10. THE TIRELESS TRAVELLER

THE TIRELESS TRAVELLER

WRITING in the Inland Voyage of one of his French acquaintances, Robert Louis Stevenson says: "Might not this have been a brave African traveler, or one gone to the Indies after Drake? But it is an evil age for the gipsily inclined among men. He who can sit squar­est on a three-legged stool, he it is who has the wealth and glory." This present age, however, may be regarded as being a good age for gipsily-inclined preachers (at any rate, for the gatherings they address) when they are men of piety, eloquence, and lovableness of char­acter. Meyer possessed all three qualities in large measure, and it is a fortunate circumstance, for two nations at least, that he was just a little bit gipsily inclined. One may go still farther, and admit frankly that Meyer was a man of the open road and the rolling sea, a veritable Lavengro among the preachers of his time. He could---he did, year after rolling year ­preach six days a week, travel thousands of miles by land and sea, sleep well and soundly on Pullman train or ocean liner, remain immune from the ravages of benzoate of soda and other evils incident to restaurant gastronomy. No matter how long the journey, or how exacting the toll of unforeseen inconveniences, or how oft-repeated the failure of train or boat service, and the like, he, invariably, "came up smiling", none the worse in health or spirits. And always, of course, there was that amazingly misleading appearance of his---spare, almost frail, and of the precise type (one would readily expect) to cave in, at the least sign of extra strain---which gave not the faintest suggestion of the physical reserves of endurance and sheer vitality that were his to command. As late as 1925 Dr. Charles Brown wrote of him: In a motor tour which I took with Dr. Meyer through South Wales we held fourteen meetings in one day, and the more meetings we held the fresher he seemed to become. He could wear out any ordinary and most extra­ordinary men. And yet it may be questioned whether he has ever had a real holiday, or played at any athletic game in his life. For close on forty years Meyer was an indefatig­able traveler, and always, be it remembered, bent on the King’s business. No period of slippered ease awaited him anywhere, nothing more restful than a full schedule of meetings, often with long distances lying between the points at which they were arranged to be held. Yet the more arduous the trip, the more he seemed to be pleased, and even when circumstances and conditions were pronouncedly adverse, the large probabilities were that, despite the prevailing confusion and discomfort, he had proceeded to make arrange­ments for a return visit. But by far the strangest, if not the most contradictory, feature of this phase of F. B. Meyer’s life and character was that, although (apparently) he was never happier than when pere­grinating through the world on some evangelical errand, this man, when at home, was one of the most successful pastors of his own, or any other age.

Writing of his many goings to and fro in the world in later years:

Yes; some very wonderful things have transpired in my many foreign trips. In Bulgaria, the meetings with the pastors; in Constantinople, the visits to Robert College; in St. Petersburg, Finland, and Sweden, the contact with Royalty, as well as with great gatherings of Christians. Wonderful journeys through Germany, with Count Bern­storff as my interpreter. Then India, China, the Straits Settlements, the West Indies. In later years, Australia, Canada, and, of course, the many never-to-be-forgotten experiences in the United States of America.

It was with his first visit to America, in 1891, that F. B. Meyer began to lift up his eyes towards the world’s great harvest-field. From that time onward he was an international figure in the religious activities of his time. He had already overflowed his denomina­tional lines, and, henceforth, was to do so, nationally, so far as Christian service was concerned. During 1898-99, he visited India and Burma, addressing large gatherings at Poonah, Bombay, Lahore, Agra, Alla­habad, Calcutta, Rangoon, and Madras. The Lahore and Allahabad meetings, especially, were greatly appreciated by missionaries on the foreign field, who came from their various stations to listen to an en­heartening and inspiring message, brought them by one who knew how to talk to preachers, missionaries, and, indeed, to Christian workers in general, with an apt facility such as left him, in this specific sphere of service, without a peer. On his return Meyer said that the sight which impressed him most profoundly while in India was the grave of Henry Lawrence. He visited the Residency at Lucknow, where the bullet marks were still to be seen under the wreathing ivy and flowers, and went to the little cemetery and looked at the tombstone, graven with the words chosen by Lawrence himself on his deathbed: "Here lies a man who tried to do his duty." In the summer of 1901 he accepted an invitation made him by missionaries at Beyrout to visit Syria, where he spent several supremely happy weeks. He proceeded overland to Marseilles and, at that port, took a French steamer plying the North Mediterranean route. He saw Naples and Athens, and spent a day at the Golden Horn. He passed through the Ægean with its classic memories, saw Patmos, and so came into Asia Minor. He conducted an important conference at Brummana, a village seven miles from Beirut and two thousand four hundred feet above sea-level. Here the Friends were carrying on a noble work; they had flourishing schools, a hospital, and a medical mission. Their premises were placed at the disposal of the con­ference, and Thomas Cook & Son also provided many furnished tents. The conference was attended by two hundred missionaries, both men and women, almost every one of whom had come from some sacred and historic spot. One was from Hebron, another from Bethlehem, a third from Damascus, and so on.

