03. MAKING A MINISTER

MAKING A MINISTER

WHILE engaged in faithfully carrying out his duties in the Billiter Square tea-house, young Meyer was busily studying in preparation for his chosen career. He rose early, and the habit of early rising thus acquired clung to him throughout his entire life. In the counting-house he declared himself and was known to all his fellow-clerks as an out-and-out Christian. "I found", he testified, in after years, "that my standing---popularity, if you will---was in no way affected by this fact. It is a good thing for a young fellow to be properly labeled, and to be able to give a bright and ready answer when those with whom he is brought into daily contact tease him about his profession of Christianity. The worst possible attitude is to pose as a martyr or display undue or unmanly sensitiveness. A man’s religion, when it is right, fits, naturally, into his daily life." In the evenings he attended lectures and classes or read the biographies of eminent pastors. He received much encouragement from his minister, the Rev. David Jones. It was in 1865 that Mr. Meyer preached his first sermon to a small company of people at a week­night meeting. His text was Psalm lxxxiv. II,"The Lord will give grace and glory", and in a little notebook diary, kept at this period, he recorded, "God helped me most graciously". Dr. Brock arranged for him a trial sermon at his mission hall, Seven Dials, on Febru­ary 20, 1866. There were present, beside the minister of Bloomsbury Chapel, the Rev. David Jones, Mr. M’Cree, and Mr. Meyer’s father. The verdict of the listeners was in all respects favorable, and it was decided that the young man should enter Regent’s Park College. From the first he won the warm friend­ship of Dr. Angus, the Principal, and shortly after his admission wrote, "Dr. Angus I like more and more, as a man, a friend, and a teacher." In the latter part of his college course, he was accustomed to preach once or twice every Sunday, and in 1868 he was put in charge of Duke Street Chapel, Richmond, Surrey. Here he gathered a congregation, and the people pressed him to remain and build up a strong church. The young student, however, continued his college course until 1869, taking in that year the B. A. degree of London University. He then accepted an invitation to Pembroke Chapel, Liverpool, as assistant to Rev. Charles M. Birrell, and so began a wonderful ministry destined to last for sixty years. Of Pembroke Chapel, Meyer, in after days, always wrote with tenderness and affection.

I shall never forget that church, the stately, silver-headed deacons, and the venerable pastor. It was an honor and a privilege [he says] to be near Mr. Birrell, whose saintly character was revered by all who knew him. He was an ascetic in many of his habits, making it a rule to eat less food on Friday, and spending the whole of Saturday evening in prayer. He had travelled much, and often in the evenings his daughter Olive and his son Augustine and I would gather round him and listen to his wonderful tales of foreign cities. I have spent happy days with him at Rivaulx Abbey, Barnard Castle, and other places of interest. After my marriage he came to stay with me from time to time. Mr. Augustine Birrell was three years younger than myself. In my Liverpool days he was already showing signs of his wonderful abilities. I used to envy the rapidity with which he could read a book at one sitting, while I required so much more time.

Charles M. Birrell was a man of strong personality, and he impressed his young associate beyond the ordinary. "Birrell’s personality was altogether too strong," says Dr. J. H. Shakespeare, "and it was not until he had shaken off a kind of idolatrous imitation of his senior that the young minister manifested some­thing of his own power." Meyer himself corroborates this, in a paragraph here appended: In preparing my sermons and addresses, I naturally fol­lowed the lines of the senior minister. This was a mistake, for Birrell’s habit was to write out, in entirety, and commit to memory. Such a method was totally unsuitable to me, and it was, perhaps, a good thing for me that I removed to York, after two and a half years at Pembroke Chapel.

