Transcribed from the 1894 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A
LONG LIFE

BY
JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D

AUTHOR OF “ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND,” “STARS OF THE EAST,”
ETC., ETC.

London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW

MDCCCXCIV

Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

THIS VOLUME OF RECOLLECTIONS
IS DEDICATED
TO MY LIFE-LONG FRIEND
THE REV. JOSHUA CLARKSON HARRISON,
WHOSE WISDOM HAS AIDED ME IN PERPLEXITY,
WHOSE SYMPATHY HAS CHEERED MY SORROWS
AND ENHANCED MY JOYS,
AND WHOSE CONSTANT FRIENDSHIP HAS BEEN
THE PRIVILEGE OF MY FAMILY
AS WELL AS MYSELF.

J. S.

ADVERTISEMENT

More than forty years ago I edited the autobiography of the Rev. W. Walford. This book, which fully answers to its name, is a remarkable production, entering into the secrets of the author’s soul, unveiling the struggles and sorrows of a mysterious experience.

The work now published is of a very different kind. It really relates to others more than to myself, and brings within view some incidents of religious history and aspects of personal character more interesting than any confined to my own experience. It presents associations during a long period spent in various work, in distant journeys, and in friendly intercourse with many distinguished persons.

I enter into no theological discussion, or any relation of spiritual conflicts, the results of such introspection, as the autobiography of my departed friend describes. I only give recollections of what I have seen and heard, especially in relation to those whom it has been my privilege to regard as more or less intimate friends.

It was just after retirement from Kensington that I began to gather up the following reminiscences, with a permission that my family might publish them after my decease. They were then put aside, and not looked at for years.

Within the last few months it has struck me that so many likely to feel an interest in my Recollections have passed away, and others are so far advanced in life, that if the publication be longer delayed, few indeed will be left likely to feel any interest in my narrative.

Conscious of failures in memory at my advanced age, I have availed myself of memoranda made when travelling, long before any book of this kind was contemplated.

I have been greatly helped in this volume by my dear daughter, with whom I reside, who has frequently accompanied me in my travels, and been my valued secretary at home. Without her aid I could not have brought these Recollections through the press.

Tunbridge Wells,
January, 1894.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
1807–1828

I was born in the parish of St. Michaels-at-Plea, Norwich, November 18th, 1807. My father was in some respects a remarkable man. For his great integrity, he won the name of “the honest lawyer”; he would undertake no cause, if unconvinced of its justice, and declined the office of coroner because its duties would have shocked his feelings. Of strong understanding, and fond of reading, after living a thoughtless life, he became an earnest Christian, and worshipped with Methodists, chiefly from circumstances—still regarding himself as a member of the Established Church. Two elder sisters and an elder brother of mine were baptised by the parish clergyman; so was I, the Archdeacon of London being my godfather. I have been told that I “was intended for the Church,” and some Episcopalian friends have amused themselves with speculations as to what might have been the result.

My mother before she married was a Quakeress, and used to tell of eminent “Friends” she knew in her girlhood, especially Edmund Gurney, who preached “with great power” in the Gildencroft Meeting House. She was brought up a Quakeress by her mother, but her father was, at least in later life, a staunch Methodist. She remembered John Wesley, and used to tell how he took her up as a child and kissed her.

My father died in my fifth year. Of him I have but a faint recollection. My grandfather, at a distance now of seventy-five years, visibly stands before me—a tall old gentleman with flaxen wig, large spectacles, a long, blue, bright-buttoned coat, and big buckled shoes. He was Master of Bethel Hospital, an institution for the insane, in my native city; and, as I spent much time with him for a year before his death, I saw and heard a good deal of the patients under his care. “Master,” said one of them, “I want to propose a toast—may the devil never go abroad or receive visitors at home.” “What brought you here?” somebody asked an inmate. “The loss of what you never had, or you would not ask such a question,” was the prompt reply. A man who fancied himself King of England drew on his cell wall pictures of ships which he called his fleet, and would never speak unless he was addressed as “Your Majesty.” I once narrowly escaped severe injury from a woman, who seized me as her child and squeezed me so hard, that no violence could induce her to relax her grasp; but gentle words, and a promise that I should be taken care of, secured my release. Alternate severity and indulgence, at that time, in the treatment of patients led to a sad tragedy in the case of my grandfather, who was killed by a man employed as gardener. He was thought to be harmless, and used to mow the lawn. One morning he drew the scythe across his master’s body and nearly cut him in two.

My mother had a dream the night before, and saw in it her father lying on a bed, pale as ashes, which she interpreted as meaning something terrible would happen to him. When, at breakfast time, she was told by a gentleman of what had occurred, she coupled it with what she had seen in her sleep.

We were living at the time in a very old house with diamond-paned windows, a brick-paved entrance hall, and some rambling passages. I well remember the little bedroom in which I slept. There resided with us an old lady, widow of a Norwich gentleman, who had been a friend of the famous George Whitefield. She used to tell anecdotes of the popular preacher—how he called himself Dr. Squintum, and, when supping off cowheel, a dish he liked, would say, he wondered what people would think of his being so employed.

My mother had a strong verbal memory which her son has not inherited; and it enabled her to instruct and entertain me by reciting long extracts in prose and poetry. She was a great reader and did much to instruct and cultivate my mind by her frequent recitations. My education owes more to this, and other circumstances, than to schoolmasters under whom I was placed. However, of course, rudiments of knowledge fell to my lot in the usual way; but my culture in chief resulted from devouring books, from instructive conversation, and from the delight I felt in observing nature, and looking on what was ancient. When other boys were at play, I liked to get by myself and read; biography and history having for me pre-eminent charms. Lord Nelson had been dead only a few years at the time I speak of, and what I learnt about him as a Norfolk man immensely gratified my curiosity. His aunt was a friend of my grandmother, and great was my delight to see and hear such a distinguished lady; the gratification being enhanced by a bright shilling she slipped into my hand. The river Wensum, old trees by the water-side, the picturesque village of Thorpe, Whitlingham White House and woods, the uplands of Mousehold, walled-in gardens all over the city, wild hedgerows, sheltered nooks and corners under weeping willows, cattle feeding in green meadows, and swans swimming on the river—these objects afforded me an æsthetic education.

From a child I took an interest in historical tales, and felt delight in listening to my mother’s memories of early days. She recollected the American war, and spoke of a family dispute amongst her elders, which lasted just as long—ten years. Excitement in William Pitt’s day she brought vividly before me; and she told how Thelwall, the orator, delivered revolutionary harangues, and being attacked by a mob, he was glad to escape by clambering over the roofs of houses. The trials of Horne Tooke, Hardy, and others, and Erskine’s famous speeches in their defence, were in my boyhood modern incidents. Objects in the city excited archæological tastes. The Norman keep, Herbert de Lozinga’s Cathedral, Erpingham Gate, the Grammar School, the Bishop’s palace, with ruins in the garden, dilapidated towers on the edge of the river, Guild Hall, St. Andrew’s Hall, and the Old Men’s Hospital—these had for me a mighty charm, creating fancies by day and dreams by night. The East Anglian city had not old houses such as Prout found on the Continent, but it contained picturesque, tumble-down tenements, and other “bits,” sketched in “Highways and Byeways of Old Norwich.” The sight of these created a habit of looking after ancient quaint remains, which has never forsaken me.

Guild day, with its triumphal arches, carpets and flags hung out of windows, Darby and Joan sitting in a green arbour, the Mayor’s coach attended by “Snap,” and the “whifflers”; the rush-strewn cathedral pavement, as the Corporation marched up the nave—all this gave birth to boyish enthusiasm for the picturesque. Every Guild day, on a green baize platform near the west door of the cathedral, the head boy of the Grammar School delivered a Latin oration before his Worship. What envy that boy aroused in my bosom! Elections, too, were objects of intense interest to me as a childish politician, when Whig candidates were carried in blue-and-white satin chairs, on the shoulders of men who tossed them up, as the Goths did their heroes upon battle shields.

As to another part of my education, I loved to read the lives of eminent people, and devoured a good many memoirs of men and women in religious magazines. Norwich was at that time distinguished for literary, artistic, and benevolent celebrities; and I felt proud as a boy to think of them as pertaining to my own birthplace. The appearance of several amongst them I have still, after the lapse of seventy years, vividly before me—Mrs. Opie, the Taylors, the Martineaus, Joseph John Gurney, and Bishop Bathurst, with several beside.

May I add, the first sight of the sea at Yarmouth I can never forget. It was a November morning in my ninth year. The sky looked angry; the wind-swept waters and tall billows broke furiously on the beach; the hulk of a stranded vessel lay on the sands—emblem of life’s shattered hopes.

Public excitements prevailed in my boyish days beyond what the present generation has witnessed. After the battle of Waterloo, and the consequent peace, which was coupled with an idea of plenty, large loaves were paraded on poles as symbols of abundant food, mistakenly supposed to come as a natural consequence now that Buonaparte was conquered. There arose, instead of this, much distress amongst the lower class, greatly owing to corn-laws enacted for the protection of agricultural interests. Bread riots followed, and I now catch glimpses of a mob in 1816 marching to the New Mills to sack a granary, and shoot into the flushes of the river Wensum, loads of grain and flour. Such tumults were surpassed in breadth and depth of feeling, amongst the upper class, by the excitement attending the return to England of Queen Caroline after the accession of George IV. in 1820. Never have I known such agitation in private circles, as when society split from top to bottom on the question of her Majesty’s character and wrongs. For months there were almost incessant processions from London to Hammersmith in honour of the lady, who was sojourning at Brandenburgh House. Unnumbered addresses were presented to her, and whenever her carriage appeared, it evoked rapturous shouts. During her trial things were done and said startling beyond parallel. Documents full of abominable details were deposited in a “green bag,” which called to mind the words in Job xiv. 17; and when filthy evidence was furnished on the king’s side against his wife, counsel on her side attacked him as a second Nero, and compared him to the infernal shadow in Milton, which “the likeness of a kingly crown had on.” Round the hearthstone families and friends were divided on this absorbing subject; and such word battles as Home Rule now occasions were then far surpassed.

My school days over, I entered a lawyer’s office. He put into my hands “Blackstone’s Commentaries,” which interested me less in what was said about real and personal property, the rights of things and the rights of persons, with the law of descent and entail, than in what appeared touching legislation, and the principles of government. De Lolme on “The Constitution,” I read with avidity. Having to attend the Law Courts at times, I listened to forensic eloquence with great interest; a love for oratory being further gratified by hearing speeches at public meetings when Lord Suffield and Joseph John Gurney advocated negro emancipation and other reforms.

Theological discussions interested me immensely. The lawyer in whose office I was became a Roman Catholic, and, finding me an inquisitive youngster, talked on the subject, explaining the doctrines and ceremonies of his Church. Whilst the information he gave me was worth having, I determined to read Milner’s “End of Religious Controversy,” and other Catholic books; and beyond my interest respecting matters of an antiquarian flavour, I felt the importance of ascertaining true grounds for Protestant beliefs. My master took me once a week to North Walsham, and in cold winter nights, as the moon shone on the snow-sprinkled hedges, plied me with arguments for transubstantiation, purgatory, and the like. I ventured humbly to dispute his positions, and to contend for truths on the opposite side; though the match was unequal between a boy of fifteen and a man of forty, primed by the priest to whom he owed his conversion. Those night drives were useful, and led me to see some of the better aspects of Roman Catholic faith and character, whilst they aroused inquiry, and led to clearer convictions than I might otherwise have reached respecting principles in debate. Here let me observe that early intercourse with friends of different denominations has in the best sense broadened my habit of looking at questions, and inspired a tolerance, not of error itself, but of persons holding error, because they are often better than their creeds, and have in them a great deal that is good, as well as something of another quality. Quiet intercourse in early life with members of various denominations I find to have been a school for the culture of Christian charity.

Removed when about sixteen to another office, with the idea of entering the legal profession, I met with fellow-clerks of education and taste, who proved very helpful; one in particular became an intimate friend. He had been a favourite pupil of an eminent classical schoolmaster, and was well up in Horace. We had much talk on subjects of common interest. His temperament had a melancholy tinge, owing to his state of health, for he was in a slow consumption, but behind dark clouds there lay a sky full of humour, and his conversation often sparkled with unaffected wit. He could be a little satirical at the expense of juvenile follies, in which he did not share; whilst amiability kept him from giving pain to the most sensitive. Our friendship continued until his early death, when he passed away “in the faith and hope of the Gospel.”

Amongst early educational influences which I enjoyed may be reckoned the opportunities I had of listening to public speakers of different kinds—lawyers at the bar, preachers in the pulpit, orators on the platform, and candidates during elections; for Norwich was contested most earnestly in my boyhood. Moreover, the city was remarkable for musical culture. It had weekly concerts. Festivals also occurred; these I attended again and again with much enjoyment. My friends who know my ignorance of music will smile at this.

