04.02. Chapter 2 - The Bending of the Twig

II THE BENDING OF THE TWIG

FREDERICK BROTHERTON MEYER was born at Lavender Terrace, Wandsworth Road, London, April 8, 1847. His paternal grandfather, a wealthy city of London merchant, was of German origin. His father married into a noted Quaker family, his mother being one of ten children born to Henry and Anne Sturt, who were closely identified with the many philanthropic enterprises in which the Friends of that day benevolently engaged.

Thus was young Meyer well and worthily born. Of course, all of us are aware that birth and ancestry ­something we, ourselves, did not achieve---can scarcely be cited as meritorious achievement; that mere family never made a man great, or notable even; that deeds, not pedigrees, are the passports to enduring fame. Yet, good birth is a thing one seldom hears disparaged, except by those who cannot claim it, and there is a quite important sense in which a proper moral and philosophical respect for ancestry elevates the character and improves the heart. Lord Macaulay declared that people who took no pride in the achievements of their ancestors were, more than likely, destined to accom­plish nothing worthy of being remembered by their descendants. And, of course, there is Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, in his quaint way, remarks: "Other things being equal, give me the man with a grand­father." In these regards, few, if any, of the religious leaders of his time had a richer patrimony than F. B. Meyer, and he gratefully acknowledged his indebted­ness to the end of his days. The environment of Meyer’s early days was of the happiest, care-free sort. In after years, he recalled it as being as sunny as possible---a stretch of sunlit years untouched by shadow, towards which he turned as one might into a quiet picture-gallery for refreshment and beguilement. There were long summer days, spent on Clapham Common, the gorse covering it from side to side, and the bracken growing high enough to hide his slight, childish figure that delighted to throw itself in wild abandonment into its midst. There were halcyon days of almost interminable length---so it seemed to his childish fancy---spent in sailing boats across mimic seas, or engaging in games of cricket, as exciting as any that ever drew throngs to Kenning­ton Oval or Lord’s, to watch the historic struggles between England and Australia. Then there were long drives through Streatham and Dulwich, in a day when those suburbs of London were uninvaded by the modem terrace or the intersecting railroads. There was the deep shade of the spreading chestnuts, his father’s home with its long garden and paddock, and, more treasured in his memory than aught else, the house at the end of Long Walk, on Clapham Common, in which his maternal grandparents resided, and in which Lord Macaulay wrote his History of England.

Henry Sturt, his grandfather on the distaff side of the house, was a native of Hassocks, in Sussex. He came to London while yet a boy, and early exhibited unusual business promise, which duly ripened into marked commercial capacity and organizing ability. By steady application, he gradually rose to be the head of the noted Wood Street house of Sturt and Sharp. A strong man who knew his own mind, he created for himself a position of wide influence and honor in the business world of the British capital. The maiden name of his grandmother was Anne Barnard. She was born at Stockwell (now, like Clap­ham, Streatham, and Dulwich, part of Greater London) in 1793. She was a Quakeress, and, as a girl, wor­shipped at the Friends’ Meeting at Wandsworth. She was a connection of the well-known Quaker family of Coventry, a member of which was Elizabeth Fry’s companion at the prison-gates, as she prosecuted her Christly labors among discharged female prisoners. Anne, herself, was a member of the Committee---com­posed of eleven Quakeresses and one clergyman’s wife---which banded itself together in the humanitarian enterprise of ministering to the unfortunate women immured in Newgate Prison. During her girlhood years, she developed literary tastes and entered the writing circles of the day. She wrote respectable verse, and during a three months’ stay in Edinburgh visited Sir Walter Scott. The Wizard of Abbotsford com­mended her poetry, and enjoined her to continue. This was in 1818, and two years later she accepted Henry Sturt’s offer of marriage. The wedding was celebrated in Lambeth Parish Church, in 1820, and led to the disowning of Anne by the Society of Friends. The following letter of dismissal was sent her by the West­minster Monthly Meeting:

Ann Sturt, late Barnard, a Member of this Meeting, having been married contrary to the Rules of our Society to a person not of our Religious Profession, notwithstanding she had been previously advised against it, both privately and by appointment of this Meeting, which having been considered, we think it incumbent to express our disunity with her Conduct, and do hereby disown the said Ann Sturt as a Member of our Religious Society. Nevertheless we feel desirous that, at a future time, it may appear suitable for her to be restored into Membership with us.