Despite the somewhat hampering effect which the following of Birrell’s pulpit methods had on his own effectiveness, Meyer held the minister of Pembroke Chapel in highest esteem, and always spoke of him in terms of veneration and utmost regard. The chief event of young Meyer’s sojourn in Liver­pool was his courtship and marriage of Miss J. E. Jones, of Birkenhead, whom he married February 20, 1871, Mr. Birrell performing the ceremony. It proved a wonderfully happy union, which lasted for fifty-eight years, terminating only with Mrs. Meyer’s death in January 1929, three months before her husband was called to his eternal reward. Although Mrs. Meyer never took an active part in Meyer’s public work and ministry, she watched over his comfort with assiduous care, took patient care of his home, became his travel­ling companion the world around, and in every other true and wifely implication of the term, constituted herself a loyal and loving helpmeet for the man to whom, in God, she was joined. In 1872 F. B. Meyer became pastor of Priory Street Baptist Chapel, in the city of York. He described it as being "a bright, brief pastorate". The outstanding event in this ministry was, of course, his being used of God to introduce Dwight L. Moody to the British churches, to which extended reference is made in Chap­ter IX. It is not overstating any aspect of the initial fact to say that, humanly speaking, but for F. B. Meyer, Moody’s remarkable mission in Great Britain had not been. Meyer’s interest in the work of the great American evangelist never flagged, while Moody always looked upon F. B. Meyer as one of the con­spicuous spiritual forces of his age and time. In 1874 Dr. Haycroft, the pastor of Victoria Road Baptist Church, Leicester, died, and F. B. Meyer was invited to succeed him. The call was accepted, and followed by a four-year pastorate. This was a rich and influential church, and some of Meyer’s zealous activities irked the staid respectability of some of its chief supporters. This period in Meyer’s ministry had a limit set to it, one Sunday evening, when a well-to-do deacon burst in upon the pastor, who, aflame with evangelistic zeal, was holding an after­service in the chancel of his church, with the protest: "We cannot have this sort of thing here. This is not a Gospel shop!"

Meyer promptly resigned his pastorate, and had in mind to leave Leicester altogether. Fifteen of the young merchants of the town, however, appealed to him to remain, and promised to guarantee his salary. Meyer consented, and began preaching to the people in a public hall, called Museum Building. In the course of a few weeks the Sunday evening congrega­tion crowded the place, even to an adjacent room, where people would sit to hear, although they could not see, the preacher. Large numbers professed con­version and joined the new church, which was now formed in order to give the work permanence. The question of baptism was left to the conscience of each individual. The pastor practiced the rite of immersion, but altogether independently of questions of church polity or discipline. In the course of a year it became evident that a permanent church building was required. Initial steps towards securing a suitable site on which to erect an edifice were taken, and on a cold, wintry evening in March 1880, some three hundred persons assembled to dedicate the land to the service of Almighty God. The memorial stones of the building, known, upon its completion, as Melbourne Hall, were laid July I 1880, and the opening services held July 2, 1881.

Melbourne Hall, standing at the juncture of four roads, from one of which its name derives, rapidly de­veloped a marvelous activity, and F. B. Meyer became, in a real and definite sense, the Minister of Leicester. He was known and respected by all classes, and there was not a townsman in the place, from the Chief Magistrate down, who would pass him in the street without a greeting. He gathered about him a congre­gation numbering fifteen hundred to two thousand, and a church membership of more than a thousand. He instituted numberless activities for aiding the poor, the erring, and the fallen. He developed a great scheme of social service, such as years later became familiar in all large towns and cities, and founded a great institutional church. An extended account of some of the splendid work he did will be found in a subsequent chapter of this book. The town of Leicester is built on a clayey soil, and this condition affected Mrs. Meyer’s health, and finally necessitated her removal to a more suitable location. At Christmas 1887, after a three-week vacation in Algeria, F. B. Meyer decided to accept an invitation to the pastorate of Regent’s Park Chapel, in Northwest London. The people of Leicester, reluctantly com­pelled to part with their favorite minister, subscribed a testimonial gift of £400, which sum, together with an illuminated address, was presented to Mr. Meyer at a great public meeting held in Museum Building and presided over by the Mayor of the town, Sir Thomas Wright.

It is with bitter pain and regret that I tear myself away from Melbourne Hall [said Mr. Meyer, in response]. Nothing but an acute sense of the Divine Will could carry me through the poignant sorrow of saying farewell to the most loyal and truest friends man ever had. "Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee."

Mr. Meyer removed to London to succeed Dr. Landels, at Regent’s Park Chapel, in the beginning of the following year. Here he remained four years, great success crowning his work. He attracted a large con­gregation, drawn from many classes. The church was strong in membership and social standing. Indeed, the church was a wealthy aristocracy, and while the pastor had "a big salary and big lords", his big heart was cramped by conditions attending his ministry. The work at Regent’s Park certainly was strictly denomina­tional, and he yearned for a wider field. During his pastorate pew-rents were abolished, and the seats in the galleries were made free, while area sittings were allotted on the principle of voluntary subscription. When Mr. Meyer had been at Regent’s Park four years, Dr. Newman Hall, the world-famed minister of Christ Church, Lambeth, announced his approaching retirement. Mr. Meyer was invited to succeed him, and accepted the invitation, notwithstanding the fact that the change would involve a substantial decrease in salary. He believed that in Lambeth the possibility of carrying out work such as he had begun at Leicester presented itself. So, leaving Regent’s Park and its fine salary, he went "over the water" (as Londoners term it) to labor in a much more arduous field, on the Surrey side of the Thames.