01. A KEY TO A CHARACTER

I. A KEY TO A CHARACTER THE subject of these pages passed to his rest, March 28, 1929. Two days later, the Daily Telegraph duly noted the untoward event by printing an obituary notice, in which the following sentences found place:

It was Meyer’s lot to toil through half a century, when to be a Nonconformist was to be militant or nothing, and to launch a maximum of eloquence for a minimum of effect. All this was as foreign and remote from Meyer’s nature, as excursions into abstract philosophy or meta­physics.

Concerning this same paragraph much could be written in rebuttal. One fact, in especial, it proceeds to render perfectly obvious to all those sufficiently informed to judge of its accuracy, namely, that the writer of it could not possibly have known Dr. Meyer very well, if, indeed, he knew him at all. Otherwise one scarcely sees how he could have been betrayed into harboring the error to which his sentences give expres­sion. Had he known F. B. Meyer better, he would have known, also, that this man so interpreted the principles of lawful dissent, and so considered his own relation thereto, that, to a veritable certainty, he would have been a militant Nonconformist, in any age, or in any clime. He would have realized, moreover, that, although Meyer was not the sort of man who moved around among his fellows spoiling for a scrap, or seeking pretexts for a quarrel, yet he was, neverthe­less, a born fighter. Being armed with what Kit Marlowe calls that which is more than complete steel---the justice of his quarrel---he proceeded to comport himself with such ardor as to give those opposing him a very definite and vivid realization that they were confronted by a foeman who neither gave quarter nor asked for any, and to whom the thought of quitting was as alien as that of the betrayal of his country, or the forswearing of his sovereign lord the King.

Possessed of a flawless courage, the master of an inflexible will, having a practical and level mind in mundane affairs, Meyer addressed himself to every enterprise, under immediate consideration, with a zest and an abandon possible only to the man who, in the heart’s core of him, is "a man of his hands". His gentleness was an innocent foil, an unintentional yet genuinely deceptive thing. Time and again it trapped men into underestimating the strength of character it so securely veiled. But it made Meyer great in many ways, not least as an intrepid fighter. Athos, it will be recalled, was the calmest, the most reserved of Dumas’s redoubtable Musketeers. Yet his blade leaped as swiftly from its scabbard, as did that of the boisterous Porthos; it was as well-timed and deadly in its thrust as that of the fiery D’Artagnan. Similarly, Meyer, chivalrous, quiet-mannered, courteous, was, withal, a doughty warrior, and to be up and at it was no more "foreign or remote from Meyer’s nature" than the process of leading a great, devotional assembly to the throne of heavenly grace. The greater forces of nature are the silent ones.

One may hear the screaming of a typhoon through the rigging of a four-masted schooner and the thunder of angry seas breaking over her hatches, but not a soul hears the moon hauling the Atlantic Ocean into the North Sea. The roar of a forest fire is an appalling, awe-inspiring sound, but human nature is altogether too gross to hear the rising of the sap in four continents, clothing a world in greenery, with each successive spring. Meyer was never blatant, often he was silent; but he was intense, at times, white-hot, and, for more than half a century, furnished his contemporaries with an unfailing reminder that enthusiasm and down­rightness are the driving forces of the world. Lofty indifference----the hall-mark of the mental snob or parasite, which saps the life of human effort like a maggot at a tree-root---was never his; and every in­crease of noble enthusiasm in his living spirit was marked and measured and given expression by the concrete work of his hands.

I have given prominence to the stronger, more mili­tant side of Meyer’s character, and have come to a consideration of it thus early in these pages, simply because (as I see it) unless it be kept continuously in view, one looks in vain for an explanation of his many-sided and wonderful career. At the time of the Berlin Congress, Bismarck declared, contemptuously, that Lord Salisbury was a piece of wood painted to look like iron. Conversely, Meyer was a man of iron, whose gentle exterior lent color to the quite erroneous impression that he was made of the softer material. His sweetness of disposition [wrote Dr. J. H. Shakespeare of him in 1907] is united with an almost autocratic temper when he has definitely decided on the right path. He cannot be easily turned aside, and if there are defections he is quite prepared to go on alone. His influence, cast wholly on the side of truth and righteousness, may, without any exaggeration, be described as having belted the globe. During the entire period covered by the lifetime of the present generation, this man of gentle spirit and consecrated life furnished tens of thousands of people in all parts of the world with an incentive to individual devotion and the attainment of a lofty conception of Christian profession and responsibility such as few men of our time have been permitted to exercise. It is only when one views, with something akin to despair, how much well-intentioned, even strenuous, effort ends in sheer futility, that he realizes something of the value attach­ing itself to the effective, altogether enviable and, in some respects, truly wonderful work Meyer was en­abled to accomplish. He was a true mystic and saw far into the deeps of spiritual things. Wordsworth sings of "the harvest of a quiet eye". Meyer’s was the harvest of a quiet heart. His own soul abode in quiet­ness and confidence, and from his spiritual habitation of security and peace, he taught men everywhere how to stand still and see the salvation of God; to wait patiently on the Lord; to trust and not be afraid.