It might be when I was about seventeen that on a Sunday morning I took a walk into the country with a volume of Chalmers’ sermons under my arm. I read one of them on Rom. v. 10. The perusal deeply affected me, and on the evening of the same day, I heard a Methodist minister preach upon John iii. 16. These two impressions commenced a lifelong change in my experience and character—a change so great, that it led to the abandonment of my former occupation, and issued in the consecration of my after-days to the Gospel ministry.

About that time a journey to London on legal business gave me an opportunity of hearing distinguished preachers, Dr. Adam Clarke and Dr. Collyer amongst the rest—a privilege which deepened my religious convictions. I may observe in passing, as regards my visit to London, that the first sight of it, on a dull morning after a night in the Norwich mail, I have never forgotten—Bishopsgate-street, the Old Post Office, and all round the Mansion House—how different the neighbourhood appeared in 1826 from what it does now! In Waterloo-place, Pall Mall, I spent more than a month, and I can now see George IV. descending the steps of Carlton House (where the Duke of York’s column stands), leaning on a page’s shoulder on the way to his carriage.

On returning to Norwich, my thoughts fixed on the subject which had previously engaged my attention. A few years ago, when conversing with a friend in the coffee-room of the House of Commons, a report was mentioned of a certain Dissenting minister’s intention to enter Parliament, if a seat could be obtained. My friend remarked emphatically, “That would be a come-down.” He himself at that time held office, and was on the way to become a Right Honourable; and when I expressed my surprise to hear him talk so, he rejoined that he considered the Gospel ministry as the highest employment on earth when a man really “was called to it.” I felt, sixty years ago, exactly in that way, and only wished to know that such a call awaited me. I spent some months in coming to a conclusion, and at length felt convinced that it was my duty and privilege to spend life in Christian preaching and pastoral work.

Then arose the question, In what ecclesiastical connexion? My relation to Methodism had arisen from circumstances, but now some study of ecclesiastical principles was necessary. I began to read what I could on the subject, acquainting myself with different sides, and being open to conviction one way or another. I had no predilections, and was ready to be either a clergyman or a Dissenting minister. I arrived at the conclusion that Congregationalism, on the whole, as far as I understood it, came nearest to New Testament teaching; but that probably no existing connexion corresponded exactly with Churches of the first century. What I thought then has been confirmed by studies in after-years, devoted largely to the New Testament and the history of Christendom. I have learned to distinguish between principles lying at the basis of religious beliefs and existing organisations through which they are worked out. The former may be true and sound, whilst the latter are defective, and in some points mistaken.

It is curious that at the time I first made up my mind I knew socially next to nothing of Congregationalists as a body; my chief associations having been with Methodists, Quakers, Church-people, and a few Roman Catholics. I joined the venerable society of Christians assembling in the Old Meeting House, Norwich; its fathers and founders having been gathered into Church fellowship, during the seventeenth century, under the teaching and influence of William Bridge, who resided in Yarmouth; some of the members being Norwich folk. When I expressed my desire for the ministry to two Dissenting ministers—the pastor of the Old Meeting House and his friend who occupied Princes-street pulpit—I met with different opinions, the former advising me to pursue the study of law, the latter encouraging my desire for the ministry. In the end these two friends concurred in advice, the consequence being my introduction to Highbury College, London.

I had from the beginning cautions against forsaking in after-life the pulpit for any other post. William Godwin, the famous author of “Political Justice” and other works, also W. J. Fox, the Anti-Corn-law lecturer, a distinguished public character at that time, had been intended for the Dissenting ministry, and, indeed, entered it. By a remarkable coincidence, both these distinguished men were connected with the Old Meeting House, where I then was accustomed to worship. Their abandonment of an early faith and a sacred calling for the sake of literature and politics, was held up to me as a beacon, to warn me off dangerous rocks.

Before noticing my entrance into college, I may be allowed to mention that the congregation which I joined contained some noteworthy people. Mr. William Youngman was a hard-headed, intelligent, and inquisitive man, much given to theological argument and incisive criticism of current opinions. He tried the patience of orthodox religionists, and was the terror of neophytes. Once, when I dined with him, he commenced talking about original sin as I was hanging up my hat, and went on in the same strain to the end of my visit. He found his match at book meetings in Mr. Thomas Brightwell, F.R.S., an eminent naturalist, whose name is perpetuated in a memoir of a plant called after him, to be found, if I correctly remember, in the Transactions of the Royal Society. He was a diligent student of the Bible, and published notes on the Old Testament, drawn chiefly from the Scholia of Rosenmuller and Michaelis.

In 1828 I entered Highbury College, afterwards merged in New College, St. John’s Wood; the professors—or tutors as they were called in my time—being Dr. Henderson, Dr. Burder, and Dr. Halley. Dr. Henderson had been engaged in foreign missionary and Bible work, spending much time in St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, and Stockholm, where he became acquainted with the languages of Northern Europe. He drilled us in the languages of the Old Testament, initiated some small study in Syriac, and delivered elaborate lectures on the evidences and doctrines of Christianity. He suggested essays to be written during the vacation on subjects demanding research, and he regularly required the careful preparation of comments on the original Scriptures, to be delivered viva voce in class. Dr. Burder was son of George Burder, once well known as the author of “Village Sermons.” He lectured on mental and moral philosophy, and employed as text-books the works of Reid, Stewart, and Brown having himself graduated in a Scotch university. Exceedingly careful, conscientious, and precise, he opposed all bold speculations, and was incapable of sympathy with mystical thinkers. He had a clear apprehension of whatever he taught, and used to lay down as a canon of composition. “Express yourselves, not so that you may, but so that you must be understood.” Dr. Halley was a good classical scholar, impulsive, unsystematic, and by no means a severe disciplinarian. He enthusiastically admired Demosthenes and Cicero, and to hear him give extempore versions of these orators was an immense treat. We read with him some Greek tragedians and Latin poets, and he delivered lectures on history and antiquities. Mathematics came within his department; but, certainly in my time, he never turned out a wrangler. His influence, however, was very stimulative, and he inspired when he did not instruct.

Defects in the Nonconformist educational system were apparent to me at that time, much more so have they become to me ever since; but, to a considerable extent, they arose from uncontrollable circumstances, so many students having had few advantages in their boyhood. I have lived to witness a great improvement in Nonconformist college methods.

It should not be omitted that during the latter part of our term a few of us attended the mental and moral philosophy class of Professor Hoppus in the London University College, Gower Street, that institution having been established by friends of unsectarian education, and numbering on its councils, and amongst its officers, several Nonconformists.

CHAPTER II
1828–1832

My most distinguished fellow-student for intellectual power and literary attainment was Henry Rogers, afterwards a large contributor to the Edinburgh Review. Some of the articles he wrote for that periodical have been published as essays in three volumes. His feeble voice stood in the way of his being an effective preacher; but his learning and ability eminently fitted him for the duties of a professor. In that capacity he rendered high service at Spring Hill, Birmingham, and next, at Lancashire College, Manchester. He was highly esteemed by Lord Macaulay, and Archbishop Whately; excessive modesty alone prevented his introduction to the highest literary circles.

He was a clear-headed, acute thinker and reasoner, delighting in Socratic talk, trotting out an unsuspicious conversationalist, until he entangled him in inconsistency and contradictions, the remembrance of which might be afterwards useful. Rogers, to the end of life, was a humble and devout Christian. Our intercourse in after-days was pleasant, and to me most encouraging.

William Drew, who became a devoted Indian missionary, was another of my contemporaries, and, from sympathy with him, I caught a portion of his spirit; had I possessed the needful qualifications, I could have devoted myself to a similar enterprise.

Samuel Bergne, for many years an able and much-appreciated secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, was another of my fellow-students. With him I became extremely intimate, owing, in part, to an extraordinary family affair, which I have been requested to relate. My father, before he married, had living with him a sister, to whom he was strongly attached. After their separation, she went to reside in London, and dropped all correspondence with him; to the day of his death he could never ascertain what had become of her. Methods were adopted to find out her residence, but all in vain. More than thirty years had elapsed since she disappeared, when one day I met Bergne, who had been visiting his mother at Brompton. “Have not you a relative there?” he asked. “Not that I know of,” was my reply. Then he told me that an evening or two before, as he was sitting by the fire, it flashed upon him how he had heard that an old friend of his mother’s, before her marriage, bore the same name as mine; that she came from Norwich, and that her brother was a lawyer. I was taken aback by what my friend said, and then related what I had heard in childhood respecting my father’s long-lost sister. “Depend upon it,” he exclaimed, “I have found for you the lady your family have been seeking in vain.” I soon received a request to meet the stranger at Mrs. Bergne’s house, when something like a scene occurred, as the separated relatives stood face to face. Yet neither then nor afterwards did she shed any light upon the mystery. She had a husband who proved to be no less a mystery. We never could learn anything about his connections; but, at the time of my introduction to him he was engaged on The Morning Post. We afterwards learned from himself, as well as others, that he had been employed in this country as an agent of the Imperial French Court; certainly he had in his possession a key to the cipher-writing, used by the first Napoleon. He showed me relics of that extraordinary man, and had much to say of several notabilities at home and abroad. What of fact mingled with fiction in his strange disclosures I cannot say; but, after his death, I saw some of his papers, including an unintelligible correspondence between Mr. Canning and himself; also letters relating to private scandals of great people, only fit to be thrown into the fire. He lived in an imaginary world, and used to say that Napoleon Buonaparte was still living. To his influence, I suppose, the mystery which shrouded my aunt’s life after her marriage, might be ascribed.

The four years I spent at Highbury were marked by much political excitement. In 1828 the Corporation and Test Acts were repealed. The Catholic Relief Bill was carried in 1829. In 1830 William IV. succeeded his brother. The “three days of July” the same year occurred in Paris: the abdication of Charles X., and the accession of Louis Philippe, swiftly followed each other; and a fresh impetus was thus given to the cause of English liberalism. The Duke of Wellington’s protest against reform, the defeat of the Ministry on the Civil List, and the introduction of the Reform Bill the next year, produced an excitement which I do not think has been equalled since, though for passionate discussion in the homes of England, it has been surpassed by what occurred during the trial of Queen Caroline. Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, and Lord John Russell were popular idols, their names in everybody’s mouth, their portraits looking down from innumerable shop windows, their busts set up in house after house, their likenesses printed on handkerchiefs and stamped on pipes and jugs, and all sorts of ware. They were mobbed and hurrahed wherever they went, and their carriages were dragged by the populace through streams knee-deep.

At that period the old House of Commons was standing, and went by the name of St. Stephen’s Chapel. Within its walls the Reform battle was fought; and there still lingered round it memories of Pitt and Fox, Burke and Sheridan. I had a great curiosity to see this English forum, and when I obtained admission, with my tutor, Dr. Halley, who explained the building and what was going on, I seemed to be in an old Presbyterian meeting-house, with galleries on three sides, the Speaker’s chair, with its wooden canopy, resembling a pulpit, at the farther end. Members were “cribbed, cabined, and confined.” The forms of the House were interesting to me, and afforded a framework in which to insert images of men in the reign of George II. I had but to put Court dresses and cocked hats on the members, and forthwith the age of Walpole came back to view. A messenger from the Lords, the bowing of an officer as he approached the table, with its wigged clerks, and other matters of ceremony illustrated my readings of Parliament business in olden times.

One figure especially I now recall—that of Sir Charles Wetherall, a fierce opponent of reform. Up he rose, violently gesticulating, his shirt very visible between his black waistcoat and dark nether garment.

The coronation of William IV. and Queen Adelaide indicated a change in that august ceremonial, which showed how reform touched royal pageantry. Though an instance of a double coronation, it came short of the elaborate display when the previous monarch sat alone in Edward’s chair. I saw the procession going down to Westminster, along a narrow street at Charing Cross—old-fashioned shabby shops standing where now you catch sight of palatial hotels—old Northumberland House, with its gardens, occupying the space now become a broad avenue. The beefeaters, the trumpeters, and the footmen in attendance upon the gaudy state-coach, with its royal occupants, were very picturesque. And what a crush there was to avoid the mob streaming down from the Haymarket!

All sorts of reports were afloat, tending to make the new king popular. It was said, that immediately after his accession, he came to town in the dickey of his carriage, and invited, after an unceremonious manner, his old naval friends to come and dine with him. A story went the round with rare applause that, after the defeat of the Reform Bill, when he wanted to dissolve Parliament, he said if the royal carriages could not be got ready, he would go in a hackney coach. How far such tales were true I do not know; but a nobleman, present at one of His Majesty’s dinner-parties at the Brighton Pavilion, told me that, on that occasion, the king toasted some of his guests in sailor fashion, and remarked that his seafaring pursuits had scarcely fitted him for a throne. Then, pointing to the queen, he added that for any improvement in his ways he was indebted to that good lady. The story raised him in my estimation and that of many others.

I must now turn from politics and royalty to what was more in my own way.

