Notting Hill is a Tabernacle built up and carried on by Mr. Varley, an
humble imitator of Mr. Spurgeon. Originally Mr. Varley was a butcher,
but he took to preaching; and finding that people came to hear him, and
that he did them good, he now devotes himself entirely to ministerial
work. At his Tabernacle, in St. James's Square, there is accommodation
for 1200 hearers, and for the education of more than 500 children. This
history of these Tabernacles shows what may be done when suitable agency
is employed. Mr. Spurgeon's subscriptions are really wonderful. Twenty
thousand pounds were given him by one lady for the purpose of founding
his orphanage. More than once 2000_l._ have been dropped into his
letter-box, as he told the writer of an article in the _Daily Telegraph_,
where, ludicrously enough, he appeared under the head of "Unorthodox
London." "When recently attacked by illness, he began to despair; but
that same evening a lady left 100_l._ at his door, and 1000_l._ came in
immediately afterwards."
CHRISTMAS MORNING WITH THE YOUNGSTERS.
Amongst the most unpleasant recollections of an otherwise not unpleasant
childhood are those connected with attendance at chapel on the evenings
of Christmas Days. On such occasions there were circumstances, needless
to explain, and in which the reader would take no interest were they
explained, which compelled the writer to leave the pleasant fire and the
games and mirth of the season, and, putting on his coat, trudge manfully
in the dark and through the snow to shiver for an hour and a half at
least at meeting. Other people the writer well knew were enjoying
themselves. Father Christmas was not the rage then that he is now;
Christmas-trees were a later invention, and so were Christmas tales; but
still even in those far-away and benighted times there were cakes and
ale, and homely Christmas carols and a little fun on a Christmas night,
when blind-man's-buff was in fashion, and snapdragon was to the little
ones a wonder and a joy. The writer felt, as he sat in the comfortless
square box of green baize and deal, and surveyed the scattered
congregation, how much more agreeable it would have been had the old
meeting been shut up on such a night, had the old minister saved his
sermon, had the old ladies and gentlemen who formed the congregation
dozed comfortably in their old arm-chairs at home. He arrived at the
conclusion then which he has ever since retained--a conclusion the
correctness of which no subsequent consideration has induced him to
modify--that services at church or chapel on Christmas nights are an
immense mistake. Christmas morning special services, however, are quite
a different thing, and especially where children are concerned. They at
any rate realize Christmas more fully than their elders, and assuredly it
is by them the religious aspect of the day may be most vividly felt.
This is not a question for argument. More than forty years ago the late
Dr. Fletcher, of Finsbury Chapel, instituted a special morning service at
his own place of worship for Sunday-school children from the
Sunday-schools of the district. The avowed object of that service was
the benefit of the young. In time past it has been found to have had a
salutary effect. It has been continued by Dr. Fletcher's successor, the
Rev. A. M'Auslane, a minister whose manner, and personal appearance, and
mode of speaking qualify him especially for so delicate and difficult a
task. Mr. M'Auslane hails from the land where Christmas is unknown. He
was a student under Dr. Wardlaw at Glasgow. He commenced his pastoral
duties in Dunfermline, but he has travelled south, and at Newport, in
Wales, where he stayed a short while, and latterly at Finsbury Chapel,
where he has now been eight years, he has caught something of the English
regard for Christmas Day, and preaches accordingly. I scarce think
London has a prettier sight to show than that of Finsbury Chapel on a
Christmas morning. It is full in every part. On the ground floor and
the first gallery are ranged the children and their teachers, and up
above there is another gallery full of adult spectators. As they sing
some of the finest of our hymns, such as--
"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,"
the swell of their young voices is beautiful to hear. Their faces, full
of joy, were equally beautiful to see. To be preached to by a learned
man in a gown in a big chapel is something indeed for a little ragged
urchin to think of. Then what pains must have been taken to master the
tunes and sing them so well. Nor is this all by which the event of the
year--as it must be for some of them--is characterized. At some of the
schools the children, I believe, have a breakfast given them by the
teachers previous to starting. At all of them there is a distribution of
something satisfactory in the shape of buns. The muster is considerable.