Signed in and on behalf of the Meeting, JOHN BELL, Clerk

Despite this disownment, Henry Sturt and his wife continued to worship at Wandsworth Meeting for a number of years. After a time, their boys---there were ten children born of this happy marriage---grew impa­tient of the monotony of a Quaker Meeting, and the family joined Clapham Congregational Church, of which Rev. James Hall was pastor; but to the end of her long life; Anne Barnard Sturt remained a true Quakeress at heart.

She was not only a woman of great spirituality, but of great strength of intellect [writes Dr. Meyer]. Few could write sweeter poetry than hers, and every event in the history of the great family of children and grandchildren seemed to awake some response from her lyric muse. It was no small privilege for the young lad to be allowed to sit for long hours beside her, as she poured into his heart the noble thoughts which were ever welling up within her soul, and which, especially in the early morning, would be so fresh and vigorous. Besides all this, she had a special faculty of making other people’s troubles her own, and of living in their lives; never thinking of self, but ever eager to say or do something to alleviate anxiety, and promote their comfort. In her heart there was a true spark of the enthusiasm of humanity.

Anne Sturt died in 1872, and after her death, a volume of reminiscences and literary remains was privately circulated by her family. One of the poems included in this work related especially to Dr. Meyer, and ran as follows:

Lines Written When Recovering from a Severe Illness and Watching My Little Grandchild, Freddy Meyer, Moving Softly About My Sick-Bed December 19, 1856 My Freddy, when I look on thee, So pure, so guileless, and so gay, With sunny smile and eye of blue, Clear as the blushing dawn of day--- I think how lovely is the trust Which God to man has largely given; So beauteous is the fallen dust, With yet within a spark from heaven. And must the world’s seductive tread Break such a holy calm as this?

Must ought surround thy peaceful bed But dreams of purity and bliss? Shall any sounds but peace and love E’er hang upon that truthful tongue, And where now broods the halcyon dove Be bitter words and thoughts of wrong?

God keep thee, Freddy, in the world, For thou some rugged steps must tread;

Thy Savior’s banner wide unfurled, What cause have we for doubt or dread? The world is strong, but stronger He To whom we now commit our charge; May His good angels compass thee With love immeasurably large.

One of the most noted of the boy’s uncles, who periodically assembled in the house on Clapham Com­mon, was Joseph Brotherton---from whom the boy had his second baptismal name---Member of Parlia­ment for the Borough of Salford. He was an altogether worthy man, and did much to bring about the amend­ment of the iniquitous Factory Acts. The people of Salford erected a monument to his memory. It is stated that he made but a single speech in the House of Commons, which contained one passage, so frequently impressed upon young Meyer by his relatives, that he grew weary of its oft repetition. It ran as follows: "My riches consist not in the abundance of my possessions, but the fewness of my wants." Brother­ton was a member of a religious sect who called them­selves Bible Christians (not, however, to be confused with the Methodist body of the same name). Founded about a century ago, their original leader was in earlier life a clergyman pioneer of the Liberal School of the Church of England and a tutor in one of the theological colleges of that Church. They have a dis­tinctive belief regarding the Holy Spirit, believing the Holy Spirit to be an effluxion from God not a person. The home life amid which young Frederick Meyer spent his early years was of the finest imaginable character. His parents were possessed of ample means and every legitimate wish of the boy and his sisters was lovingly gratified. God was feared, the Sabbath Day reverenced, and an environment that was lovely and of good report maintained day after day. Sheltered from all pernicious influences, small wonder that the children grew in grace, and in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord. Meyer looked back to those days with the liveliest satisfaction, and spoke of them, always, in loving gratitude.

