04. DOWN LAMBETH WAY
DOWN LAMBETH WAY
ROWLAND HILL, of Surrey Chapel, was the son of Sir Rowland Hill, of Hawkstone Hall, where he was born, August 23, 1744. While yet a very young man he became converted to God and zealously labored as a clergyman of the Established Church of England. But he refused to be bound by some of its canons of exclusiveness, insisting on his right, as a minister of Christ, to preach the Gospel, in season and out of season. For this resolve and procedure he was reproved as refractory and, by some bishops, forbidden to enter the pulpits of churches in their dioceses. Zealous for the spiritual good of the neglected poor of London, he determined to labor among them. Selecting a suitable location in Blackfriars Road, on the Surrey side of the Thames, he, aided by well-to-do friends, built Surrey Chapel, which was opened for worship June 8, 1783. Rowland Hill’s text on this occasion was: "We preach Christ crucified" (1Co 1:23). At first Hill was assisted in his work by Episcopalian evangelicals, but, gradually, help from that quarter ceased, the clergy of the Establishment shrinking from the censure with which Hill was honored. In course of time the assistance given to this minister to the masses came almost entirely from the ranks of English Nonconformity. It was Hill’s habit to engage in itinerant labors during the summer months, raising funds for his work, and, in his absence, the pulpit of Surrey Chapel was supplied by the best preachers the country afforded, there being few, if any, noted divines of that period (outside the ranks of the Establishment) who did not, at one time or another, minister within the walls of this famous house of worship. Rowland Hill continued his labors in Blackfriars Road until he entered into rest, April 17, 1833.
Hill never formally severed himself from the Church of England, and continued to use the Book of Common Prayer and to conduct public worship after the manner prescribed thereby. Yet, strictly speaking, Surrey Chapel did not belong to any denomination, and it is a mistake to suppose (as was, generally, the case) that the church belonged to what was known as the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion. Surrey Chapel was simply Christian, and purely independent of all associations, outside, and beyond itself. The trust deed was a peculiar document, and gave an almost unlimited power to the minister to conduct public worship and govern the church according to his own judgment and discretion. The officers of the church consisted of a minister, a curate, the trustees, whose duties related, chiefly, to secular affairs, and seven elders, whose functions were almost exclusively spiritual. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was to be administered twice monthly, and with some modifications, the Liturgy of the Church of England to be used at the Sunday morning and evening worship, but at other times this order of service was not obligatory. As Newman Hall himself put it, later, the church was "broad and spacious".
It represents Presbyterianism in so far as the minister with a body of elders [he says] control church affairs. It is Congregational, in as much as all the business of its various associations is annually submitted to a general meeting of the congregation or parish. There are, moreover, numerous meetings of the members for mutual prayer and conversation on subjects of personal spiritual experience, which may be regarded as a Methodist element. Some of the elders are Baptist, some Pedo-Baptists. No question is asked of any candidate for membership respecting ecclesiastical preferences or polity. There is no form of discipline or creed to which prospective members are called upon to subscribe; but a solemn covenant is read at Holy Communion, on the first Sunday in every year, the members of the church standing and responding with a hearty "Amen" when the minister has finished reading it. The sole bond of action is love to Christ, and willingness to work and worship together in His Name. When Rowland Hill died, in 1833, he was succeeded by James Sherman, a man of tender sympathy and exceptional preaching ability. Sherman had a tremendous power of appeal---chiefly to the emotions and no preacher of his time, possibly, possessed it in larger measure. Accounts have come down to us of how Sherman’s congregations were, frequently, swept as with the very winds of God. With conspicuous success he labored at Surrey Chapel until 1854, when, in consequence of failing health, he retired to a less exacting charge. The pulpit was offered by the church officers to Newman Hall, Minister of Albion Street {Congregational) Church, in the city of Hull. The call was accepted, Hall beginning his notable ministry on the same Sunday that Sherman resigned, preaching from the text: "Who is sufficient for these things? Brethren, pray for us" (2Co 2:16; 1Th 5:25).