Concerning his spirituality, his sincerity, his innate goodness, none was ever in doubt. "What a good man Walrond is!" said Professor Sellar to Matthew Arnold, on one occasion. "Ah!" replied Arnold, "we were all so good at Rugby." "Yes, I know," retorted Sellar, "but, then, Walrond kept it up." Like Walrond, Meyer kept it up, and as one thinks of him, he thinks, also, of one of Clarendon’s famous portraits---one in which he depicts a high-souled, chivalrous cavalier, "of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of a glowing and obliging humanity, and of a primitive simplicity and integrity of life". Clarendon was writing of Lord Falkland. He described F. B. Meyer. Dr. Joseph Parker declared that he always brought a benediction with him, and quite often referred to him as "my father confessor."

Yet this eminent man of God realized-none ever came to know it more completely---that the crown of all true wisdom is service. The windows of his soul doubtless looked out upon the infinite; but the distant light was never permitted to blind him to the thousand and one duties which lay just outside his door. "In every piece of honest work," he once said, "however irksome, laborious, and commonplace, we are fellow­-workers with God." His crowded life was one of prayer and action, ecstasy and service, lonely hours with God, crowded hours with men. During the night he communes with God on lonely mountain-tops, so to speak, and how radiantly beautiful he is, as the light of heaven shines from his eyes and face! The morning finds him going about among the people as the good man, helping, advising, healing, providing for the poor. His words were blessed, often mystical, stirring strange emotions in the heart; at the same time his deeds were the most practical conceivable. He went up into the Mount to meet God, and came straight down to cast out devils from the hearts and habitations of men. He made a rich bequest to the world, and it is not pos­sible to place an adequate appraisement on the legacy.

We live in uncertain days---days when a believer’s faith often is rudely shaken, when darkness dims the clearer vision. At such a time, in such an hour, it is not easy to underestimate the value to the harried spirit and questioning heart of the quiet, assuring, trium­phant message, furnished bv the life and work of F. B. Meyer. His was a soul in undoubted communion with the Source of all spiritual power, and as he went about the world, laboring for God and loving men into the kingdom, those about him learned from their observation of him something of the perfect ways of Christian chivalry, and beheld the treasure of the Highest, enshrined in an earthen vessel. As he grew older in body he grew younger in spirit and gave, to all who glanced his way, an example of how to grow older gracefully and to accept with dignity and serenity the increasing burden of the years. For many years past he was affectionately known to his intimates as "F. B.", and to the outside world as the Admirable Crichton of Nonconformity. When the end came, the Telegraph described it as being "the death of the Archbishop of the Free Churches". He passed from the things of time and sense in the eighty-second year of his age; he lived, almost to his very last day; and life, for Dr. Meyer, meant movement, activity, self­-expression, service. His physical presence is now removed. But that is all. He still lives---lives in triplicate: in the mansions of the Eternal Father---the bosom of God who is Love incarnate, where (to use a phrase of his own) "we shall find all of sweetness, and purity, and truth, we have ever known"; in the hosts of men and women who were Won for God by his pleadings and ministered :0 by his remarkable insight and power of mystical interpretation; and in the manifold ministries of help and healing he set in motion, which brought cheer to the despairing mind, solace to the smitten spirit, balm to the wounded heart. He has bequeathed to the world, not a machine but a spirit; not a program but a life; and as the days go by, he will be remembered as one of the great religious figures of his time.

If, from some exalted place and with an all-seeing eye, we could look abroad over the world and into the hearts of men [said the British Week{y] we should probably find that the passing away of Dr. F. B. Meyer had produced a more unanimous feeling of affection and of indebtedness than would accompany the announcement of the death of any living man. This may appear to be a large claim; but we believe it could be shown to be quite credible and capable of the fullest substantiation. Of this fact I feel unassailably sure: Men will con­tinue to steer their way by his compass, nourish their belief in the Highest by sharing his ideals and emu­lating his spirit, stimulate their growth in grace by the processes he indicated, and continue in good works by the sheer infection of his steadfastness. Longest of all, I think, he will be recalled as a great and fearless champion of the weak, the sinned-against and the fallen. Meyer was a Christian crusader, par excellence. Wherever wrongs required to be redressed, slighted causes to be considered, or where entrenched and em­battled evil scornfully defied attack, there, too, was F. B. Meyer. "Dauntless the slug-horn to his lips he set, and blew", intrepidly challenging whatever of sinful prowess lay hidden behind the frowning walls of the darkened tower. In this guise---grave and gentle yet venturously valiant---F. B. Meyer will be regarded and remembered by generations yet unborn.

God save his pennon, stark against the dawn,
That signed for moons to stand and suns to fly;
That fluttered when the weak were overborne,
To stem the tide of fate and certainty;
That knew not reason and that sought no fame,
But had engraved about its rugged wood,
The words: "Knight-Errant till Eternity."