It is pleasant [he says], in looking back over the years, to be unable to recall one moment’s mis- understanding with those beloved parents, who are now in the presence of the King. One long pathway of unclouded sunshine stretches away from the shore of the present over the ocean expanse of the past. It is impossible to be thankful enough to my gentle, loving mother for the careful drilling in Scripture which was her habit with us all. To this is owing a famil­iarity with the Bible which has been of inestimable value as the basis of after study. It was her regular practice to gather us around her on each Lord’s Day morning for the searching of Bible references, and for reading books bearing directly on Scripture. And how can we who shared in them ever forget the happy hours each Sunday afternoon, when we gathered around the piano and sang hymn after hymn; our childish voices gathering strength as they were led and supported by that noble bass voice of my father, which was like an organ in the richness of its tones! It was not what they said, for they spoke very little directly to us, but what they were, and what they expected us to be, that seemed insensibly to form and mould our characters.

Especially was Dr. Meyer grateful for the Sundays that fell to his lot. Sixty or seventy years ago, the Sabbath Day was the dreariest and darkest day of the week for children of a Nonconformist household. To say that many of us, whose fortune it was to be reared in one, dreaded the approach of Sunday, is to put it mildly indeed. Saturday to Monday was a positive nightmare---a literal bugaboo. But young Meyer’s parents made it a red-letter day for their children. The breakfast-hour was eight o’clock. No one was ever late for family worship, and there was no hurry or bustle. The clean linen on the table, the starched print dresses of the maids as they sat in a row, Bible in hand, while the husband and father led in prayer; the bread and butter that seemed fresher and sweeter than on other days; the texts said round the table after the eldest child had said grace---in all these respects the day seemed to begin right. And the talk at the meal was always rather different, as though ordinary topics were by common consent tabooed; yet there was seldom what might be termed directly religious conversation, demanding an unnatural silence among the children. The early dinner at one-thirty precisely, the joy of which was that the father was there and the family complete; the early tea, with its hour of singing first, and its repetition of hymns after; the light supper after church, to share in which was the coveted mark of growing older. It was Sunday, and there was a fitness and freshness in everything being different from the ordinary week-day. At the Sunday dinner of these childish days [Dr. Meyer says] we always had a sirloin of beef and roast potatoes. Through a long course of years, without a single variation, that was so. Even now, when I eat sirloin of beef, especially the undercut, I have a kind of Sunday feeling. I remember that my father always had to turn the joint upside down, and that it was an exciting moment to us all lest he should splash a drop of gravy over the clean cloth. If a drop did go over, my mother hastened, with a palliating excuse, and applied salt---for what reason I have not the remotest idea; but it served as a temporary expedient, and covered the mishap. These things may appear trivial, but they were always associated with Sunday, and that made them memorable.

Frederick Meyer’s parents were among the leading Baptists of their generation, and, together with the elder children, drove in their carriage to Bloomsbury, where they attended the ministry of Dr. William Brock. At that time Dr. Brock was in the zenith of his fame, and Bloomsbury Chapel was crowded. One corner-seat in the area was occupied by Sir Morton Peto, the other by Mr. and Mrs. Meyer and their children. As the boy looked at the crowded galleries and listened eagerly to the prayers and sermons, he resolved that he also would someday be a minister. It was Dr. Brock’s custom after the service to come down from the pulpit and shake hands with the congregation. Once he said to young Meyer, "Someday you will stand at the end of the aisle and shake hands with the people as I am doing now." At the end of the service not a word was spoken by anyone until the carriage reached St. Martin’s Church. Echoes of Dr. Brock’s magnificent voice were still ringing in the children’s ears. But after awhile the father broke the silence by saying it was the grandest sermon he had ever heard, and he encouraged his little ones to repeat what they could remember of it. Often the flood of reminiscences lasted till they reached Vauxhall. On Sunday evenings, in the days when the children were not yet old enough to attend church a second time, the boy would conduct a service of worship in father’s dining-room, having, by way of a congregation, his sisters and an old servant. It would appear as though the future minister of the Gospel must have early developed that gift which, in after days, was his in such large measure, and that he used so effectively for more than fifty years-the ability to reach the hearts and play upon the emotions of his hearers. He was never satisfied with his Sabbath evening dis­course in his parents’ dining-room, unless he had succeeded in making his eldest sister shed tears. She was rather given at that time to lachrymose tendencies, and if the expected climax did not follow the sermon, the youthful preacher felt that it had missed its purpose.