Here Newman Hall sustained a notable ministry until July 1892. Upon the expiration of the lease of Surrey Chapel, a beautiful Gothic church was built, in 1876, costing £63, 000, and named Christ Church. Few, if any, ministers of any Nonconformist communion, in any age, exercised a wider influence than Newman Hall exerted during these years. He came to be known as "the Dissenter’s Bishop", and his vogue, for years, was simply extraordinary. His interest in things American remained unabated; he labored, incessantly, in the cause of temperance and total abstinence, and his booklets, of a pronounced evangelical character, attained an enormous vogue. The best known of these is Come to Jesus, of which more than five million have been circulated in forty different languages. As intimated above, the ever-increasing burdens of a rapidly changing neighborhood and of the years, compelled his retirement in 1892. He died ten years later, February 18, 1902.
After a brief delay, the announcement of Newman Hall’s retirement, in July 1892, was followed by another to the effect that the pastorate of Christ Church had been offered to Rev. F. B. Meyer, of Regent’s Park Chapel, and accepted by him. To the members of his church and congregation in Northwest London, Mr. Meyer wrote (in part) as follows:
. . . There is no alternative than that I should inform you of my resolution to accept the pastorate of Christ Church, recently erected by Dr. Newman Hall, and which, in consequence of the promise of the Trustees and Elders to provide a baptistry, I am able to accept without violation of principle; while the difficulties of the situation, the meager congregation, the lessened stipend, indicate that I am not animated by mercenary motives in contemplating the exchange.
There are various reasons which have led me to this decision, first of which is a conviction which has been very strongly borne in on me that our Lord and Master, the Chief Shepherd of the flock, is calling me thither. I cannot get away from this. I can get no other response to my many cries for direction.
Then I was never an ardent denominationalist. Loyalty to your traditions as a church has led me to throw myself into the affairs of the London Baptist Association, but I have often felt these were not the elements in which I could do my best work, and recent events have more than ever tended to make me feel that I could not conscientiously remain in the position into which I had drifted without taking an active part in a controversy for which I have neither inclination nor adaptation. The question has presented itself to me thus---shall I devote the remaining years of my manhood to the service of a section of the Church of Christ, or accept a position which is equally in touch with all sections of Evangelical Christians? and the whole drift of my past life and work has pointed to the inevitable conclusion, that I can only give one answer to that question and accept the latter alternative.
There is one other thing to which I will make allusion. I have often questioned whether I was acting consistently to my deepest principles, to be officiating as the minister of an influential and successful church, drawing a large salary and surrounded by every sign of success, and welcomed in all parts of the country as a popular preacher, while the great masses of the people were living in sin and need in the more densely populated districts of London. An opportunity is now presented to me of fulfilling a long-cherished purpose, and I want to engage in it with the feeling that you freely give me up to it, and yield me your sympathy and your prayers. . . . The clause in the trust deed of Christ Church, relating to baptism, and which enabled Meyer to accept its pastorate without abandonment of his own personal belief, did, of course, affect his standing in the ranks of the Baptist ministry. As Dr. J. H. Shakespeare put it a few years later: "A new chapter began when he [Meyer] quitted the Baptist ministry to succeed Newman Hall at Christ Church. Since then he has been interdenominational and cosmopolitan. Of course, we, of the Baptist Union, have been compelled to make Meyer President, in order to let the religious world know to which denomination he really belongs." At the end of July 1892, Mr. Meyer sailed for America, and was absent from England nearly two months. He returned the last week in September and began his pastorate at Christ Church, Sunday, October 2nd, The morning was grey and cheerless with a steady, drizzling rain falling; but an excellent congregation assembled to welcome the new minister. He preached from the text: "By the manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God" (2Co 4:2). In the course of a sermon of fervency and power, Mr. Meyer said: "Sir Walter Scott tells us how Old Mortality spent his days in removing the lichened encrustations from the gravestones of the Scottish martyrs, until the inscriptions thereon could be read fair and clearly. Something of that sort---by God’s grace---must be the work of my ministry in Lambeth." The Communion service followed the sermon [wrote one who was present], one of the best I have attended in recent years. Nearly the entire congregation remained for the ordinance. Outside, everything was grey and cheerless, rain was falling fast and a heavy mist hung over the river. Church-goers were hurrying homeward, but one’s thoughts were not with them, but with those who were hidden away in the courts and alleys of Lambeth. Who is to reach these? The most brilliant statesmanship and the most enlightened philanthropy can touch but the surface. It is men like F. B. Meyer that Lambeth needs, for it is they who, under the varying externalities, hear, in their hearts, the music of the spheres.