Mr. Meyer gave in all about twenty addresses, which included several delivered at Dr. Bliss’ College. The Syrian Protestant College was opened in Beirut in 1865, with sixteen students. At the time of Meyer’s visit, five hundred students were receiving instruction under Dr. Bliss, being trained as doctors, chemists, and merchants. The building stood (as it still stands) on a fine site, overlooking the sea and the long range of the Lebanon mountains.

After the conclusion of these meetings, the party proceeded to Damascus and Baalbec, which were accessible by train from Beirut. During his journey­ings in the Levant, he sent some delightful travel ­letters to The Christian, describing the delights of his tour. The interest of Damascus is inexhaustible [he wrote]. Its exquisite setting in a dense mass of emerald green; its antiquity, dating far beyond the date of Canaan; its many mosques with their graceful minarets, from which the faithful are called to prayer five times a day, beginning with the grey dawn, "as soon as it is possible to distinguish a black hair from a white"; when the muezzin bids you arise to pray, because prayer is sweeter than sleep; the narrow, crowded streets, with their myriad teeming life, and varied interests; the stately trains of camels, bringing in the produce of the country, or starting in caravans for distant markets; the bazaars, in which the natives make or display their goods---all is so deeply interesting that you need to do little more than sit at the window of your hotel, or wander quietly through the streets.

It was with difficulty we tore ourselves away from the massive remains, to which Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, have contributed; for this site was first dedicated to Baal, then to Roman deities, and finally by Constantine to Christ. On our return journey we visited the quay, where one piece of stone lies which was cut out and shaped for the building, but never transported thither. It suggested solemn reflections. Oh, that none of us may be left out of our place in the Temple of our Lord. Thank God, however great the difficulties of bringing us thither (and this stone would have demanded the strenuous effort of forty thousand slaves). Our God is able! The religious history of the centuries, as evidenced by the silent, yet eloquent testimony of the great mosque, lived again for the travelers, as they gazed on the wondrous pile arising from the ashes of its fire, standing on the site of the House of Rimmon, and afterwards of a Greek temple, then a Christian church, now a temple of the Prophet. Still on the bronze gates we could discover the form of the communion cup, and on the pediment of an ancient portico read the Christian sentence which has looked down on these centuries of Mohammedanism, Thy kingdom, Oh Christ, is an everlasting kingdom. The Pauline associations of the ancient city had, of course, their poignant appeal for Dr. Meyer:

We walked and drove repeatedly in the street called Straight [he says], which intersects the city from gate to gate, saw the spot where Paul is supposed to have been stricken to the ground, and that at which he is said to have been let down from the walls. From the top of the minaret we saw the entrance to the distant Arabian desert, whither he fled, to commune with himself and his Lord. And after Damascus, Baalbec:

Words simply fail me to tell of its glory [he admits]. We reached it from Damascus, after four hours on rail, and four in carriages. That ride through the long pass, with Lebanon on our left, was especially interesting, passing by villages, with their cattle, goats, camels, and asses, and the peasants in their picturesque garb. For one who has visited Baalbec it is only necessary to suggest the scene; for one who has not, no description can convey much idea of the extraordinary magnificence or size of the temples of the Sun, of Jupiter, and of Venus. Imagine blocks of stone seventy feet long and fifteen feet high, columns seventy-five feet high in three pieces, the most exquisitely carved cornices and friezes! Only six of the pillars in the Temple of the Sun remain erect---we saw them bathed in the glory of the evening sunset and the morning glow. On the homeward voyage the liner broke down and had to put into Port Said. This delay enabled Mr. Meyer to see Cairo and the Pyramids, and to pay a visit to Heliopolis, with its hoary educational associa­tions, stretching back to the days of Israel’s captivity.