The Rev. Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, stood high amongst London Evangelicals as Vicar of Islington, and I sometimes heard him in his crowded church; but my great delight was to walk down to Camberwell to listen to Henry Melvill, then in the zenith of his popularity. His manner was peculiar—he had a curious shake of the head, and a strange inflection of voice at the end of a sentence, which kept up attention. As to style, he was artificial in the extreme; every paragraph seeming to be planned on the same model, ending with the words of his text as a well-turned climax. The preacher swept his auditors along with the force of a torrent from point to point. I heard him at Barnes, when he was advanced in life, deliver one of his old discourses, I should judge little, if at all, altered; but it lacked the fire of early days, and the congregation evinced little of the sympathy which seemed to quiver in London churches at the sound of his voice twenty or thirty years before.

Rowland Hill, though a very old man in 1830, continued to fill Surrey Chapel with a crowded audience. I listened to a sermon in which he recommended young people when they set up house-keeping to secure one piece of furniture especially—i.e., the looking-glass of a good conscience, so that husband and wife, keeping it clean, might see themselves in it, with joy and thankfulness; “for a good man is satisfied from himself,” and, he added, “so is a good woman.” John Angell James, of Birmingham, was one of the most popular preachers at that time, and he occasionally occupied Surrey Chapel pulpit; but William Jay, of Bath, was a more regular “supply,” and echoes of his sonorous voice I still catch as I read his pithy and impressive sermons. When he came to preach Rowland Hill’s funeral sermon I had left college, and he honoured me with an invitation to preach for him at Bath the Sunday following. In 1886, when I occupied the same pulpit in my old age, a lady told me that she remembered my being there more than fifty years before, when the people wondered at their pastor’s sending “such a boy to take his place.” A similar occurrence had happened when Jay first preached for Rowland Hill.

James Parsons, of York, was a frequent visitor to London, and used to occupy for several Sundays in the year the pulpit of Moorfields Tabernacle, and that of Tottenham Court Chapel. Congregations gathered an hour before service to listen to this youthful preacher. He had been educated for the law, and, with a strong taste for rhetorical efforts, had cultivated, by the study of English authors, his own extraordinary gift for public speaking. Almost inaudible at first, his voice would gradually rise into tones shrill and penetrating; and after repeated pauses, when people relieved themselves by bursts of coughing, he would, during his peroration, wind them up to such a pitch of excitement as I have never witnessed since. He was thoroughly evangelical and devout, and did an immense deal of spiritual good. I became intimately acquainted with him in after-years, and found in his friendship a source of much enjoyment. His conversations in the parlour were as full of anecdote and humour as his sermons in the pulpit were of pathos and power. I have heard a member of Parliament, one of his deacons at York, say that Mr. Parsons’ eloquence in early days was perfectly electrifying, and that, as he listened to him at that time, he felt as if he must lay hold on the top of his pew to prevent being swept away by the force of the preacher’s appeals.

Edward Irving occupied the Caledonian Church in Hatton Garden, a retired and ugly-looking Presbyterian meeting-house; but the nobility flocked round him, and it was picturesque to see Scotch schoolboys in Highland kilts placed in front of the pulpit. As I was trying to get in at a side door, up walked the gigantic orator, with his black locks and broad-brimmed beaver, as if an old Covenanter had risen from the dead. An infant lying in the arms of that strong man added to the effect of the picture. His manner at that period was grand. His sermons were carefully prepared and read, every word, but with a blended majesty and pathos which no extempore utterance could exceed; and his reading of the twenty-third Psalm, Scotch version, was inimitable. His favourite word, “Fatherhood,” quoted by Mr. Canning with admiration, and now so hackneyed, impressed religious people wonderfully by its freshness. A fellow-student took me some time afterwards to call on him at his house in the then New Road. He was unwell and sat by the fireside wrapped in a blue gown. He talked to me for some time on the subject of baptism, the right understanding of which, he said, was a key to many theological questions. I could not assent to all he said, nor indeed understand it, but did not dare, at my age, to make any reply. When he had ended he slowly rose from his chair. It seemed as if he would never finish rising, he was so tall. When erect, he waved his hand to a nursemaid, who was walking across the room with a babe in her arms, and then, placing his hand on my head, he offered a solemn intercession, suggesting the idea of a Hebrew prophet blessing a young Israelite.

At a later period he took up peculiar views on prophecy, and on some ecclesiastical points. Then he became wild and incoherent. I heard him preach outside Coldbath Prison to a few bystanders, very differently from what he had done in Hatton Garden. He seemed to have lost unction as well as thoughtfulness and eloquence. On a cold winter morning, before breakfast, several students and myself walked down to his new church in Regent Square to witness “the gift of tongues,” which, amongst other imaginations, he believed had been miraculously bestowed. The building was dark, for the sun had not risen, and the mysterious gloom heightened the effect of the exhibition which followed. First arose inarticulate screams, then exclamations of “He is coming!” “He is co-m-i-ng!” drawn out in marvellous quavers. What appeared to me inarticulate and incomprehensible sounds, were regarded by him and many people as Divine utterances. They deemed them the return of Pentecost—a gift of tongues. At London Wall Church I saw him afterwards arraigned before the presbytery for heretical opinions touching the Lord’s humanity. He fought his battle manfully; and whatever people might think of his sentiments, they could scarcely fail to be impressed with the sincerity and earnestness of the man. The trial issued in his expulsion from Regent Square—poor fellow! It is touching to think of his history; popularity was his snare. It turned his head; yet, after all, he sacrificed that very popularity to sincere convictions. His latest life was an instance of martyrdom for conscience’ sake. Those who condemn his opinions must honour the man.

Dr. Chalmers came to preach at Regent Square. After the benefit derived from his printed sermons, I might well desire to hear his voice. The pitch of excitement to which he wrought himself up surpassed everything of the kind I ever witnessed. His vehemence was terrific, yet all seemed natural. He was John Knox over again—John Knox in manner, more than John Knox in thought and eloquence of expression. He moved on “hinges,” as Robert Hall said, or rather, “like a cloud, that moveth altogether, if it move at all.” The fact is, he felt what he was saying. It went down to the depths of his own soul, and hence it reached the souls of others. The crowd in the church was immense, numbers standing all the time; yet it was curious to learn that the sermon was already in print—in print, I believe, years before. He often redelivered his discourses, even after publication; and Dr. Wardlaw of Glasgow told me his distinguished neighbour informed him, that he tried to lessen the crowds at church by announcing that next time he meant to deliver what they had heard already. “Yet,” with a childlike simplicity the old man added, “they come in still larger numbers than before!” Not many preachers are troubled in that way.

At the time now referred to, religious services were not multiplied as at present; hence great interest was taken amongst London Congregationalists in what were called “Monthly Lectures,” given by ministers who carefully prepared what they delivered. Three come back to my recollection now. The first, in Jewin Street, was delivered by Dr. Collyer, a popular divine, who attracted the notice of royalty, and had the Dukes of Kent and of Sussex to hear him. I knew him well in after-days, when he spoke of friendly intercourse with him, vouchsafed on the part of Queen Victoria’s father. The subject of the doctor’s lecture was “Our Colonial Empire,” and a felicitous text was selected from Ezek. xxviii. 14–16. He urged on his audience the claims of distant colonies, then much neglected; and he painted vivid pictures of England’s commercial wealth and vast possessions, insisting strongly on our national responsibilities. The second I remember was in Claremont Chapel, from the lips of my tutor, Dr. Halley, on the importance of intercessory prayer, showing its place in Church history, as a pivot on which turned events of unutterable importance. A third, at Bermondsey, was delivered by a minister of great pulpit gifts, named Dobson, who discoursed on the topic of the final resurrection. I am not in the habit of saying the former days were better than these, yet I may be permitted to express my opinion that those three lectures would bear favourable comparison with the best productions in Nonconformist homiletics at the present day. Among venerable forms present at these lectures, to officiate or listen, were Dr. Winter, of New Court, now covered by buildings sacred to the law, a man of high repute, stout in figure, and strong in opinion; and Dr. Pye Smith, spare, attenuated, ethereal in presence, Melancthon-like in spirit, and as full of learning as Melancthon, with scientific knowledge which entitled him to the place he held by the side of accomplished geologists. I may also mention James Stratten, of Paddington, who had an eagle’s eye, and a combination of face, voice, thought, and style which rendered him unique amongst preachers,—like Rembrandt amongst artists—rich in lights and shadows. Nor should Dr. Fletcher, of Stepney, be forgotten, whose purity of thought, felicity of diction, and depth of evangelical sentiment attracted large audiences. The Claytons were well-known members of this goodly fellowship. How these and other names are passing out of remembrance!

Looking back to “sixty years since,” I am struck with the difference between certain aspects of Metropolitan Nonconformity presented then, and others familiar now. Indeed, a similar state of things is obvious when we turn to the religious history of other great cities. Citizens then for the most part lived in London. Westminster and the opposite side of the Thames saw, on Sundays and week days, in the same neighbourhood both the poor and rich. Thus pious families exerted an immediate and constant influence where they lived, and my remembrance of Metropolitan domestic life then is intensely gratifying. There were happy homes in London where now want and misery abound. Organised district work goes on, but it is a poor substitute for the presence of godly and philanthropic people in their own homesteads, coming in constant contact with those who needed sympathy and help.

Efforts were not wanting for the benefit of London on the part of Christian people in general. The City Mission had then been recently founded, and students in Highbury College lent a hand in work amongst the poor. I remember a district in existence, called Saffron Hill, full of old tenements now swept away. Some fellow-students went with me to the spot on a Sunday afternoon, and we preached from a doorstep, while women looked down from their windows, and perhaps men below were smoking their pipes. Drury Lane was a dirty, neglected neighbourhood; and, in a room hired there, we conducted a service on Sunday nights. Sometimes disturbances arose, but the work went on. Nor were certain districts in the country round London neglected. There we preached and visited the aged sick, praying by the bedside, and ministering such instruction and comfort as we were able.

Public religious meetings in those days were comparatively rare, and the style of speaking was different from what it is now—more ornate, with apostrophes and appeals of a kind which has vanished away. The annual Bible gathering was held in Freemasons’ Hall, the floor covered with a closely-packed audience. A passage was partitioned off on the left hand side for the access of speakers to the platform, who were eagerly watched, and loudly applauded, as they approached, their heads amusingly bobbing up and down as they quickened their pace. The diminutive William Wilberforce, eye-glass in hand, his head on one side, came skipping along; Dr. Ryder, Bishop of Gloucester, with big wig, and smooth apron, followed at a more dignified pace; Cunningham, Noel, and other evangelical celebrities were sure to be present. Rowland Hill, by his quizzical look, and humorous tongue, could not fail to make a mark; and Burnet of Cork, who afterwards became pastor of the Independent Congregation, Camberwell, was a vast favourite, his rising to speak being a signal for loud cheers. There he would stand, calmly extemporising sentences which exactly hit the occasion, and the audience—all eyes turned towards him—upturned faces seeming, as he said, to resemble “a tesselated pavement.” He liked to compare North and South Ireland with one another, as showing the contrast between a Bible-reading and a Bible-ignoring population.

After Exeter Hall had been opened there arose a tremendous controversy about Unitarians and the Bible Society. Some well-known speakers could not get a hearing, and the scene on the platform was terribly confused, until Rowland Hill rose and put the assembly in good humour, by remarking that he “would accept the Bible from the hands of the devil; only he would keep him at a distance, and take his gift with a pair of tongs.”

In the same place anti-slavery meetings were held. I remember one in particular when, besides Buxton and Mackintosh, O’Connell and Sheil were present. Mackintosh spoke with philosophical calmness. O’Connell was full of invective, satire, and pathos; one moment terrific in denunciation, then heart-melting in tones of sympathy; now stamping with his foot, and laying hold of his scratch wig, as if he would tear it in pieces; next, with gentle whispers, drawing tears, or creating laughter. Sheil, in a torrent of declamation, was carried off his legs, borne along by his own impetuosity, completely overmastered by himself; whilst his Irish friend never lost self-control amidst most violent storms of passion.

Some time afterwards, I listened to Lord Brougham in the same hall on the same subject. He was then past his best days, but flashes of oratory, full of satire and invective against the party he had left, burst forth in a long speech, which, as chairman, he delivered in the middle of the proceedings, to the interruption of previous arrangements. It was, I suppose, by no means equal to his earlier efforts, but enough remained of thunder and lightning to remind one of his eulogised resemblance to Demosthenes.