Weekdays and Sundays, the months and years of Frederick Meyer’s childhood, flew by, almost un­counted in their flight. They left behind them, however, a flood of happy memories which enabled him to "have roses in December". He regarded it as being very wonderful that Providence had ordained that happy time, which sufficed to touch the lines of early life into lasting and living beauty.

I believe [he declares] that a man can bear any losses, any sorrow or disappointment, if he has in the background of his mind the beautiful picture of a Christian home. My whole life is embosomed in lovely associations con­nected with my childhood at Clapham.

Then came school-life. Young Meyer’s earliest educa­tion was received at a school conducted by a relative of the family, Mr. Samuel Wilkins. To reach it the boy had to make "the daily trudge along the inter­minable Acre Lane". When he was about nine years of age, one of his sisters lapsed into delicate health, and the family removed to Brighton, the father making the daily journey to London. After a year or two of tuition under "Mr. Peto and his son, in the house which, with its observatory, was so prominent an object on entering Brighton station", Frederick was enrolled a scholar in Brighton College. It was possible, therefore, for him to sleep at home, and so combine the helpful influences of the family circle with the esprit de corps and stimulus of a great public school. At first, the tenderly nurtured lad shrank from association with so many strong, boisterous spirits. Gradually, however, he grew accustomed to the daily routine, and, on the whole, was happy There is one incident of those days which Dr. Meyer relates that serves to throw a flood of light on the sort of lad he was, and of the difficulties he was compelled to encounter and surmount; When I was a boy, about eleven or twelve [he writes], there were some big bullies at my school, who made my life a misery for me. I was a little fellow, not very strong, and I dared not complain of their ill-usage. One day, when they were torturing me more than usual, I begged very hard to be released, and they said, "Well, we will let you go on condition you bring us some foreign stamps tomorrow. If you don’t we’ll spiflicate you." I promised---at such a moment I would readily have promised anything---but I had not the faintest idea where to get them, or even what foreign stamps were. It was a great many years ago, remember; and in those days collections were scarcely heard of. I, at any rate, knew nothing about them, and felt as helpless as the miller’s daughter in the fairy tale who had to spin gold out of straw. I could think of no resource but prayer. I just prayed as hard as I could.

All night the boy could scarcely sleep a wink for thinking of the vague but awful fate threatening him if the stamps were not forthcoming. He was quite pre­pared for being half killed, if not wholly, for school bullying was a dreadful thing in those days. The morning came, but no stamps had dropped upon his sleepless pillow; there were none on the breakfast table; no miracle had happened. His heart went down into his boots, and he dared not speak of his fears. At last [he writes], it was time to start for school. Just on the threshold my reluctant footsteps turned back. "Father," I faltered, "do you know anything about foreign stamps?"

"Very odd that you should ask me," he replied. "In my business till now I seldom came across any, but just today I happen to have some in my pocket. There you are!" I did not wait to be pressed. I darted off to school with them. There outside the gate stood my tormentors, waiting to "spiflicate" me. Great was their surprise when I ran up to them, both hands out, full of the precious envelopes, and, strange to say, their ill-treatment ceased from that hour, and I had no further trouble of the sort. Of all the providences of my life, that is the one that made the first and strongest impression upon me, showing me how true God’s promise is, "Before they call, I will answer; and while they are speaking I will hear."

Such incidents were exceptional, however, and young Frederick’s experiences at Brighton College left him a lifelong defender of the public-school systems of education. The lad may get knocked about a bit in the burly-burly of school, but, on the whole, came out the better for the experience.