The schools represented at the service I attended, in addition to that
belonging to the place, were Mile End, King Edward Street, Wood Street,
Spitalfields, Willow Walk, Ark Street, Paradise Street, the Weigh House,
the New Tabernacle, Bell Alley; Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell; Andrew
Street Ragged-schools, Union Walk, Jewin Street, James Street, City Road,
Ropemakers Street. The service commenced with singing--
"Another year has passed away,
Time swiftly glides along,
We come again to praise and pray,
And sing our festive song;
We come with song to greet you,
We come with song again."
The Rev. W. Tyler then read a part of the fifth chapter of Matthew, and
offered up an appropriate prayer, in which a special reference was made
to the evangelistic work carried on in the City. Another hymn was sung,
and then came the sermon, the subject of which was Christ blessing
children, and the text of which was in Mark x. 14 and 16. Mr. M'Auslane
described how a painter had portrayed the scene; not having the picture
there to show them, he would attempt a description of it in words. Some
might have thought Jesus too busy or children too insignificant. In
reality it was not so, and he believed that if Jesus came in this year
into London, He would act now as He did then. Sometimes people
forget--the butler forgot Joseph. Jesus Christ never changes. The
preacher endeavoured to bring out what the text teaches about Jesus and
children:--1. It taught that Jesus is attractive to children. Some men
and women children don't like at all; others they go to cheerfully and
willingly. Jesus Christ draws them to Him just as the sun the flowers.
He is spoken of as the Sun of Righteousness. Why is a child not afraid
to walk through the valley of the shadow of death? It is because he sees
Jesus, and when he has passed through on the other side there is Jesus,
the most attractive in all that land. 2. The text taught that Christ
takes a deep interest in children. It was clear the Apostles did not, or
they would not have tried to prevent them from coming forward. He takes
the same interest now. It was to Him children had to be grateful for
bodies and souls, for kind friends, and the comforts of life. All power
is given to Him in heaven and on earth. Salvation is the gift of Christ,
and that is another proof of the interest He takes in children. If any
boy there had no father or mother, sister or brother, or friend, if he
stood in this cold world alone, let him take this thought with him--in
the morning as he rose from his humble cot, in the evening as he retired
to rest--Jesus cares for me. Here the preacher paused while the children
refreshed themselves by singing "The Pilgrims," the boys asking, the
girls replying, and all joining in the chorus, the last verse of which
is--
"Come, oh, come! and do not leave us;
Christ is waiting to receive us,
Christ is waiting to receive us,
In that bright, that better land."
Mr. M'Auslane resumed. The text taught (3), Jesus prays for children.
It is true we have not the prayer, but, nevertheless, he believed that
Jesus prayed. The account in Matthew implies that He did. His prayer
would, in all probability, be that God would be the protector of these
children, and guide them all through life to the heavenly, happy land.
There was a young man once condemned to die. His brother, who had lost
an arm in the service of his country, went and pleaded for him. The
judges were overcome, not by his eloquence, but by the sight of the stump
of the amputated arm, and spared his brother's life. Christ, in the same
way, might plead with the Father the five wounds received on Calvary. "I
have often heard an old man pray for children," said the preacher, "and
have heard him ask for things which I am sure were not proper to ask for
for children. It was so long since he had been a child that he had quite
forgotten what children's feelings were. It was not so with Jesus. But
you must remember also to pray for yourselves. Jesus prayed for Peter
that his faith might not fail, but it did, because Peter did not pray for
himself. 4. Christ wishes children to be happy, and they could not be
that without the pardon of sin and hope of heaven. 5. The text taught
that there are a great many children indeed in heaven. It is true there
were there Jesus, and the patriarchs, and prophets, and angels, and
apostles, but there were more children there, for of such is the kingdom
of heaven. That last text meant that the glory of heaven was open to
children, but it also meant that the population of heaven was made up of
children. They would be there of every colour,--from every quarter of
the globe. Last Christmas morning one little child was in that chapel
who is in heaven now. "Shall we go there when we die?" was the question
which concluded and enforced the preacher's appeal, which was plain and
simple and thoroughly adapted to its end. Of course there were some
little ones who could not follow the preacher, but it seemed to me that
evidently the majority did. It is to be hoped they did, for none but
those who live in London can tell what are its trials and sorrows for
such as they, or what are their needs. From the Sunday-school even many
a lad and girl has gone astray. It was only a few weeks before that, at
a midnight meeting in the Euston Road of some eighty or thereabouts--I
cannot speak within one or two--some seventy fallen, weeping women
confessed that they had been Sunday scholars, and amongst them even there
were Sunday-school teachers! Of the hundreds who trooped joyously into
Finsbury Chapel on our last bright, joyous Christmas morning, who can say
what may be the end? Of this one thing, however, we may rest assured, it
will be long before some forget the wise, kindly words listened to then,
the songs in which they then took a part, or the prayers that then went
up to heaven for them.