Thus began a great ministry, concerning which the remainder of these pages might well be devoted. Meyer began, from the very start, to maintain the paramount influence and importance of Christ Church as a great spiritual center. When he began, the congregations, especially those of Sunday evenings, were badly run down, the average attendance being about one hundred. A change for the better was immediately apparent; at the end of two years, the auditorium, seating twenty-three hundred, was packed regularly each Sabbath evening, and in the course of four years the membership had almost doubled, reaching the figure of 1,060.
Meyer early began a thorough canvass of his church district, visiting the homes of the people and planning the departments of work which in the course of time made Christ Church so famous. He was especially encouraged by the presence of the old Southwark Sunday School Society, in connection with which there were thirty mission halls or Sunday schools scattered through the district. This society gave Mr. Meyer an entrance into the most densely populated part of South London. From the first, he made it clear that temperance and social work was not undertaken with a view to attracting the people to Christ Church, but for their own benefit and elevation. He decided to continue the accustomed method of conducting the services with some slight modifications. The Anglican order of service, altered and abbreviated, was used in the morning, but in the evening the service was made popular and attractive.
After a while, however, he began to ponder more and more the inky stream of vileness, drunkenness, prostitution, and misery which rolled through the immense, squalidly poor district of Lambeth. And as he pondered, it was borne in upon him, that part of his duty, as a minister of Christ’s Gospel in "darkest London", was to attack and, if possible, to eliminate conditions which made virtue difficult and vice easy. He became a Christian politician. He headed a movement to close saloons. He was the means of shutting up nearly five hundred immoral houses in Lambeth alone! He became a Borough Councillor. In his church he established a club for working men, a labor bureau, a Mothers’ Meeting of eight hundred members which he conducted himself, a Boys’ Brigade, a savings bank, and a Thrift Club. There were Sisters engaged in rescue work. The Men’s Brotherhood, which supplied a large body of workers, was the backbone of the whole system. For the young people there were holiday camps and recreations of every sort. The refreshment department was so continuous that it seemed as if an eternal "tea-drinking" were going on. The dingy streets of Lambeth were brightened. Near Christ Church once lived the terrible Hooligan family, which gave its name to the type known throughout the world. But the Hooligans were reformed; elevated, and cleansed.
Meyer threw himself into the manifold activities of Christ Church with amazing ardor. Exhibiting an adaptability which no contemporary of the early years, and only Silvester Horne in the later could equal, he entered into every conceivable phase of church life. Exceptional as was the quality of the service he was enabled to render in every department, he was (so I thought) at his best in his relation to his Men’s Brotherhood. What a gathering that was, a quarter of a century ago! What a way the man had with him, to be sure! Neither before, nor since, have I seen or heard a man who, with such consummate ease, commanded the attention and compelled the interest of working men to the consideration of moral issues. The facility with which he did it made the whole business appear as though it were a simple, elementary sort of effort, instead of its being what it was, and still remains---one of the most difficult tasks in the whole realm of religious activity.
Writing of this easy intimacy, which enabled F. B. Meyer to obtain a hearing for religious themes, among those who are credited with regarding them, either with scornful indifference or open enmity, recalls a story, told some years ago, by A. G. Gardiner, at that time Editor of the Daily News, concerning a Cockney bus-driver and the Bishop of London:
Look at ’im, will yer [said the bus-driver to a passenger sitting just behind him, as he waved his whip towards the crowd gathered round the Bishop, preaching from the open-air pulpit, at St. James’s, Piccadilly]. Just look at ’im! I ain’t religious, mind yer, an’ I cawn’t stomach parsons. They’re fair pizen to me, as a rule. But ’im---well, ’e’s different. There’s somethin’ ’uman abaht ’im. I’ve ’eered ’im down East, many a time. And let me tell yer, that when yer’ve been a-listenin’ to ’im fer a bit, a kind o’ clean feelin’ takes a ’old on yer---same as if it were yer day orf, an’ yer’d ’ad a bally ’ot bawth, and got yer Sunday clobber on! Tike it from me, that bloke’s one in a million! With equal point and with equal truth that story could have been related of F. B. Meyer. Allowing for differences of dialect and forms of verbal expression, the opinion of the members of Christ Church Men’s Brotherhood, concerning its founder and leader, re-echoed the sentiments entertained by the busman towards his popular bishop. At these great meetings---and they were great---Meyer literally became one with the men themselves. Without sacrifice of principle or dignity; without the barest suspicion of trimming his sails to catch the winds of popularity, he contrived to be a "pal". He never attempted to fill his audience with a sense of the awful respectability of religion, but with a sense of its abounding good-fellowship, and amazingly succeeded. In such a gathering F. B. Meyer was assuredly at his best; at such seasons the tide of his mental and moral influence touched high-water mark. Time and again I have seen that great crowd of men literally hanging on his message of enheartenment; I have noted how Meyer’s tenacious grip on matters vitally related to the life lying immediately around and ahead of his hearers, imparting inspiration and courage to fellows facing and fighting the problems of bitter existence in a great city. Time and again have I seen men of all ages lift their heads in fine and firm resolve as Meyer bade them do valiantly for truth and righteousness, and have marked them flash back at him an eloquent, if silent, answer which, had it found verbal expression, would have been: "By God’s good grace we will!" Yet it was not by force of magnetic emotion that all this was accomplished. Rather was it achieved by the dominance of a great personality, by the looming large of an intellectual force, and (best of all) by the prestige of a brave, fearless, brother-man.