I had no idea [he wrote of this visit] that the cities and inscriptions in Egypt made the times of Joseph so real. I am really ashamed to have lived fifty-four years without visiting the country. People sometimes ask how it came about that Moses knew literature. But I was shown traces of vast libraries---one numbered twenty thousand volumes---which were given to Heliopolis long before the time of Moses. It is only by travel that one really gets a glimpse of how real, and how widespread, was the culture of ancient races. For example: the American Consul at Jerusalem told me of the discovery of the remains of a circulating library which was in use in the Euphrates valley in the time of Abraham. This visit to the Near East impressed upon Meyer some pronounced convictions about the future of mis­sionary effort in the lands forming it. Written twenty-­eight years ago, these opinions, today, stand justified by the trend and progress of human events; some of them, were they uttered today, would stand regarded as justifiable dicta, supported by prevailing facts and conditions.

Looking back on my journey [he records], I am deeply impressed with the conviction that light is breaking over Bible lands. But I am convinced, also, that effective missionary work (of any volume) will never be done by American or English missionaries. The Arabs have a wise proverb: "An oak can only be felled by a limb of itself." The best work---the work that will yield appreciable har­vest---is that of training and educating native Christians for the task of carrying the Gospel to their fellow-countrymen.

These, of course, are words from ante-bellum days. At the time they were uttered Meyer had no premonition of the years during the which the whole of the Near East would be held in the vice-like grip of war, or of the mandates, and projects arising therefrom, in which Occidental nations would have share. Surveyed today, however, the problems of the Near East reveal nothing which gives to these opinions of F. B. Meyer, just cited, anything but an air of wisdom and sagacious foresight. Whatever of tangible progress is being made in the Levant, is proceeding along lines indicated by his appraisement of the task and those best fitted to undertake it, to the end that, in the areas of its incep­tion, Christ’s Gospel may find ample expression and give unto its reapers, in the field, the joy of harvest. In the early part of 1902 Meyer paid a visit to Russia, and there held a series of conferences. This visit to the Czar’s dominions was marked by the tire­less traveler’s usual unlimited capacity for work and infectious enthusiasm. Within a quarter of an hour after his arrival in St. Petersburg (since become Petro­grad and Leningrad), he addressed his first meeting. He passed eleven days in the Russian capital, and delivered addresses at twenty-four scheduled meetings, in addition to speaking at as many more improvised in drawing-rooms and at other private receptions. He also visited Dorpat and Revel, spending two nights on trains and the same number of days in teaching and preaching. Two hours after delivering his last address on Russian soil he was aboard an express, headed for London, in order to arrive home in time to attend the funeral services arranged in memory of Newman Hall, his predecessor at Christ Church, who had died while Meyer was absent from England.