DR. PARKER AT THE POULTRY.
"What are you doing?" said lately one of London's biggest D.D.'s to a
visitor from the country. "Oh, sir, I am in the ministry now," was the
somewhat exulting reply. "Ah, but, my brother," said the querist again,
"is the ministry in you?" Rather an important question that, and a
question to which, alas! many ministers would be unable to give a very
satisfactory reply. When I see a nervous, timid, feeble, hesitating,
wavering brother in the pulpit, I think of the Doctor's question as one
from which such a man would instinctively shrink.
Dr. Parker belongs to another and a rarer class. The ministry is in him
as a divine call, and not as an accidental profession. He speaks as one
having authority. In an age of negation, and mistrust, and little faith,
he is as positive as if spiritual truths had been audible to his bodily
ear and seen with the bodily eye. Amidst the perplexities of a theology
ever shifting in external phraseology, where man's wisdom has darkened
God's light as revealed in His Word, where the miasma of doubt has
repressed and stinted Christian life, he walks with a masculine tread,
and he does so not from ignorance but from knowledge, because he knows
how difficult is the way, how dark the path, how easily error comes to us
in the form of truth, how the devil himself can assume the shape and
borrow the language of an angel of light. He has got good standing
ground, but he knows how treacherous is the soil, and what pitfalls lie
open to catch the rash, and reckless, and overconfident. His is the
strength of the athlete who has become what he is by years of careful
training, protracted conflicts, and painful discipline, and in all his
words, and they are many, you can hear as it were the ring of victory and
assured success. Physically he looks and speaks like a man. What he
says he means, and what he means he believes. He is not the kind of man
to write an apology for Christianity; he would laugh to scorn the idea.
He can laugh at much, because, as Hobbes says, to do so implies
superiority, and Dr. Parker, strong in his faith in the everlasting
Gospel, has an immense feeling of superiority; and as you listen he takes
you up with him into his coign of vantage, and you laugh too. It is good
to see wit as well as logic and learning in the pulpit; to feel up in
that serene height, where the preacher has it all himself, and none may
gainsay him, there is humanity there, a flesh and blood reality, and not
a respectable academic ghost in whose brain there is hollowness and in
whose eye there is no fire of speculation. What a head the man
has--ample, well formed, well and fairly developed. What a voice the man
has--strong as a mountain torrent, impetuous, irresistible, mastering
all, carrying like a Niagara all before it. Dr. Parker is better off
than Paul. Apparently the earthen vessel in which he has his treasure is
of admirable adaptation and utility.
London has gained and Manchester has lost Dr. Parker. Already he has
made himself no stranger in London. To many his "Ecce Deus" has
commended itself as the work of a vigorous thinker, and all have
confessed that his "Springdale Abbey" was full of very clever talk. No
ordinary preacher could have written such books, that was clear. In
Manchester he had become a success. How came he to be such? Partly I
have explained the reason. In the first place, in an age of doubt, of
negative theology, of blinding and bewildering speculation--when between
the so-called Christian and the Cross in all its eternal lustre has risen
up a fog of gloom--when the Gospel of unbelief and despair has come into
fashion, so that when we listen for the shout of psalm or the holy
exultation of prayer, we hear instead
"An agony
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come since the making of the world."