CHAPTER III
1832–1837

When I first saw Windsor in the winter of 1830–31 how different the town appeared from what it did afterwards! All about Thames Street and Castle Hill was crowded with old houses and shops on both sides of the way, and the walls bounding Lower Ward were hidden from view, except where the Clock Tower, which stood in advance, looked down upon the passers-by. A large plain brick mansion, called the Queen’s Lodge, long since removed, occupied the right hand of the road leading to York and Lancaster Gate, while old-fashioned tenements lined the approach to the royal precincts. On the night of my first arrival patches of snow covered the roofs, and dotted the pediments of doors and windows; over Henry VIII.’s gateway hung a gorgeous hatchment in memory of George IV., who had not long before left this life. It was slow travelling from London to Windsor in those days, especially when the waters were out, and the roads were heavy, and thick fogs rendered the leaders invisible to the coachman; whilst deep ruts clogged the wheels and now and then an icy flood came up to the axles. In the town I heard a great deal about “Windsor of the olden time,” when highway robbers were rife, and gentlemen who took to the road would lie in wait under cover of a plantation, and, galloping over a field, stop the traveller and lighten him of his purse. According to one informant, a tradesman in High Street, at the latter part of the eighteenth century, kept a swift-trotting nag, which he mounted after dark to do a little business on the road, and then returned richer than he went. People at that time, as I heard some of them say, did not think of riding or driving over Hounslow Heath alone; but, when approaching that ill-famed spot where gibbets lingered by the roadside, were careful to wait till a number was formed able to defend themselves against the attack of thieves. The sobriety of many inhabitants in the royal borough did not stand high, and at mayors’ feasts the guests did not think they sufficiently honoured the hospitalities of the evening, unless they drank so much as made it difficult for them to find their way home.

Anecdotes of George III. were rife. I heard that he used to rise early, take a walk before breakfast, and sit down in a certain bookseller’s shop, looking at publications on the counter. But one morning he saw a book by Tom Paine lying there; after that he paid no more visits. Sometimes he said very shrewd things. A Bow-street runner, named Townsend, liked to attend early prayers when His Majesty was present, and to make himself heard in loud responses. One day he was running about after service looking for something he could not find. “Townsend, Townsend, what are you after?” “I have lost my hat, please your Majesty.” “You prayed well,” was the monarch’s rejoinder; “but you did not watch.” The king had a wonderful memory; and once, as a troop of yeomanry rode past in review, he pointed out a man amongst them of whom he had bought a horse twenty years before, and whom he had not seen afterwards.

An old inhabitant, who became my father-in-law, vouched for the truth of some of these stories; and bore testimony, not only to the condescension and familiarity of George III., but to the kindness and consideration of George IV. One remark which my friend and relative used to make as he was walking through the apartments of the castle, produced a startling effect. Stopping before the picture of Charles I., he would say: “He looks just as he did when I last saw him.” The fact was that my relative was present when Sir Henry Halford superintended the exhumation of the beheaded king; and he first caught a glimpse of the royal face, because he assisted in cutting open the coffin lid. The face was perfect, and exactly resembled Vandyke’s famous portrait of Charles I. When exposed to the air the dust crumbled away.

After preaching at Windsor, as a student, several times, I received an invitation to become co-pastor of the Congregational church. The Rev. A. Redford, a man of singular consistency of character, who by his conduct as a Christian minister won the respect and confidence of the town generally, as well as of his own little flock, had been in office for many years, and needed assistance in his sacred calling. He won my heart; and as a son with a father I laboured with him in the gospel. George III., who had a domestic or two in his household attending on this good man’s preaching, was heard to say: “The clergy are paid by the country to pray for me, but Mr. Redford’s praying is without pay.”

In the prospect of my becoming co-pastor, the congregation in 1832 determined to build a new chapel, the one in existence being not sufficiently large; and as a sign of the honour in which the senior minister was held, I may mention, that Church-people, as well as Dissenters, contributed to the fund. The late Earl of Derby, then Mr. Stanley, who represented the borough, subscribed £50. The other member gave a like sum. The vicar and almost all the leading inhabitants were found on the list. The fact is now mentioned to indicate the good understanding between different classes of religionists which then existed in Windsor.

I was ordained the day after the new chapel was opened, at the beginning of May 1833. It was a service long to be remembered. Such services were thought more of in those days than they are now. Ministers and friends came from a great distance, and a large congregation was sure to assemble. Generally the spirit was devout. An introductory discourse illustrated the grounds of Nonconformity. After this several questions were answered by the candidate, as to his Christian experience, doctrinal sentiments, and reasons for believing he had a call to the ministry. A deacon of the Church related the steps which had led to the present choice, and, afterwards, the ordination prayer was offered with a solemn laying on of hands. In my case, my venerated co-pastor fulfilled this duty; and it was interesting to me that, in like manner, he had been ordained by Rowland Hill. A charge to the inducted minister followed; then came a sermon to the people, pointing out their duties. The holy influence of that day rests on me to this hour, after the lapse of more than fifty years.

The fresh impetus now given to our religious work served to stimulate friends in the Establishment, who had so helped us in our department of the one great cause. A Sunday evening service was commenced in the parish church, and a new Episcopal place of worship was erected in Eton, where it was much needed. In addition to the vicar of Windsor and his curates, some of the masters at Eton College came forward in parish work, rendering help by sermons at a third Sunday service then recently commenced. The Rev. T. Chapman, afterwards a Colonial bishop, took the lead, and did much to revive religion in the town. But the most distinguished labourer at the time was the Rev. G. A. Selwyn, then connected with Eton, who was afterwards one of the most heroic missionary bishops of modern times; with him it was my privilege to co-operate in the establishment of the Windsor Infants’ School.

lie would fain have induced me to enter the Establishment, but though he did not succeed in that respect, he ever treated me with a brotherly regard, which I sincerely reciprocated. Before he embarked for his distant field of labour he wrote a farewell note in which he said: “On the few points in which we differ, I thank God we have been enabled to dwell, often at some length, without one particle of that acrimony which often discredits controversy, and proves it to proceed rather from human passions than from zeal for the truth of God. I cannot recollect, throughout all our intercourse, one single word which can be considered as a breach of charity between us. For this I am especially thankful, that when I go to offer up my gift upon far distant altars, I shall have left no brother at home, with whom I ought first to have been reconciled.”

I had a ticket for St. George’s Chapel when William IV. was interred. The interior of the building was dark, except as illumined by torches in the hands of soldiers who lined the nave, and by numerous lights within the choir. When the procession drew up about nine o’clock, at the south entrance, the blaze of outside torches was seen through the stained windows; then the appearance of heralds in their tabards followed: next the slow march of mourners close to the coffin, the Duke of Sussex being most conspicuous; afterwards a funeral dirge echoed from the fretted roof. The silence was further broken by the Burial Service and the repetition of royal titles. “Sic transit gloria mundi” came last, and left an ineffaceable impression.

I was further favoured with a ticket to see the coronation in Westminster Abbey. When the procession entered the nave, officers of state and foreign ambassadors appeared in rich costume. Diamond-decked coats and rich mantles made a grand show, yet they chiefly served to set off the simple dignity of the queen in her early girlhood, whilst a spell of loyalty touched spectators looking down from lofty galleries. The coronation shout of “God save the Queen” needed to be heard that it might be fully understood. Afterwards, a stream of dignified personages, with mantles and coronets, issued from the choir and covered the nave with a tesselated pattern of rich colours.

To the coronation succeeded the royal marriage, honoured at Windsor by extraordinary festivities; and at night the cortége of the bride and bridegroom, on their way to the castle through decorated and illuminated streets, evoked a rapturous welcome from assembled thousands. But what above all other incidents of that occasion lives in my memory at the present moment is the sudden view which I caught a day or two afterwards of the wedded pair in a pony carriage, driven by the bridegroom as his bride nestled beside him, under his wing, with simplicity which gave exquisite finish to the chief pictures which passed before me that summer.

Another incident may be mentioned. At a town meeting it was proposed that an address of congratulation should be presented to Her Majesty by the mayor and others. The presentation followed at a levée. It was interesting to see notabilities assembled in St. James’s Palace at the first public reception by Her Majesty after the royal marriage. Amongst a crowd of noblemen in the ante-room were pointed out, in particular, Dr. Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, with an eagle eye indicative of his intellect, and Joseph Hume, the sturdy economist; both of them much talked of at that period. Others I have forgotten. After waiting we were ushered into the presence, the Queen, with Prince Albert at her side, occupying a place near a window not far from the entrance door. Since that I have knelt before Her Majesty more than once, but how great the difference between the first and last occasions—the girl become a matron, the sparkling bride a sorrowful widow, and the newly-married wife a mother with sons and daughters standing round in reverence and affection.

If I may here anticipate a Windsor ceremonial of later date, let me mention the royal presentation of colours to a regiment of Highlanders to which I acted as chaplain. The colours were bestowed in the quadrangle of the castle on the day when the christening of the Prince of Wales took place. The Prince Consort, the King of Prussia, and the Duke of Wellington, with several other grandees, formed a group under the shadow of the castle porch. As chaplain to the regiment I was allowed to stand near, and was struck with the Prince’s German accent, which he seemed to conquer in later life, when he spoke almost like a born Englishman. The Duke addressed the soldiers in his accustomed plain style, giving them very good advice. Preparations for the banquet in St. George’s Hall, which a number of people were allowed to see, were very magnificent, tables being covered with gold and silver plate. Some antique pieces brought from the Tower were of special interest. In the evening I joined the non-commissioned officers, to whom a dinner was given, and I was glad of an opportunity to recall to their minds the Duke’s address. This Highland regiment while in Windsor attended worship in our chapel, when the band accompanied the singing, and Highland bonnets hung round, outside the galleries. I visited the barracks, conversed and prayed with the sick, and baptised the children. My relations with the colonel and the officers were pleasant during the whole time that the Scotch remained in Windsor.

Going back a few years, let me notice “Eton Montem,” then witnessed in all its splendour. Approaches to the college were guarded by boys in fancy costumes: coloured velvet coats, yellow boots, caps decorated with graceful plumes, appeared on the scene. The youngsters levied a tax on all comers, calling it “salt,” which they deposited in bags suspended from their necks. As royal carriages swept across Windsor bridge, picturesque sentinels received handsome donations from royal hands. The gifts, together with a large number of others, formed a fund for the captain of the school to defray his expenses at Cambridge, whither he was sent in prospect of a fellowship. The procession of boys to Salt Hill, where the captain waved a flag after a prescribed fashion, excited immense interest, and was witnessed by multitudes. The sight in the college gardens as the day closed, afforded perhaps the best of the pageant, for these lads, attired in Turkish, Greek, Italian, and other showy garbs, mixed with their friends so as to form a picture of animated life, with old trees and old buildings for a background.

I had not been long in the town before I became intimately connected with the British and Foreign Bible Society, which laid a strong hold on my affections as a boy, and to which I firmly adhered, after I became a man. Our auxiliary was a flourishing one. Some relatives of Lord Bexley, president of the parent society, lived in our neighbourhood, and used to come over to our annual gatherings in the Town Hall. One of them, the Rev. Mr. Neal, of Taplow, was a constant visitor. He typified a class of men now almost extinct. They loved the Establishment, and, judging of it by its formularies, identified it with the cause of evangelical religion. They knew much less of Anglo-Catholic theology than of Puritanical works. Owen and Baxter occupied a conspicuous place on their literary shelves, by the side of Latimer and Calvin. The Evangelicals were nevertheless faithful to their own ecclesiastical order, preferring episcopacy to any other form of government. Not on social or literary grounds had they sympathy with Dissenters, or from what is now recognised as “breadth of opinion,” but they cultivated union, on purely evangelical grounds.

At our Bible Meeting, with good old Mr. Neale, other evangelical clergymen were present, also one of our borough members, Mr. Ramsbottom, M.P. (who always took the chair), and Sir John Chapman, a strong conservative Churchman, was sure to be on the platform. I cannot say that the speeches were brilliant, though the deputation from London interested us much. First came Mr. Dudley, who had been a Quaker, but was then an Episcopalian; and, to the facts he detailed, there were added peculiarities of utterance, which gave a flavour to what he said. He slightly stuttered; and once, as he described how the blind were taught to read with their fingers the pages of embossed Bibles, he said it reminded him of the words, “That they should seek the Lord, if haply, they might feel after Him and find Him.” Hesitation of speech made the quotation increasingly effective. After him came Mr. Bourne, who had, I believe, been formerly a stipendiary magistrate in the West Indies; and he had a singular click in his voice. He told a story of some ladies who had coloured their maps so as to distinguish, by a pink colour, the countries where the Bible was circulated—thus “pinking the world for Christ.” The good man’s click told curiously on his pronunciation of words; and I used, sometimes, to make my Bible Society friends smile, by inquiring whether they offered a premium for agents with a “diversity of tongues.” The Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne—the famous “S. G. O.” of The Times newspaper—had at that period a living near Windsor, and took great interest in our auxiliary. He was a fine, tall, aristocratic young man, of straightforward character, strong common sense, and a racy style of utterance. He made capital speeches, and in many ways helped on our work; in one way especially, which deserves distinct mention. He thought it would be a good thing to obtain royal patronage for our auxiliary, though Her Majesty’s name was not identified with the parent society. He wrote to Lord John Russell, then a Cabinet Minister (whose brother, Lord Wriothesley Russell, after he became Canon of Windsor, lovingly supported our cause). When Lord John laid the request before Her Majesty, she graciously gave her name as local patroness, and sent a donation of twenty guineas. It is worth mentioning that this occurred at a time when party politics were running high. Two letters communicating the Queen’s kindness may be here inserted.