It will be recalled that, in 1901, Mr. Meyer had inti­mated to his congregation at Christ Church his inten­tion to resign his pastorate in September 1902. On his return from Russia, however, urgent pressure was brought to bear upon him to allow the question of his resignation to stand over for the time being. To this request he acceded, and remained five years longer. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson was invited to fill Christ Church pulpit what time its pastor fulfilled engagements which, expecting to be free of the cares of his pastorate, he had made in Norway, Sweden, Germany, and the West Indies. The following year saw Meyer again visiting America, and in 1904 he was appointed President of the National Free Church Council. He carried on a series of all-day meetings in every part of the United Kingdom. His vitality and industry were simply mystifying. Traveling often three nights a week, speaking five hours a day, then hurrying back to his London charge, he gave a magnificent demonstration of what one consecrated servant of God could do, to enlarge the borders and horizon of the Church. In 1906 he was elected Presi­dent of the Baptist Union. This involved more travel­ling, more trains by night and platforms by day. Just at this time F. B. Meyer was at the zenith of his powers. Everywhere he went he took with him messages of cheer and assurance. A contemporary account, in the British Week{y, describes one of his efforts as follows: When I reached the Holborn Town Hall at four-fifteen on Tuesday afternoon, the large room was densely crowded, and Mr. Meyer, standing like a Cadi under the shade of a giant palm, was talking to his brethren, in the character of a young man from the country. Well might Charles Brown describe the speech as "clever and wonderful". It danced like a village brook in sunlight. So astonishing as a mere tour de force was this "obscure pastor’s" appeal to the City ministry, that the hall rang at many points with delighted laughter. An attempt to reproduce it would be like summarizing an essay of Elia. In 1907 F. B. Meyer closed his ministry at Christ Church with a farewell meeting attended by many leading Nonconformists, while the Established Church was represented by letters of appreciation from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of South­wark. Dr. Robert F. Horton characterized Mr. Meyer as "the typical Nonconformist, the most honored, appreciated, and beloved of Free Churchmen in this country". "We are thankful that, while the pastorate is closing, the ministry is not", continued Dr. Horton. "Mr. Meyer is released from Christ Church that he may take the world as his parish."

During the long years of his pastorates Meyer had made his spirituality and unbounded energy a power in behalf of righteousness, and it was simply the exten­sion of this service that now, liberated from the burden of pastoral work, he should travel as an apostle through the world, carrying with him everywhere the contagion of his personal force and imparting the vitalizing ideas, the social and religious convictions, which had become the "master light of all his seeing".

He has now accepted the role of an apostle [wrote Dr. Shakespeare]. His mission in a peculiar degree will be catholic and cosmopolitan. In a sense which, perhaps, applies to no other living man, he will have a world-wide cure of souls. Just as Paul said, "I must see Rome also", so Mr. Meyer has gone step by step, advancing to a fresh height of life. I should be sorry if he became a permanent peripatetic, a wandering star. He is still only sixty years of age, and I trust that when he has carried out his tour he will again find a base of operation, and perhaps do a work and exercise an influence which shall transcend even the achievements of the past. The world tour on which F. B. Meyer now embarked included visits to such widely separated countries as Turkey, China, Australia, South Africa, and Canada. No detailed account of this journey need be appended. The whole tour may be held to be sufficiently sum­marized if described as being just two more years of Meyer’s wonderful life, like all the rest, crowded from start to close with consecrated and efficient labors. Returning home, he was offered and accepted a call to his old charge at Regent’s Park Chapel, and entered on his second pastorate of that flock, which lasted six years. It was while at Regent’s Park that he took up the additional duties devolving on the Secretaryship of the National Free Church Council, which brought with it any amount of additional work---travelling, platform ­speaking, preaching, organizing, and arranging.

During the second Regent’s Park pastorate Meyer had some sort of a belated, fleeting vision of a "stop­at-home" sphere of service, and reached the transitory and---for one of his make-up---rather amusing conclu­sion that "a permanent pastorate has more influence in the world than itineration, which is only like a pass­ing shower". This he said in all sincerity, of course; but he reckoned without himself---without taking into proper account that imperious wander-lust of his which brooked no refusal, neither denial, when it elected to make its call.

Similarly, when, in 1915, he returned to Christ Church, "My wandering life", he announced, "is now ending; and I have come to my old home again, to spend the last and, I hope, the best days of my life." But he was most completely mistaken. His traveling days were by no means ended. It yet remained for him to Follow the Romany patteran, West to the sinking sun, for although he celebrated his pastoral jubilee in 1920, and resigned his active ministry in 1921 to become minister-emeritus, he had still to visit Australia in 1922, Canada and the United States for three months in 1925, and in 1927, at the age of eighty, he carried through his twelfth American preaching campaign, during which he travelled 15, 000 miles in Canada and the United States. It was estimated at this time, also, that during his long and wonderful ministry Dr. Meyer had preached 16, 000 sermons.