Dr. Parker has a living faith. And then again he has a deep sense of
what the pulpit requires, and an unmitigated scorn of that kind of
preaching which is too common there. "Almighty God has to tolerate more
puerility in His service than any monarch on earth. If Christianity had
not been Divine it would have been ruined by many of its own preachers
long ere this. The wonder is, not that it has escaped the cruel hand of
the infidel (it can double up a whole array of crazy atheists), but that
it has survived the cruel kindness of its shallow expositors." Whose
language, you ask, is this? Why, Dr. Parker's own. The preacher who can
thus censure his fellows is bound to guard sacredly and constantly
against that which he condemns, and to come to his pulpit with every
feeling attuned and with every energy aroused for its gigantic work.
Give to such a man the requisite brain and tongue, let him have the
requisite delivery, let his lips be touched by that spirit which
"Touched Isaiah's lips with hallowed fire,"
and you have a Dr. Parker. He has come to London--a difficult thing for
any man to do, but in this case the step has been undertaken under
peculiarly difficult circumstances. Time was when the City was the home
of citizens, and many of the wealthiest and most influential of them went
to the Poultry. That time has long gone by. It was when deacons shook
their heads at Mr. Binney as not quite sound. Of all places on the earth
the most deadly on a Sunday is the City of London, and especially that
part of it in which the Poultry stands. At St. Mildred's, close by, it
is impossible, or seems to be so, to collect a decent congregation. Will
Dr. Parker succeed better? Some sort of answer was given to the
question, when to a crowded and attentive congregation he preached what I
may term his inaugural discourse. If I say it was an eloquent display I
shall excite the Doctor's indignation, as he contemned the use of such
phraseology in his sternest and most indignant manner. Nor indeed with
regard to the discourse in question would the phrase be literally
correct. No one can doubt the Doctor's eloquence, but in speaking of
himself and his hopes and purposes in connexion with the Poultry--in
showing the grand principles upon which he took his stand, and by means
of which he was placed beyond the fear of failure, he aimed at something
more than eloquent display. "I am preaching to myself as well as to
you," said the Doctor in the course of his sermon; and such was in
reality the case. For the work which he has to do, for the programme
which he trusts to work out, truly indeed does the Doctor need the
guidance of that Providence which shall go before, and which shall make
the crooked places straight. This, indeed, was the Doctor's text. You
will find it in Isaiah xlv. 2. From the beginning to the end of the
service this was the leading and appropriate idea. He commenced with
Cowper's magnificent hymn, "God moves in a mysterious way." The portion
of Scripture read was Christ's commission to the seventy to go and preach
the Gospel all over the world; the prayer was an acknowledgment that the
human will should be subordinated to the Divine; and it was "Guide me, O
Thou great Jehovah," which formed the closing song.
As Dr. Parker told us he was going to publish his sermon (his sermons now
appear weekly, under the title of "The City Temple"), I need say little
of the discourse, of which I have already given the text. It began with
a reference to the triumph and danger of liberty--that man might go
whether with God or without Him. Man was free, nor was his religion one
of slavery. To those who considered such a statement to be a grand
contradiction of what we know of eternal decrees, it was sufficient to
reply that it could only be harmonized in the ecstasy of light and love.
God will not make everything straight, but only in proportion as we trust
Him and live with Him will our difficulties diminish. As to his text in
particular, remarked Dr. Parker, it was first a warning--there are
crooked places. It was a promise--the crooked places God would make
straight: all that we required was patience. Also it was a plan--God
would go before us. Say some, that is God's sovereignty--that is the
omnipotent Jehovah. No, it indicated His love, His tenderness, His care.
In such an idea we do not dwarf God, but exalt Him. Then came the
limitation of the promise. This going before was a question of
character. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. That,
however, was no motive for carelessness, but the reverse. The Doctor, in
conclusion, spoke of himself. He had been told that in leaving
Manchester and coming to the Poultry he was moving into a crooked place.
In explanation he stated he did not look for the ordinary course of a
minister. He looked at London, that immeasurable centre; he thought of
the young men who come strangers to the metropolis, and with no friends
to guide and guard them; and if he did not get people to come and hear
him on the Sunday, he trusted they would do so on the Thursday, when
there would be a service from twelve to one, when he would aim simply to
touch the heart with a sense of sin and forgiveness. He also intended to
use the printing-press. He had great faith in the printed page. It
remained to be read at spare moments when a man had nothing to do.