The first was addressed to the Honourable Godolphin Osborne.

“Sir,

“I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter respecting ‘The Windsor Auxiliary Bible Society,’ on which the Queen was last year pleased to bestow her patronage, which I have submitted to the Queen, and though Her Majesty does not usually grant a donation to those institutions to which Her Majesty’s patronage only has been given, yet, the Queen, taking into her consideration that the establishment in question is in the immediate neighbourhood of Windsor Castle, has been pleased to direct me to forward twenty guineas as a donation. I beg to enclose a draft for that sum, and request you will have the goodness to acknowledge its receipt.

“I have the honour to be,
“Your most obedient servant,
“H. Wheatley.”

This letter was conveyed to me by the person addressed, who added the following note:—

“I wrote to Sir H. Wheatley about a donation from the Queen to the Bible Society. I have received a satisfactory answer, and a draft for twenty guineas. If it meets your approbation, I would wish that the fact should not be known to any but ourselves just now. At the present moment the country is so party-mad, and there is such a determination to catch at anything for party purposes, that I am anxious to avoid giving a handle of any sort to either side in a matter which has no real reference to politics. I only wrote last week from Wales, and got an immediate answer, which I have acknowledged, saying, at the same time, that at the anniversary meeting a more official acknowledgment will be sent.

“I remain,
“Yours truly,
“Godolphin Osborne.”

This letter sheds light on the state of public feeling existing at that day.

In connection with the town of Windsor, let me mention two or three traditions I received from the lips of my beloved wife, who became the light of my dwelling on May 12th, 1835. Her good old father, Mr. George Cooper, had long been a sort of Christian Gaius, receiving as guests under his hospitable roof several men and women of renown. Often would she speak of Rowland Hill, who repeatedly visited her home on his way to Wotton-under-Edge, where he spent the summer months. He delighted to preach in our little chapel in High Street, where the Eton boys would attend to see and hear the eccentric old clergyman, who in his youth had been one of their predecessors as a schoolboy. He would tell Mr. Cooper how he used sometimes to steal at eventide beyond Eton bounds, to attend a prayer-meeting in a cottage, which he could reach only by leaping over a ditch with the help of a long pole. He allowed the good woman who lived there an annuity, which Mr. Cooper used to convey as long as she lived. Rowland Hill liked to hear at High Street Chapel the Hundredth Psalm in Watts’s Hymn-book, and the youngsters who came used to alter the last verse, shouting: “When Rowland Hill shall cease to move.”

I remember hearing how Charles Wesley, the son of the great hymn-writer, visited the town, accompanied by his sister, and spent an evening in Mr. Cooper’s house, greatly to the joy of my wife as a girl. They arrived in a sedan chair, dressed in Court costume. His execution on the piano was surprising; and those who watched his thick, short fingers, as they swept over the keys, said it was miraculous how he played.

Before I conclude what I have to say of my life in Windsor, let me advert to attempts I made to promote intellectual and literary improvement, according to methods then beginning to be popular. There was an Institute formed in the adjoining town of Eton for the encouragement of reading amongst such as had not enjoyed the advantages of early education. A room was opened, furnished with a few books, where inducements to what is termed mutual improvement were provided, and there the famous astronomer Sir J. F. W. Herschell delivered an inaugural lecture, which gave it at once a character of distinguished respectability. I was invited to join in the infant enterprise, which I did with pleasure and satisfaction, and felt it an honour to become one of its lecturers. The effort made at Eton was followed at Windsor. I threw myself into the enterprise, and worked on its behalf as long as I remained in the town. The committee honoured me with an invitation to lecture in the Town Hall, where my effort was kindly accepted by a large audience; a short course on the History of the Castle and Town followed. This, by request, was published in a volume dedicated, by permission, to the Prince Consort. In its preparation assistance had been furnished through books, documents, and advice, by residents in the town, and by officials in the castle.

In concluding this chapter, I am constrained to notice some friendships which were enjoyed by me during my Windsor residence. Poyle is a small hamlet on the Great Western road not far from Windsor, near Colnbrook. Sixty years ago a long line of mail coaches passed every night the turnpike-gate, as cottagers heard the blast of the guard’s horn, and stepped out to see the coachmen, in like livery, handling the reins which guided their teams. Hard by the spot there was a paper mill, spanning a pretty little river, the Coln, which kept the machinery in motion. The whole formed a picture common in the early part of this century, not so common now. Close to the mill were two goodly residences, occupied by two brothers named Ibotson, of an old Nonconformist stock, who could trace back religious ancestors to Puritan days. What pleasant gatherings of congenial friends I met with at Poyle!—neighbouring pastors, and the Rev. Joshua Clarkson Harrison, born not far off, and at the time building up a goodly reputation in London and its environs, were of the number.

In contrast with these bright circumstances, I must notice incidents of a far different kind. My dear wife lost about that time two brothers in early life by what we call accidents; but, worse still, while I was from home one summer, my beloved mother, who lived with me, set fire to her muslin dress, while the servant was absent, and immediately became enveloped in flames. Some one passing by endeavoured to render assistance, but it was too late, and the next morning she expired. Bright summer weather was for a long time after that, to my eyes, covered with a pall of darkness; and to look on the blue sky and the gay summer flowers only made me more sad.

CHAPTER IV
1837–1843

Being disposed beyond immediate pastoral duties to help in religious work outside, I found ample opportunities for doing it. Sir Culling Eardley was at that time zealous in the furtherance of village preaching. Coming to Windsor, he offered to help us in purchasing a tent for services in the neighbourhood. It was procured and employed, but with less success than had attended his enterprise of the same kind in Hertfordshire. I undertook, at his request, a fortnight’s tour in that county, and one evening preached near a wood, where John Bunyan, in days of persecution, addressed the neglected peasantry.

Revivalism at the period now referred to, attracted attention in England, in part owing to the circulation of American books, and the preaching of American divines. A great awakening occurred at Reading, Henley, Maidenhead, and Windsor. Streams of people might be seen on dark winter mornings, lantern in hand, on their way to the place of prayer. Chapels were thronged, ministers were in full sympathy with each other; all worked with a will. Looking back on the whole, I believe genuine good was done; yet in some instances the effect was transient. Conversion was insisted upon, and peace with God through Jesus Christ was offered; but whether moral improvement in the details of human life was proportionally emphasised, and practically carried out, I am not prepared to say. Certainly, appeals respecting holiness in general were not wanting. Rightly to adjust the balance, so as to guard against self-righteousness on one hand, and the neglect of personal responsibility on the other, requires vast wisdom. To induce people to look at themselves and to Christ also, cannot be accomplished without thought and discrimination in promiscuous gatherings. Whatever might be defects in the movement, assuredly they did not come from artificial arrangements. No one can be said to have “got up the thing.”

At all times in the course of our ministry “cases of conscience” occur. One in particular I may mention. I was once sent for to visit a dying person. The home, the people, the surroundings, excited revulsion, as well as a determination to improve a strange opportunity. I found a young woman on her deathbed, and another sitting by, who used phraseology indicative of evangelical sentiment. She offered to leave the room that the patient might unburthen her mind to me. It was obvious some secret of guilt lay on the sufferer’s conscience. I had no wish to be a father confessor, and pointed her to the only One who can pardon sin. At last the dying creature uttered a piercing exclamation, which seemed to me an acknowledgment of sin. What the secret was she did not disclose. Presently she entered “the silent land.” When I called again, I intimated to her attendant my surprise at what she had said, for I could not doubt that she was leading an immoral life. She frankly confessed she had fallen into vice, after expressing a belief that she had been converted, and had been a “child of God.” The incident was affecting, instructive, and admonitory.

Public questions interested me much, and I took part in those which belonged to philanthropy and religion. Amongst them at the time I speak of, negro emancipation stood foremost. From boyhood it laid hold on me. Speeches at Norwich, by Joseph John Gurney and others, had left an abiding impression; and when the great controversy became ripe for settlement, I threw myself into the struggle. The excitement throughout the nation was intense, and it laid hold chiefly of the religious section of the British public. Missionaries had been at work amongst negroes, and had seen the horrors of the system. The persecution of Smith, a missionary in Demerara, who died in prison, evoked passionate sympathy; and the appeal of Knibb, another missionary, who came over as an advocate of emancipation, struck the nail on the head, and drove it into the centre of this colossal wrong. Nothing is more manifest, to those who witnessed what went on in England half a century ago for slave emancipation, than that, however manifold the arguments employed, however numerous the methods and agencies in motion, it was Christianity which lay at the heart of the movement. Quakers were amongst the most zealous co-operators in this advocacy for freedom, and I much enjoyed the fellowship into which I was brought with followers of George Fox, early family associations strengthening bonds of friendship between us. Deputations went up to London to wait upon Mr. Stanley, Colonial Secretary, afterwards Earl of Derby, and I well remember the crowd gathered in a large room in Downing Street, to strengthen the hands of that gentleman in his chivalrous enterprise. The history of steps which led to the final victory it is not for me to tell in these pages, but I may mention the third reading by the Lords of the Emancipation Bill in August 1833. It filled multitudes with joy; and on August 1st, 1834, the Act took effect, when a solemn celebration of the event occurred in England, as well as the West India Islands. That day I preached at Windsor from Jer. xl. 4:—“And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which were upon thine hand.”

In 1839 the Anti-Corn Law League took shape. I distinctly recollect the scene presented at a great bazaar in Covent Garden Theatre, in aid of Free Trade, when there was a wonderful gathering of notabilities and other folks. Stalls, articles, and ornaments, were varied and imposing; and as that exhibition appeared before the present age of bazaars was fully inaugurated, it had a more dazzling and bewildering effect than efforts of the kind can have now that they have become so common.

Dissenters’ grievances, too, were exciting subjects in those days. Certain disabilities had an irritating effect on those who felt them, and legislation was sought for their removal. No doubt, in the heat of the conflict things were said on both sides which, on calm review, cannot be justified; and I am in my old age more than ever convinced that union of the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re, is the best method of conducting controversy.

My holidays, whilst I was a Windsor pastor, were spent in preaching; but there were two exceptions, when I broke ground as a tourist. Travelling in Nottinghamshire and the neighbouring counties, I visited Newstead Abbey with a fresh remembrance of Washington Irving’s description of the place. I had a gossip with an old domestic, who told me stories of Lord Byron, whom she knew as a boy, and used to carry on her back on account of his lameness. He pricked and otherwise tormented the patient creature, so as, on one occasion, to provoke her so much, that she boldly ventured on a rather amusing act of retaliation. Leaning over her shoulders to look into an old chest full of feathers, she, to use her own words, “copped him over, and he came out for all the world just like a young owlet.” What I then heard of his early days gave me an unfavourable idea of that child of genius, so caressed and tormented, so flattered and persecuted, so early thrown into unfortunate circumstances, and altogether so badly brought up. What a contrast between two poets, whose memories came vividly before me during this tour!—Byron and Scott, both of them lame for life; one a stranger to the other’s purity. Years afterwards I heard Dean Stanley preach a sermon to children, in which, with his characteristic felicity of thought, he spoke of the contrasted influences of physical deformity in these two instances—how the club foot of the first was an occasion of mortified pride and ill-nature, and the club foot of the second was borne with patience and contentment. The story of Byron’s club foot is now treated by some I hear as a popular delusion; but, at all events, he had something the matter with his foot which irritated his temper and made him disagreeable. Therefore the Dean’s moral lesson remains untouched. In connection with good humour and kindness, a physical defect may be only a foil to set off moral excellence.

After passing through Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland in company with my dear friend Harrison, we reached Edinburgh by coach at midnight to find ourselves in the morning amidst grand preparations for the Queen’s first arrival in the Scottish capital. The view at noon from Calton Hill, as the arrangements for receiving royalty had reached their acme, was most magnificent. Princes Street, from end to end, presented multitudes of people in holiday attire, military uniforms, tartan, kilts and feathered bonnets, gave rich plays of colour. The crowd waited and waited, but no Queen appeared. Night fell, and the expectants went to bed disappointed. Next morning every one was taken by surprise, for Her Majesty, having been detained at sea, landed at Leith, whilst the Lord Provost was still asleep. My friend and I afterwards went to Stirling, and identified historic points which dot the field of Bannockburn—then to Perth, Dunkeld, Killiecrankie, and Blair Atholl.

In the course of numerous journeys I had opportunities of seeing the real state of Nonconformity in rural districts. It was then much better than some people suppose. There were then families of influence identified with country places of worship, who have not left behind them sympathetic representatives. The revival of religion in the National Church has produced a considerable change in the relative position of ecclesiastical parties. Sunday evening services in cathedral and parish church, and the pastoral activity of incumbents and curates, with numerous missionary and other organisations, have produced effects very visible in the eyes of old people, who can look back on the religious condition of England during the first quarter of the present century.