Among the many treasures which, at one time, were preserved in Mr. Meyer’s vestry at Christ Church was a manuscript volume which he called The Book of Life. It contained autograph letters from men who had professed conversion as a result of the Sunday afternoon Brotherhood meeting. The manifest joy with which Mr. Meyer always exhibited these trophies of spiritual victory bore eloquent testimony to the ardent desire which burned within him for the reclamation and salvation of his fellow-men. Through all these burning activities, Meyer was content with a modest salary; indeed, he gave the larger part of it back to the church, to aid in maintaining its various institutions. In everything he did, a true minister of Jesus Christ and a brother to his fellows found expression. He served a Master whom he knew well and loved devotedly, and the sincerity of the life thus centered and controlled carried power with God and influence with men. In 1907 the resignation of his pastorate, which he had planned in 1902 but postponed for five years, took effect, and, almost immediately, he went off on a ramble over a greater part of the globe---chiefly the East---an experience which appeared to broaden his range as a preacher and writer. In 1909 Dr. Meyer received an invitation to return to Regent’s Park Chapel. He accepted it, and remained there until 1915, when he was asked to return to Christ Church. Thus he was twice pastor of Regent’s Park Chapel, and twice pastor of Christ Church. Surely a unique experience in the life of any minister! Once again, at Lambeth, he threw himself into pastoral work, and so busy did he become that, in order to save the time journeying to and from his home, he had a bedroom fixed up on the church premises, where he would often sleep. The crushing load of debt which rested on the place when he so chivalrously accepted the call to return to the pastorate was steadily reduced, and a great work done. May 20, 1916, marked the centenary of the birth of Newman Hall, and a great gathering of Sunday school scholars was held in Christ Church in the afternoon. Dr. Meyer’s sermon, at the morning service, took the form of a tribute to his successor. After outlining the story of Newman Hall’s early days, the preacher recalled how, in July 1854, James Sherman personally handed over to his successor the charge of the church, just as, thirty-eight years later, in July 1892, Newman Hall gave to himself the right hand of fellowship as fourth minister. "May I be spared for many years worthily to maintain it", added Dr. Meyer. In 1917 F. B. Meyer reached "the allotted span", and his birthday fell on a Sunday. By half-past ten his beautiful vestry was a bower of spring flowers, and he had received a sheaf of telegrams. In the afternoon he addressed his Brotherhood on How to be Young Though Seventy. At the morning service the subject of his sermon was Death Abolished. "Death, today", he said, "is regarded no longer as an ending but as a beginning, no more as dissolution, but as emancipation; no more as just a wreck coming into harbor past repair, but as a ship starting upon a voyage over a boundless ocean. We have learned that death is just an incident in physical life, no more to be dreaded than teething or adolescence. The life and teaching of Jesus, and particularly His Resurrection, have taken the horror and the terror out of death." Dr. Meyer closed with these simple, touching words of personal testimony:
I knew Him as a boy. I trusted Him because of the testimony of my parents and of my minister. Since then I have wintered and summered with Him, and spent days and nights with Him. I know what He can be when a man sins, and fails, and when the heart is hard and loveless. I now know Him whom once I simply believed, and on this seventieth birthday this is my assurance---that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him. We cannot wear Him out or tire Him, and our sin is no barrier against His love.