Finally, said Dr. Parker, he spoke with fear and trembling, but he came
there with a strong determination to succeed, and he appealed to all
around to do their duty--not to carp, or criticise, or say unkind words,
but to resolve to labour and to be guided by heavenly power and wisdom.
At the close of the service there was a collection. After this the
immense congregation streamed out into the open air, much to the
astonishment of casual passengers, who did not understand what was the
matter. The Poultry has a prosperous look, and they have got a new
pulpit there almost as rotund, and bright, and buoyant as Dr. Parker
himself.
I know not how the Sunday service succeeds, but the Thursday morning
service is wonderfully well filled. In this busy age it is scarcely
credible that in the busiest part of London, and at the busiest hour of
the day, a chapel as large as the Poultry can be crowded, and is
regularly crowded, with merchants and men of business and others. Yet
such is the case, and Dr. Parker has succeeded in an attempt which, until
he tried it, certainly seemed hazardous in the extreme. If the Doctor
seems a little bombastic, it may well be forgiven him under these
circumstances, especially when we remember that no preacher can succeed
in convincing others that he is worth hearing till he has become firmly
convinced of that fact himself. A modest man I fear is out of place
anywhere, but most of all so in the pulpit. It was in wisdom that Dr.
Parker was selected for his post. I should think he is a preacher
pre-eminently adapted to the young. Judged not by what he has done, but
by years, the Doctor is almost a young man himself. There is youthful
vigour in his full round face, in his small dark eyes; and certainly
there is no small store of youthful enthusiasm in his heart. In his
black hair and beard there is no suggestive tinge of grey. If he has
passed through and left the golden portals of youth behind, it can only
be but recently that he has done so, and there is still in him somewhat
of its grace and glory. In another respect also the choice of Dr. Parker
was appropriate. The Poultry Chapel is in the very heart of London; the
chances were that most of the young men present--and, I might add, of the
old ones too--were more or less engaged in some secular avocations. In
like manner, so the writer has always understood, the Doctor's youthful
years were passed. Hence it came to pass the old Poultry Chapel is in a
flourishing state. The Doctor seemed in his right place, and, if we may
judge from appearances, the people seemed to think so.
MR. LYNCH'S THURSDAY EVENINGS.
In a great city like London there are many sources of pleasure completely
overlooked. If people complain that life is dull--that it is
monotonous--that it presents to them few objects of interest or
attraction--I fancy they have chiefly themselves to blame. No man or
woman either with heart or head need lead a barren life either in the
country or in town. There is always something to do, to see, or to hear,
and in London especially is there much to hear of which Londoners know
but little. Such, at any rate, was the reflection of the writer one
Thursday night as he made his way along the Hampstead Road to a neat
little iron church on the left-hand side as you go from the City, and
just before you reach Mornington Crescent. Every Sunday morning there
preaches there the Rev. Thomas Lynch, the author of some choice prose and
poetry--a man at whom there was a dead set made by certain religionists a
few years ago, but who has long outlived that, and to whom that time of
trial and of trouble was undoubtedly a most blessed event, inasmuch as it
taught the gentle author of the "Rivulet" his strength, both as regards
himself and as regards the best of our religious teachers; and inasmuch
as it demonstrated to all anew, and more clearly than ever, how hard, how
cruel, how unmerciful dogmatic theologians could become. At that time
Mr. Lynch was preaching in a chapel in one of the streets running from
Tottenham Court Road into Fitzroy Square. He is now nearer Camden Town,
and preaches in a building between which and the pastor there seems to be
a kind of resemblance and sympathy; at any rate, as much as can exist
between what is abstract and concrete--between matter and mind. The
church is no Gothic edifice, hoary with time, but slender and modern,
and, as much as possible, graceful. You wonder it has not been swept
away by the storms of winter. A similar feeling exists when you look at
Mr. Lynch. There are great mountains of men, whose tread is terrible,
whose laugh is volcanic, whose heads are rugged rocks, whose bodies are
bulls of Bashan, whose speech is as the roar of an angry sea, whose faces
in summer parch you up like burning suns, or in winter darken you with
angry clouds. To this genus Mr. Lynch does in no way belong. The
fairies who assisted at Mr. Lynch's birth did very little for him
physically--at any rate, they robbed his bones of all flesh, and made his
outward frame as spare as possible. It is to be wished also that they
had endowed him with better health. Yet his figure cannot be termed
ungraceful or his appearance unattractive. In his dress he is
scrupulously neat. Even on weekday services he wears the white
handkerchief, which when round the neck denotes that you are a swell on
your way to dinner, or a waiter, or a gentleman of the clerical
profession. His grey eye is full of enthusiasm, and kindles up a pale,
dark face that otherwise might be dull. His voice is stronger and
clearer than you would expect. You are agreeably surprised to find how
animated and vigorous he can become. After all, and in spite of
ill-health, time has dealt not ungently with Mr. Lynch. He is a trifle
bald, and you can detect a greyish tint in his hair--that is all; but Mr.