My first Continental tour occurred before I left Windsor. I visited a family at Rotterdam into which a fellow-student had married, and had pleasant insights into Dutch life. After peeps at the Hague, Leyden, and Amsterdam, abounding in a gratification of antiquarian and historical taste, slowly proceeding up the Rhine, I felt all the enthusiasm incident to a young traveller as he first gazes on castle-crowned hills which line the river. Many and many a ramble since on those romantic banks have increased rather than diminished my admiration of the Rhine.

Friendships have through life been essential to my enjoyment, I might almost say to my existence. Intimate acquaintance with people of remarkable character in my Windsor days was a source of intense gratification.

The Rev. W. Walford, for some years minister of a Congregational Church at Yarmouth, then classical tutor at Homerton College, and finally pastor of the old Meeting House, Uxbridge, was one of the most remarkable men I ever knew. I see him now, with his handsome face, bald head, well-knit form, keen eyes, compressed lips, rather tottering in gait, and brusque in manner. What walks and talks we had! In conversation he expressed himself with singular accuracy on theological and metaphysical subjects. He had Butler and Jonathan Edwards at his fingers’ ends, and could pack into a few words some of their most abstruse definitions and arguments. He had a habit of turning round when you walked with him, and standing face to face, when he would, in a most luminous style, state his propositions and adduce his proofs. He read Sir William Hamilton with immense admiration, though he did not in all respects adopt his views; and, at a period when looseness of religious thought was becoming prevalent, it was a treat to see him make a stand, figuratively as well as literally, for a distinct utterance of what people believe. From no man’s conversation have I derived more instruction and advantage. I can never forget his reading to me, with tears in his eyes, a translation he had made of Plato’s “Phaedo.”

One day an old gentleman called to say he was about to reside at Old Windsor, and intended joining our worship at William Street Chapel. He had a cheerful, lively expression of countenance, with a few short grey locks on each side of his bald head, and showed in his gait signs of paralytic seizure. Full of humour and kindness, he made a pleasant impression. Thus began my friendship with Mr. Samuel Bagster of famous Polyglot memory. Notwithstanding his lameness, he could at that time walk from Old Windsor to our house with the aid of a stick, only asking a helping hand at the commencement of his pedestrian attempts. Thus started off he would steadily pursue his journey dressed in a short cloak and wearing a very broad-brimmed hat. He was one of the chattiest, most amusing friends I ever had. He possessed a large fund of anecdotes, which he knew I liked; and from time to time, as I visited his house, he doled them out with no niggard hand. He had lived on books, and books were his delight. Many choice editions in handsome bindings lined the walls in his rambling, quaint sort of residence, where also flowers, gathered in his little garden, formed conspicuous ornaments. There he would sit nursing his foot, complaining of pain in his great toe, and would launch out for a pleasant sail over the lake of memory, and take me from one point to another. The old books he had bought and sold, the circumstances connected with the origin of his Polyglot and Hexapla, the fire which occurred on his premises in Paternoster Row—these he would narrate in a characteristic way.

He often talked about the French Revolution and events connected with it in our own country. Clubs of a more than questionable description were established, and he told me that, invited by a person of his own age to attend a meeting held in an obscure street, he was surprised, on his entrance, to find a number of men ranged on either side of a room, sitting by long tables, with a cross one at the upper end. There sat the president for the evening. Several foaming tankards were brought in, when the president calling on the company to rise, took up one of the pots, and striking off the foam which crested the porter, gave as a toast: “So let all . . . perish.” The blank was left to be filled up as each drinker pleased. The avowed dislike to kings entertained by these boon companions suggested to Mr. Bagster the word “kings” or “tyrants”; and at once he gladly left the place, not a little alarmed, lest he should be suspected of treasonable designs. With characteristic caution, he took care not to observe the thoroughfare through which he passed on his way back, that he might be able conscientiously to declare he did not know the situation of the place. He also related that his father had a workman in his employ, whom he knew to be a disaffected subject. He expostulated with him on the horrors of a revolution as illustrated in France, and dwelt upon the confusion which would ensue upon outbreaks on established order. The man lifted up the skirt of his threadbare coat against the window, and significantly asked: “Pray, sir, what have I to lose?” My friend was no Radical, no Whig, but a Tory of the old-fashioned type, who approved of things as they were, without, however, any consciousness of wishing to tyrannise over other people. He was a great admirer of Izaak Walton, and had made a collection of drawings illustrative of his “Compleat Angler,” of which he intended to publish a new edition, with a life of the author. When he had completed his “Comprehensive Bible,” which, by permission, he dedicated to George IV., he was allowed personally to present it to His Majesty; and I have heard him say that on that occasion he was introduced to the royal presence by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The publisher was already paralysed, and could walk only with a tottering step; but the Primate gave him his arm, and led him up to the so-called first gentleman of Europe, who received him very graciously, and accepted at his hands the handsomely-bound volume.

There were other people I met with at Windsor whom I may mention. At the house of Dr. Ferguson, a Scotch physician of good birth and high culture, I met with his son-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Moultrie, Incumbent at Rugby, and friend of Dr. Arnold. He was a man of genius and piety, and gave a conviction of personal goodness, which made me value his volume of poems even more than I had done before. I like to look at authors through their books, and then again at books through their authors. In some cases the personal damages the literary judgment; but in many cases I have enjoyed works much more after knowing the worker.

Mr. Jesse, the naturalist, was another of my acquaintances. He held an office in connection with royal parks and palaces, and I spent pleasant hours as he drove me in his little pony gig from Windsor to Hampton Court, in the restoration of which he felt great delight. An amiable disposition, gentlemanly manners, and large information, made him an excellent companion. From the account he gave of his early life I found his father was a clergyman, a friend of Lady Huntingdon’s, and an occasional preacher at Spafields Chapel. Mr. Stark, the eminent landscape artist, was one of my hearers, a man of decided religious convictions, and conscientious in art as in other things. He and Mr. Bristow, the animal painter, were amongst my friends; and in Windsor Forest they found subjects for their united skill, Stark putting in the trees, Bristow dogs and horses.

Amongst London friends at that time, and long afterwards was John Bergne, brother to my fellow-student Samuel Bergne, already mentioned. Clerk in the Foreign Office, he rose to the superintendence of the Treaty Department. Full of knowledge respecting European affairs, he often amused me by his taciturnity whenever they came on the carpet,—abstinence from communication of office secrets having become to him second nature. His mind was rich with information on various subjects; and in the science of numismatics he was well skilled. His collection of coins was of great value, including examples of English money from the earliest time, and valuable portions of “great finds” in Greek states. His affluent conversation, overflowing with humour, his rapid utterance and command of language surpassed what I have heard from many good talkers, whom it has been my fortune to meet with during a long life.

With other remarkable persons, I became intimately acquainted after my removal to Kensington. These I shall notice in their proper place.

In 1833 arose the Puseyite or Tractarian controversy as it was called. Of this a full account is given by Dr. Newman, in his “Apologia”—an account, of course, proceeding from his own point of view. The strife both inside and outside the University of Oxford, where the masters of the Tractarian movement lived and worked, was of the hottest kind; and those engaged in it on both sides, under the influence of party feeling, failed to appreciate each other’s position, and to estimate correctly the tendencies involved. The Anglo-Catholics did not believe they were so near Rome; the staunch Protestants did not calculate on the wonderful effect which the controversy would have in stirring up the latent energies of the Church, and in modifying forms of worship, even amongst Evangelical parties. An amusing story I remember hearing when the famous Tract, “No. 90,” was published. The then Bishop of Winchester (I think) wished to see it, and wrote to his bookseller to forward a copy, but from illegibility of penmanship “No 90” was mistaken for “No go”; and the poor bookseller, after inquiring in the Row for a pamphlet with that title, wrote to inform his Lordship, that there was no such tract in the market. The story ran its round, and the Evangelicals pronounced “No. 90” “No go.”

Dr. Newman condensed within the space of a few years the Romeward tendencies of Christendom during successive ages: starting with Tractarian doctrines, it was consistent for him to become a Roman Catholic in the sequel; and Dr. Pusey, in pausing where he did, never explained the grounds of his practical inconsistency. I felt it my duty to point out the unscriptural character of the Tractarian movement in a course of lectures, afterwards published under the title of “Tractarian Theology.”

CHAPTER V
1843–1850

I was quite satisfied with my position at Windsor and had no thoughts of leaving it, when Dr. Vaughan of Kensington accepted the principalship of Lancashire College, and at the same time overtures were made by his Church to me that I should succeed him in the vacant pastorate. I can truly say that my desires were on the side of remaining where I was. I only wished to know the Divine Master’s will. I felt unwilling to accept what looked like preferment; but after visiting Kensington and preaching there, the path before me appeared pretty plain. I accepted the call I received. “It seems like a dream,” I wrote to my predecessor. “Yes,” he replied; “but it is like Joseph’s—a dream from the Lord.”

It was a curious coincidence that the Church at Windsor and the Church at Kensington were both in their origin connected with a coachman in the service of George III. His name was Saunders, and he enjoyed his royal master’s confidence. They used to talk together about religion, and, encouraged by the King’s good opinion, the servant put tracts in the carriage pocket; and when His Majesty had read them he asked for more. As the royal residence was sometimes in town, and sometimes at Windsor, the home of Saunders varied accordingly, and he felt an interest in both neighbourhoods, especially as it regarded the humbler class. He probably caught the revivalist spirit prevalent a hundred years ago, and did what he could to gather people together for religious impression. In this way a room called “The Hole in the Wall” came to be the cradle of Windsor Congregationalism; and a “humble dwelling,” mentioned by the Kensington historian, was birthplace to the congregation which afterwards assembled in Hornton Street. “When the faithful servant begged permission, on account of age, to retire from His Majesty’s service, that he might reside at Kensington, it was not without an expression of regret on the part of the monarch; but the request was granted, and as often as the King afterwards passed through the place he took the most kind and condescending notice of his coachman.” [77]

In “Poems by John Moultrie,” there occur these lines—

“I have a son, a third sweet son, his age I cannot tell,
For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to dwell.”

During the first three years of my Kensington residence, there were three little children taken from us, and translated to that mysterious world, where our time reckonings are lost in an incomprehensible eternity. Altogether six children were brought with us from Windsor; and to these were added five more in the first few years after our removal—making the domestic flock at the time I speak of eleven. Of that number only four remain on earth at this time, [78]—a fact which tells of joy, and of much sorrow, at the hands of our Heavenly Father. Three were taken from us between 1843 and 1849.

During my Windsor life I began to take a deep interest in the writings of Dr. Arnold, and afterwards, when his Life appeared, written by his admiring pupil, Dr. Stanley, that interest increased. As I read these memoirs I little thought that I should share in the Biographer’s friendship; and my admiration of the two men was so deep that I attribute any improvement in my mind and character since, greatly to their combined influence. Through life I have been more than ordinarily benefited by their works, and as to the Master of Rugby School, I have always been eager to learn what I could from any Rugby pupils I happened to know. At this moment there comes to my recollection an anecdote related by a friend who had been a Rugby boy. He told me that some accident happened at chapel in the upsetting of Bibles or prayer-books, and their fall from the gallery created much disturbance. Boys who were suspected of having a share in causing what happened were called up by the Master, and my informant was of the number. He told me that Dr. Arnold trusted a boy who denied any offence of which he was accused until clear proof appeared to the contrary. This was designed to keep up mutual confidence. In the instance under notice the boy accused felt sure that Dr. Arnold was not satisfied with the denial; yet he allowed the matter to pass, because he would promote confidence between master and pupil. The anecdote confirms what I have since read. He was never on the watch for boys, and he so encouraged straightforward and manly action, in trivial as in great things, that there grew up a general feeling, that “It was a shame to tell Arnold a lie, for he always believed one.” [80]

Kensington, at the time of which I speak, was famous for its number of ladies’ schools, and in them several daughters of Nonconformist parents were receiving their education. They formed an interesting part of my congregation, and my pastoral relation to them prepared for lifelong friendships. Of this group of families were the Dawsons of Lancaster, the Rawsons of Leeds, the Cheethams of Staleybridge, and the Sharmans of Wellingborough. With all of them I became intimate, and their friendships have proved no small comfort to me in later life. Parents of these families were distinguished by usefulness in many ways. Mr. Rawson was the well-known gifted hymn-writer; and Mr. Cheetham was M.P., and took an active part in the repeal of the Corn Laws. Daughters of these gentlemen were under my ministerial care while pupils at Kensington, and afterwards became earnest Christian workers in different ways, and their continued affection is a comfort to me in my old age. A son of Mr. Dawson married a daughter of Mr. Rawson, and immediately they went to China for mission work; but the broken-down health of the husband compelled his speedy return to England. He is now doing good work as one of the London City Mission secretaries.