Towards the close of 1919, he felt that the time had come to once more lay down the burden of his pastorate at Christ Church, and began to cast about for a successor. Writing in the Christian World, Dr. W. C. Poole, the present minister, relates how he first met Dr. Meyer at a meeting in Spurgeon’s Tabernacle at which he (Dr. Poole) was one of the speakers. When I sat down [writes Dr. Poole] he came up behind me, and, putting a card in my hand, asked if I would preach at Christ Church the following Sunday. Naturally I assented gladly to the request. Later on I preached several times in the church in his presence. At the end of 1919 he wrote and asked me to come and see him in his vestry. In the course of the conversation he said, "I am now seventy-two years of age, and I have been looking round for someone to cast my mantle on. I think you are the man." Later he said, "A voice has told me that I have met the man who is to be my successor." At this time Dr. Meyer was serving as Secretary to the Free Church Council, and he suggested to Christ Church officials that he take a five-months’ leave of absence from his pulpit, which Dr. Poole was to supply. This arrangement was entered into, and duly carried through. Dr. Poole was engaged to go to Japan for the World’s Sunday School Convention in October 1919, but before sailing, he accepted the invitation of Christ Church to succeed Dr. Meyer.
It was agreed that my official ministry should date from January 1920, and that I should begin my ministry on Easter Sunday 1920 [Dr. Poole says]. The beautiful letters Dr. Meyer wrote me about this time are before me and are still fragrant with most hallowed association. The church records will show that my first official act was to move that Dr. Meyer be made minister-emeritus, and that he be permitted to retain a vestry for his private use. Our friendship during the nearly ten years grew into a delightful fellowship. Again and again he would come into my vestry and talk over with me the deep things in his own spiritual experience. And so, relinquishing Christ Church to Dr. Poole, F. B. Meyer entered on the last phase of his great and worthy term of service. He continued to give of his best to the Free Church Council, through his second term as President, and up to the time of his relinquishing the Secretaryship to Rev. Thomas Nightingale. He went his own way, to and fro in the earth, as an apostle at large, a bearer of good tidings to the children of men.
Yet Christ Church was written indelibly upon his heart. He remained its pastor-emeritus until the end; in its great traditions he lived, in its fellowship he died. Possibly this chapter devoted, as it is, to Christ Church may very fittingly be made to conclude with the last message Dr. Meyer sent to its pastor and his flock. It was written four days before the post came for him, enjoining him to set out on a journey, from whence he would not return:
Nursing Home, Bournemouth,
March 24, 1929.
Dear Dr. Poole---Officers and Members,
I have suddenly learned that my life is closing more rapidly than I expected. I dare not ask you to come and see me, as I am kept so absolutely quiet, but I send you my love. First to the dear Pastor and his wife---who have always treated me with unsparing affection---God bless them both! I pray God also that the ministry of my friend may be increasingly evangelical and spiritual. I am absolutely sure that the springs of religious life are ever rising where the heart is true and pure and loyal to our Lord. God bless you, my dear friend, in your earnest ministry! The majority of the officers were young men in my first pastorate, when we were all inspired by the spirit of self-sacrifice, intense passion for souls, and loyalty to our church---these were the characteristics of the earliest years, and I pray God they may be a beacon star. In a very special way the officers of the church set the pace of a church, and their personal character becomes infused into the coming generation. When I think of the masses of people around us in Lambeth, it makes one yearn to see our church filled with such, and I am perfectly sure that the throwing of the doors open to the simple Gospel service on Sunday evening would be quickly responded to by those who are outside. The love of God, the grace of Christ our Lord, and the anointing, quickening, and empowering grace of the Holy Spirit be with you all. I send my love, Yours affectionately,
F. B. MEYER The last service which the aged and honored minister attended in the church he loved and served so well was on February 1st, fifty-six days before the termination of his earthly life. The occasion was a meeting of farewell tendered to Miss Jennie Street, the well-known Sunday school worker, who was about to commence a world tour. He is described as having been in the very best of spirits, the gaiety of his happy mood communicated itself to the entire company.