Lynch, I imagine, is not one of those who age fast. He has a happy
cheerfulness apparently, which compensates for the poetic sensitiveness
which frets away many a man's, life, and which made a hard-headed
Wordsworth write--
"We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
Whereof come in the end despondency and madness."
Indeed, Mr. Lynch's cheerfulness is evidently, ever welling up out of his
heart and colouring all his thoughts and words. In his services this is
everywhere apparent. He has much of the lithe action of the comedian,
and he stands ever, like Garrick, between tragedy and comedy, one moment
ready to make you smile, and the next touching all that is most earnest,
most serious, most devout in our common nature. He leans on his little
desk, his hands before him, and talks away, sweetly and devoutly, about
things that interest all--things that have a spiritual bearing, things
that are secular and profane, only to the secular and profane. There are
not very many people to hear him; but then, they are hearers, and there
is sympathy between the preacher and the pews. The Iron Duke said, "When
you begin to turn in bed, it is time for you to get up." In a similar
way it may be said, when the people begin to turn to look at the clock it
is time the preacher or lecturer was done. The other night I found Mr.
Lynch's service occupied nearly two hours, yet it did not seem wearisome
or long. The service was commenced with chanting, and prayer, and
reading scripture, and singing. Then there was a text, and a lecture or
sermon from that text. On the occasion to which I refer the subject was
John Howe, as an illustration of that passage in Proverbs which
predicates of the man diligent in his business that he shall stand before
kings--a prediction literally verified in the case of John Howe, who was
chaplain to Oliver Cromwell--a man greater than any king--and who had
friendly converse with that Protestant hero, William the Third, the best
king England ever had. Very vividly did Mr. Lynch bring out all that was
noblest and brightest in John Howe's character and career, dwelling with
evident unction on the many pregnant titles of Howe's works, which he
seemed much to prefer to the works themselves, and in which he was right;
for Howe's thoughts, it must be conceded, are not couched in the form and
language most easy of apprehension to the men of to-day; and from the
past, with some rare exceptions--those, of course, written in a dead
language being the chief--it is vain to extract literature for the study
and edification of the present. Religion is no exception to a universal
law; indeed, more than anything else, it is required of him who preaches
it that he should speak to living men in the living language of
to-day--not according to formulas that have long died out, or in terms
that have long become extinct; and this specially may be said of Mr.
Lynch, that as much as any one he realizes this great law, and does use
language and illustration and argument familiar to the men and women of
London in this latter day--that he does not cease to be a man when in the
pulpit, and deal with abstraction rather than with real life. When Mr.
Lynch began his ministerial career this virtue was rarer than it is now,
and of this desirable result Mr. Lynch deserves, at any rate, some of the
credit. Be that as it may, the writer has one other thing to say. It
seems to him that these Thursday evening lectures of Mr. Lynch's deserve
a wide support. There are many in London who would be glad enough to
attend. There are many living out of town who would find it worth while
stopping an hour or two later on a Thursday evening. The service
commences at a quarter past seven; and I believe generally Mr. Lynch
takes some specific subject, such as "John Howe," or "Bells," or anything
which seems to him notable. The writer heard also on the night in which
he was there something about questions asked and answered; but on that he
can say, as he knows, nothing.