In connection with Kensington, I would further mention other helpers: Mr. and Mrs. Coombs of Clapham were so. Mr. Coombs helped me especially by a large donation to the fund for building my new chapel. In other ways I was brought into relation with him. He was Treasurer of New College, and an active member of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, and the London Missionary Society. His intelligence, aptitude for conversation, and kind-hearted intercourse made his friendship a privilege of more than ordinary value. It was intensified by his family relationship to some of my Kensington flock, the Salters and the Talfourds, whom I shall mention elsewhere in these reminiscences. Amidst preaching and pastoral work, it was a relief to spend a short holiday under Mr. Coombs’ hospitable roof at Clapham, where I found a large collection of books. He died before I left Kensington, but my friendship with his wife and daughter continued till they died.

Archdeacon Sinclair, who had accepted the vicarage just before I removed to Kensington, paid me a visit of welcome, and thus laid a foundation for subsequent intercourse. He was son of the well-known Sir John Sinclair, and brother of the authoress, Catherine Sinclair. All the family were remarkably tall. The Archdeacon was a man of eminent culture, and of extensive aristocratic connections. His great-grandmother, though a loyalist, was the noted lady who aided in the escape of Prince Charlie, after the battle of Culloden. This same ancestress lay buried in Kensington Church, in front of the pulpit. Archdeacon Sinclair was well read in theology, widely acquainted with the controversies of the day, and a thoroughly orthodox Churchman; also rich in family and Scotch traditions. He told me the MSS. of David Hume came into his hands, and from perusal of them he was confirmed in his suspicion, that the celebrated historian and philosopher had no deep convictions of any kind, but only played with subjects he handled, doubtful about his own doubts.

Returning to the notice of my ministerial life, it comes in chronological order to mention that we had at Kensington, in 1843, British schools, which, being undenominational, received help from Church-people and Dissenters. They had long been patronised by distinguished personages, and not long after I had become resident in the neighbourhood application was made by the committee to the Duchess of Inverness, widow of the Duke of Sussex, to become patroness of the schools. This circumstance led her Grace to invite me to call on her, which I did. I was shown into an old-fashioned drawing-room, furnished in the style of the last century, the walls being decorated with portraits of George III. and members of his family. Entering the apartment was stepping back, as it were, to “sixty years since.” An old lady of diminutive stature, in black silk and a small cap, presently appeared, who entered into pleasant conversation about her late husband, and Mr. Ramsbottom, M.P. for Windsor, whom I knew very well. Both of them were zealous Freemasons. Her Grace had caught their spirit, as far as a lady could do it, and inquired of me whether I was a Mason. No doubt, could I have answered in the affirmative, I should have risen in her estimation. My visit was fruitful in reference to our schools, for she sent a donation of £20, apologising for not doing more at that time. Kensington Palace was then inhabited by other distinguished persons; and one of the secretaries of the Propagation Society, I think, at that time performed the duties of a chaplain to those resident within the walls.

It is appropriate in connection with the early part of my Kensington life to mention religious societies with which I closely associated myself. There is no doubt some truth in the lines that,

“Distance lends enchantment to the view,
And clothes the mountain with an azure hue.”

In looking at benevolent work, remote in time or place, we are apt to paint it in fairest colours; but of the great importance of the religious work going on fifty years ago in London and the neighbourhood, there can be no question whatever.

The British and Foreign Bible Society I always regarded as lying at the very foundation of our religious activity. It had a comprehensive Auxiliary in the West End from the commencement of the society’s operations, and annual meetings were held in the Haymarket, under the presidency of royal dukes. This Auxiliary was broken into parts, and Kensington had a leading place amongst them. Traditions of earlier days were cherished when I began to live in the royal suburb, and they invested our local gatherings with some dignity, as families when divided derive honours from their common ancestry.

The Missionary Society, as it was originally called—the London Missionary Society, as it was afterwards named—had from the beginning been supported by our Church; indeed, fathers and founders of the one appear amongst early workers in the other, and through the ministry of Mr. Clayton, Dr. Leifchild, and Dr. Vaughan, foreign missions found zealous supporters at Kensington. The London City Mission, then in its early age, had engaged my sympathies at Windsor. There we had a town missionary, who brought us into connection with work going on in the Metropolis. Consequently, when I came to Kensington, I took much interest in the annual meetings of the society, and was brought into intimate relations with its officers and supporters. Annual gatherings were held in Freemasons’ Hall, Queen Street, where signs of the Zodiac, and portraits of Grand Masters, adorned the ceiling and walls, suggesting to speakers allusions, obvious or far-fetched, till they became rather threadbare and wearisome; but, from the beginning, narratives by the missionaries formed a chief source of interest.

The Young Men’s Christian Association was formed soon after I came to my new charge, and with it I had connection from the beginning, being first on the list of lecturers in the City, before the annual courses at Exeter Hall commenced.

The Evangelical Alliance was founded in 1843, and as a desire for union has ever been with me a “passion,” I joined the Alliance from the beginning. There was great simplicity in the earliest gatherings, and an air of novelty gave additional charms. However, some members professing catholic sympathies on the platform pursued an exclusive line of conduct on other occasions, and this circumstance provoked unfavourable comments. Plausible objections, moreover, were made to the society’s constitution—the platform, too wide for some, being too narrow for others. I could have desired a wider basis and the furtherance of Christian unity apart from all controversy with those who differed from us. On the whole, however, it was a move in the right direction, and the gatherings of its early friends in town and in other parts of the country were of an eminently joyous description. Sir Culling Eardley and others, in private as well as public, promoted the interests of the Alliance. At that time several influential clergymen and leading Dissenters used to meet, not only on the platform, but in the homes of distinguished lay members, who threw themselves very heartily into the movement.

Brought into the neighbourhood of London, and already known by some brethren there, I soon found myself surrounded by many friends. For more than a century there had been in existence an association of Dissenting ministers, who took the title of Sub Rosa, from the confidential character of their intercourse. There were some of the most distinguished London Congregational ministers in the brotherhood at the time now referred to; and they discussed points of importance, and for the most part, as to denominational matters, acted in harmony. Some of the departed were men of great ability, conspicuous in the pulpit and on the platform; but the remembrance of them by the public is being gradually crowded out by new names and new questions of religious interest.

To turn to a very different subject, which synchronises with the period under review; let me notice that the month of October 1845 witnessed the stirring event of Newman’s secession to the Church of Rome. It was an event of singular importance. I have noticed on a previous page that the Tractarian Movement was regarded by many as distinctly tending in the direction of Romanism. For a considerable time such a tendency was denied on the part of its abettors generally; yet, even as early as November, 1835, Dr. Pusey, who had such confidence in Newman, wrote to his wife: “I almost see elements of disunion, in that John Newman will scare people”; [88a] and, in 1836, Newman himself incidentally wrote: “As to the sacrificial view of the Eucharist, I do not see that you can find fault with the formal wording of the Tridentine decree. Does not the Article on the sacrifice of the Mass supply the doctrine, or notion, to be opposed? What that is, is to be learnt historically, I suppose.” Besides the question of Eucharistic doctrine, Pusey’s correspondence at this time gives clear evidence of other questions, more or less difficult, in respect to doctrine, practice, or terminology, arising out of a more general appreciation of Church principles and order. [88b] That which was called Puseyism prepared for Popery; and this was obvious to most people, though Pusey himself could not see it. Inconsistently, as I think, he remained where he was; and, now that he declined to follow his friend, it is surprising he took no steps to satisfy the public as to grounds on which he himself remained in the Church of England. His attachment to what he deemed the Church of his fathers, however, was very strong, and he thought well of those who remained in that Church, though holding opinions different from his own. For instance, he wrote: “Ever since I knew them, which was not in my earliest years,” “I have loved those who are called Evangelicals. I loved them because they loved our Lord. I loved them for their zeal for souls. I often thought them narrow, yet I was often drawn to individuals among them, more than to others who held truths in common with myself, which the Evangelicals did not hold, at least not explicitly.” [89] There is a ring in these words which shows the sympathy which Pusey retained for those who loved the Saviour, though, in ecclesiastical matters, widely differing from High Churchmen. It appears to me that, if Pusey had been as consistent with his Tractarian principles as Newman was, Pusey would have followed Newman to Rome, but, happily, his loving spirit for Christian goodness kept him in communion with a Church where he saw piety beautifully manifested by some who differed from him in ecclesiastical opinion. I cannot make this reference to Dr. Pusey without saying that, with all my repugnance to his ecclesiastical opinions, and the conviction I have, that while he never became a Romanist, he greatly helped on the movement which carried many in the popish direction, the perusal of his memoirs has given me a high estimate of his personal piety. His devoutness, his love to Christ, his unworldly habits, his affectionate disposition, and his self-denial in the ordering of his domestic affairs, so as to enlarge his pecuniary contributions to religious purposes, are worthy of their imitation who regard with sorrow his High-Church peculiarities. Might not domestic and social ties, as well as strong attachment to the Church of England from his childhood, have had something to do with his final course?

The Revolutions of 1848 brought with them an immense amount of excitement in this country, as in others. The month of April in that year can never be forgotten. An outbreak was feared in London. Special constables were sworn in. On the Sunday before the 10th of the month my friend, Mr. Walford, preached a remarkable sermon in Kensington Chapel. His text was Isa. xii. 2—“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid.” Having unfolded the sentiment of the passage, he applied the principle to passing events, and spoke of the political excitement in this country at the time of the French Revolution, which he well remembered. He assured us that the excitement then surpassed anything which existed at the time when he spoke, and expressed his confidence in the rectitude and love of the Almighty, who maketh the wrath of man to praise Him. The preacher’s age, and his vivid recollection of what he had witnessed, gave force to his exhortations, as tears were falling from his eyes.

Trust in Providence, touchingly enforced by personal recollections, was honoured by what occurred on the following day. The meeting on Kensington Common, so much dreaded, broke up in confusion. Ringleaders were alarmed, the mob was scattered without the interference of soldiers who had been provided against an outbreak, but were concealed in public buildings, through the Duke of Wellington’s wisdom. A day which opened in fear was spent in peace and confidence.

During a visit abroad in that year, 1848, I reached Geneva, with letters of introduction to Cæsar Malan, Gaussen, and M. St. George. Merle D’Aubigne was from home. In company with friends, on the Sunday afternoon, I attended at Cæsar Malan’s little chapel. We had mistaken the hour, and, on our entering, he recapitulated the early portions of his sermon. Then, in his own pleasant parlour, he engaged in fervent discourse on his favourite tenet of Christian assurance. On parting he singled me out for the privilege of a double French kiss, and on my expressing a hope that we should meet in the Father’s House, he rebuked me for using the word hope. With him it was a matter of assurance. Then I reminded him of the difference between present and future, and quoted St. Paul: “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

I parted from relatives, who had been my fellow-travellers, and made my way next morning alone by boat to Vevay, thence travelling to Basle and Strasburg. Traffic was interrupted, and relics of revolution were seen in marching troops and handcuffed prisoners.

In 1849 a movement occurred for meeting religious needs in Kensington. A chapel was much needed on Notting Hill, and one of my deacons, who lived there, promised a large donation for the purpose. A few friends met in Hornton Street vestry, and opened a subscription list, which at once secured £1500. With that we went to work.

At first, there was some notion of incorporating members of the two congregations in one Church, with a copastorate; and Dr. Vaughan, I think, indicated willingness to become my colleague. I should not have objected to such union, but feared lest the moral effect of our movement should be thereby impaired. The scheme might have been looked upon as one of self-aggrandisement, while it was meant as an act of self-sacrifice. The latter it proved to be, for we drafted off about fifty members, as the nucleus of a new Church. Also we missed about two hundred seat-holders, who took pews in the new edifice, and, of course, there arose a certain éclat around Notting Hill which left Hornton Street a little in the shade. But soon things revived; our chapel became as full as ever. Funds recovered, liberal things were devised, and one morning I found a handsome cheque on my library table. Everybody seemed to be growing in kindness, and Hornton Street rose to more than its previous prosperity. It was an illustration of the principle—true of communities as well as of individuals—“There is that scattereth and yet increaseth.”

In connection with my early residence at Kensington I may mention a circumstance which interested me. I observed several times, sitting near my pulpit, an old gentleman. Upon inquiry, I found it was the Rev. Michael Maurice, father to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, then at the height of his influence as author and preacher. I never had the pleasure of conversing with my venerable hearer, but I learned from different sources much relative to his character and career. Though descended from a thoroughly orthodox family, he was educated for the ministry under Dr. Abraham Rees, Dr. Kippis and Dr. Savage—the first two being Arian divines, and the last a moderate Calvinist. He became afternoon preacher at Dr. Priestley’s Meeting House; and after officiating in other Unitarian places of worship, retired from pulpit work altogether. But he habitually associated with orthodox Nonconformists during the time he lived at Southampton. He also joined the British and Foreign Bible Society, and spoke for it on the platform. I wondered he should worship in Hornton Street, but information subsequently obtained served to explain the circumstance. He appears to have been a devout man with a large measure of Evangelical feeling. I mention him as a type of no inconsiderable class of sincerely religious people.