How can we overestimate the influence of our public schools in enlarging the mind, in rubbing off ugly corners [he says], in giving a sense of independence and self­-reliance to the youth of England? Even now, as I write, I recall the excitement of the great cricket matches; the frays with roughs and other schoolboys, with whom we had perpetual feud, culminating in the uproarious pro­ceedings of the Fifth of November; the paperchases over the downs; the athletic sports, and the prodigious training that preceded them; the postage-stamp fever; the fossil furor; the expeditions with choice spirits over the rocks and along the cliffs when the tide was down; the opening of the chapel and the daily service. Oh, happy, happy days, whose traces will linger ever as the ripple marks of ocean wave upon the soft marl, which is now stamped with them forever! When the lad was about fifteen years of age, his father suffered some severe business reverses. This necessitated the family leaving their beautiful home in Brighton, and returning to London. The father decided to wind up his business, and pay all his credi­tors. It subsequently transpired that, with a little more enterprise and patience, he might have tided over this difficult period, but his high sense of honor led him to shrink from the idea of becoming insolvent. The result of these losses was, of course, that the adolescent years of his son and daughters were spent in less luxury than they were permitted to enjoy in early childhood. But although luxury and wealth were gone, comfort and modest competency remained. This, Dr. Meyer afterward came to regard as being one of the most important factors in his whole life. It brought out all the lad’s self-restraint, in order to save need­less expense; it took from him the temptation to expect from others, a deference due rather to wealth than worth; it brought about his going to live, for more than a year, with his beloved relatives, Dr. and Mrs. George Gladstone, at Clapham, and gave him the opportunity of meeting the cultivated circle which gathered about this charming home. The beloved Baldwin Brown was, for some months, an occupant of the same house. A tremendous con­troversy raged, at the time, about Brown’s book, The Fatherhood of God. Many of the views for which he was considered to be a heretic are now incorporated in the common faith of all churches. The boy had a pas­sionate admiration for Baldwin Brown, which, in after life, he never lost. He recalled his slight, spare figure, beautiful face, and exquisitely modulated voice, and from Baldwin Brown learned to take a broad and gener­ous view in theological matters, and never to forget the rule of Christian charity. Dr. Gladstone possessed a wide knowledge of the scientific world, and by his own researches into the chemistry of light, brought many distinguished visitors to the house, who opened up for the growing boy new and wider thoughts of the great world outside. There were visits to the meetings of the British Association; evenings at the concerts of the Sacred Harmonic Society; talks about books, experiments, fossils, and applied science. Such influences were invaluable and combined to awaken the interest of the boy’s expanding mind in things true and beautiful, and left but little foothold for the false and ugly potentialities of human existence.

But, amid all this boyish life [he wrote later], there was rising up within the heart, like a fountain from un­known depths, the steady resolve, as yet hardly realized, and never breathed that the life was to be inspired by the one absorbing purpose of the ministry of Jesus Christ. Among my mother’s papers I found recently some early attempts at sermons, and each Sunday night my pro­clivities found expression in the little service at which the servants attended. The hands that reached down out of heaven, molding men, had already commenced to form a vessel, which in after days He was going in marvelous condescension to use. The boy completed his early education at the school of Mr. C. P. Mason, of Denmark Hill. At the age of sixteen, he was faced with the momentous duty of deciding the course he proposed to follow in coming years. There was only one answer for the fateful question: the lad confided in his father his earnest desire to become a minister of the Gospel. Dr. Brock was brought into consultation. This eminent preacher had had not a little to do with giving the first direction toward the formation of the earliest life-purpose of the little boy who sat on the book-box of the great corner pew in Bloomsbury Chapel. It was decided that he should preach a sermon before Dr. Brock. This was a tremendous ordeal for a mere lad, no matter how promising his gifts or how eager his desire to measure up to the occasion. Dr. Meyer declares that he never forgot the nervousness which overwhelmed him as he stood at the book-board. His knees trembled, his hands shook, and he felt as if he must sink into the earth. The verdict on the sermon was favorable, but Dr. Brock wisely counseled that the boy go into business for two or three years before proceeding to the ministry. He accordingly entered the firm of Allan Murray, tea merchants, Billiter Square.

Thus more than two years were passed in a city counting-house, tasting tea, learning book-keeping, and in acquiring habits of punctuality, exact attention to detail, and a knowledge of the workaday life of young men. Time and again, in subsequent days, Dr. Meyer expressed the wish that every theological student could have a similar education in business, for in this way he would learn the real needs and temptations of young men, and be able to exercise a much more effective interest. "By all means", he would say, "let them graduate in the college of city life, and study atten­tively the great books of human nature. It is impos­sible to preach to young men unless you know young men, and possess some knowledge of the peril and temptation of their daily life."