I knew but little of his distinguished son, only having met him a few times at Dean Stanley’s, and at Baldwin Brown’s. I used sometimes, on a Sunday afternoon, to hear Mr. Maurice preach at Lincoln’s Inn, and was much struck with the earnestness with which he repeated the Lord’s Prayer. The difficulty he felt in making himself understood is amusing. Some of the principles, he said, which his friends attacked, were those he strongly objected to himself, and those which they held as against him, were just those on which he rested his own faith and hope. “I could not make them the least understand what I meant,” he went on to say; “and if I did they would only dislike me for it.” It was not obscurity of style, as many thought, which made him unintelligible; but obscurity or confusion of thought arising from complexity of perception. He saw so much that it puzzled him how to express it. I respected him greatly as an honest thinker, more anxious to commend himself to the Searcher of hearts than to his fellow-men.

It must have been, I think, in 1846 or 1847 that I received an invitation to preach the annual sermon on behalf of Newport Pagnell College, and thither I went in the month of June. The Rev. Thos. Palmer Bull, president, and his son, the Rev. Josiah Bull, were living under the same roof, their house and garden full of comfort and convenience, beauty and fragrance. The old gentleman had a good library, and in nooks and corners were MSS. and relics of Cowper and Newton, friends of his father, the Rev. William Bull. The father was the “Taurus,” and his son the “Tommy,” immortalised in Newton and Cowper’s letters. When I had fulfilled my public duty I intensely enjoyed conversation with my elder host, as he showed me letters written, and relics possessed by the two celebrities so closely connected with his father’s name. He told me how he used, when a boy, to accompany his father to Olney, where he dined with the poet; that when grace was said, Cowper would play with his knife and fork, to indicate he had no share in acts of worship; that he would cheerfully converse on a variety of topics, but shunned all reference to religion. Notwithstanding, he would sometimes join in an Olney hymn; and then check himself as one who had neither part nor lot in the matter. He would kindly talk with little Tom, who accompanied his father on those visits, and they, on their way to and from the now world-known town, would join in singing a psalm or hymn, to a familiar tune. The old gentleman, I was informed, sometimes indulged in the use of a pipe, as he drove along the accustomed road. Full of such memories, I made an excursion to Olney, stopped at the house near the park of the Throgmortons, saw the room in which the poet slept, traced his writing on a pane of glass, and thought of the despair to which, in that chamber, he was so pitiable a victim. Then I was taken to the unpretentious abode in the main street of Olney, where he cultivated a close intimacy with John Newton, and kept rabbits in his little garden,—which garden, at the time I think of, remained much in its former state. The summer-house, described by the bard, was still in existence. Here, pausing for a moment to gather up another memento of Cowper, I may mention, that a relative of mine pointed out a house in East Dereham, which was Cowper’s residence; and told me that he remembered when a boy peeping through the keyhole of a door, and seeing him sitting in his chair. Cowper died at the residence of his kinsman, the Rev. Mr. Johnson. A friend of his gave me a leaf, in the poet’s handwriting, from the translation of Homer.

Soon after my return from this excursion I was chosen to fill up a vacancy in the important Nonconformist Trust of William Coward, a London merchant, who appointed Dr. Watts, Dr. Guyse, and Mr. Neal, author of the “History of the Puritans,”—with another person who was a layman,—administrators of property which he bequeathed for charitable purposes. Much of it consisted of Bank stock; that having risen, the revenue had become very considerable.

Dr. Doddridge was a special friend of Mr. Coward’s, and had under his care several ministerial candidates, supported by that gentleman. According to tradition, the merchant was very punctual, the minister less so; and when the former invited the latter to dinner, if he did not come exactly at the hour, the footman was ordered not to admit him. A gentleman who lived opposite was aware of this peculiarity, and his footman arranged with Mr. Coward’s footman, that when Dr. Doddridge had been invited to dinner, mention should be made of it to the servant on the other side the road, that a dinner might be prepared for his reverence there. Other curious stories were told of our founder, which I have forgotten. The perpetuation of Dr. Doddridge’s academy in different places, and under different forms, led to a transfer of the institution from Wymondley in Hertfordshire to Torrington Square, London, where, in association with London University College, it existed at the time of my accession to the trusteeship. For about two years I assisted in conducting the business of Coward College, as a separate institution. Then came a change. There were at the time three independent academies, as they were then called, in London and the neighbourhood—Homerton, Highbury and Coward. There were three sets of tutors, three boards of administration, three distinct buildings, and three distinct sources of expense. Previous attempts to accomplish the union of these institutions had failed; but at the time to which I now refer, an opportunity arrived for accomplishing the union. After conferences between “Heads of Houses” for some months, it was determined to sell the three buildings, then occupied by the students, and to erect one large new edifice, where they might be instructed together. The erection of New College St. John’s Wood, was the result. In the negotiations connected with this change, Dr., afterwards Sir William, Smith zealously co-operated with the Coward trustees. My dear old friend, the Rev. William Walford, took a great interest in the accomplishment of this business, but he died before it was completely effected.

He spent his last days in writing an autobiography, and after his death I found it was written in letters addressed to myself, with a request that I would edit the publication. This I did with a melancholy satisfaction. He had suffered acutely from mental depression, and the malady returned with violence shortly before his death. My last visits were most painful. He refused all consolation, and passed away under a cloud, like that which attended the sunset of Cowper. There were gleams of light, followed by dense darkness. Then he sank into silence, if not torpor. Days and nights rolled on, so different from their “tranquil gliding” which he described in his letters; but it was the happy confidence of his friends, notwithstanding his own fears, that the angry billow, no less than the gentle wave, was bearing the weather-beaten barque to the celestial shore. He died on June 22nd, 1850. The poor body looked like a wreck, but faith could see at rest the soul which had such hard work to pilot the vessel beyond reach of storms. A post-mortem examination proved that his depression arose from the condition of the brain. He was a good Greek scholar, and delighted in reading Plato.

CHAPTER VI
1850–1854

The year 1850 opened with a storm of religious excitement, owing to a division of England by Papal authority into Roman dioceses, at the suggestion of Dr. Wiseman. It came to be called “The Papal Aggression.” Some thought more was made of it, at the time, than circumstances warranted; but, looked at through the medium of history, it seemed to aim at a territorial authority over England, inconsistent with our repudiation of Papal supremacy. The way in which it was taken up by some good people was not wise, and there was an anti-popish commotion amongst some of my friends—a few only. The commotion was unreasonable, but was overruled for good, as the incident led some Protestants to look into their professed principles, which doubtless, in our country, lie at the basis of civil and religious liberty.

From one end of the island to the other, Nonconformists as well as Churchmen took an opportunity for expressing attachment to the Reformation. In two ways I became connected with what went on. The Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist ministers of London, representing the three denominations, resolved, in common with other ecclesiastical bodies, to approach Her Majesty with a protest against “Papal Aggression.” The three denominations—like Convocation and certain English corporations—have a right of presenting addresses to the Sovereign; and on this occasion, the audience for accepting the addresses, was appointed to be at Windsor Castle. When the ceremony in the Royal Closet for receiving representatives of the three denominations was over, we were invited to lunch in the equerry’s apartment. Covers were laid for two or three gentlemen, in addition to our party. “Pray, can you tell me their names?” I whispered to one of the servants, who, from my previous residence in the town, happened to know me. He could not say, and at the same moment the strangers, who proved to be Roman Catholic noblemen, felt a like curiosity to know who we were. I proceeded to explain the origin of the three denominations, which was quite a revelation to the gentlemen; who informed us that they had just presented a loyal address from 250,000 Catholics. They proceeded to say, that English Protestants had quite misapprehended the meaning of recent arrangements; and, after receiving a courteous explanation, we sat down with them, and had a pleasant chat.

At that time I delivered at Kensington a short series of discourses on the Roman Catholic controversy. I went over some of the main points in that controversy, avoiding misrepresentation and uncharitableness. I was not violent enough to please some ultra-Protestants, but I had the gratification of hearing, that two young Catholics ultimately became Protestants, and were helped by the lectures. I have met in the course of my life with several members of the Romish Church, who have appeared to me estimable characters. I had in my congregation a young lady, one of a family which ranked a Cardinal amongst its members, and whose mother remained a Catholic; in her dying illness she clung to Christ as her Saviour, saying, in the words of Solomon’s Song: “I held Him, and would not let Him go.”

In the same year, as I have said, the Palace of Glass was opened; and, being a Kensington resident, I had opportunities of watching the edifice rising out of the earth as a beautiful exhalation. On moonlight nights, in the previous winter, how often, on my way home, it revealed itself, amidst floating mists, as a kind of ethereal structure!

There was a moral atmosphere created by the enterprise, which those who do not recollect it are unable to appreciate. It inspired thousands of people with expressions of charity and goodwill. The opening day can never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. The Times newspaper had a leader, which made one feel that a new era in history had arrived; that war and strife were approaching an end, and a millennial age of goodwill had dawned upon mankind. When, that day, we saw crowds, not jostling and pushing against each other; for almost every unit of the mass seemed willing to make way for a neighbour; when we witnessed the opening service, and beheld the royal procession moving through the stupendous aisles,—representatives of “all people that on earth do dwell,”—those present seemed to feel as they never did before. As the poet Montgomery conversed with me on the subject, he remarked that, looking down from the galleries upon the throng which passed before his eyes, it “reminded him of flowing waters gently gurgling through some broad channel.” The people, thronging here and there round corners, seemed like eddies in a river with lofty banks.

In the Exhibition year efforts were made for the religious improvement of the people. The Press was in different ways employed for this purpose; and amongst other methods there appeared, as distinctively characteristic, a series of evangelical discourses in Exeter Hall. They attracted crowded audiences. The sermons were carefully reported and widely circulated. About the same time several similar methods were employed for the promotion of religion; services were held in theatres and other places of amusement. Having been engaged in these efforts, I can testify to the crowds gathered together, and the general decorum of their behaviour. Some to whom these buildings belonged took an interest in the proceedings, as I knew from conversation with dramatic managers, who expressed interest in the addresses delivered. Afterwards, services were planned to be conducted by Episcopal clergymen in Exeter Hall, but the plan was frustrated by opposition of parochial authority. After this, Dissenters undertook to supply the lack of service, and the first Sunday night, an Independent minister officiated, reading parts of the Liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer, and an English nobleman acted as clerk, leading the responses.

The same year (1851) it fell to my lot at the autumnal meeting of the Congregational Union to read a memorial paper on Dr. Doddridge, who had died just a hundred years before, and had been pastor and Divinity Professor in Northampton, where the assembly met. We occupied the old meeting-house in which he preached; there in the vestry stood the chair in which he sat. From the pulpit which had been his, the centenary tribute to his memory was delivered. Mr. Bull, of Newport Pagnell, presented the original MS. of a funeral sermon which the doctor preached for his little daughter, partly written upon her coffin. A common sympathy, amidst deathlike silence, pervaded the audience, as if the divine who was commemorated had only just left the world, and we had assembled to honour his remains. The genius loci of the place, and traditions of the good man, passed away so long before, contributed to the occasion more impressiveness than it derived from other circumstances.

In 1852 my beloved wife travelled with me to Elberfeld to see our eldest daughter. We had, from an early period, formed the plan of sending our children abroad for part of their education, in order that they might learn a foreign language and see other forms of society besides our own. Therefore we placed our firstborn under the care of Pastor and Madame Schröder,—two very excellent persons, whose character and influence answered the high expectations we had been led to form. Pastor Schröder succeeded Dr. Krummacher as one of the pastors of the Evangelical communion. We enjoyed his society and that of his excellent wife, and saw something of German habits, which interested me much; they presented aspects unfamiliar to us. For instance, one Sunday afternoon we took a walk in the woods with our friend the pastor, and, on the way, he gathered into a large company one after another of his people, until it formed quite a procession; and, finally, we rested in a pleasant nook encompassed by trees, where the people drank coffee, and sang hymns.

After we had spent some days at Elberfeld we started for Switzerland, where I planned my wife and daughter should spend two or three weeks, whilst accompanied by a Kensington friend, I proceeded on a journey to Italy. We started from Zurich, crossed the lake, reached Coire and the Via Mala, and over the Alps, came down to the Lake of Como; thence we reached Milan, where we stayed three days. I then became acquainted for the first time with the Duomo and other churches. We spent a Sunday in the city, and felt deeply interested in schools founded by Cardinal Borromeo, carried on at the time with exemplary care; and we found at eventide, in a church, groups of worshippers, led by a layman, who knelt in front as they chanted responses. I was struck then, and have been oftentimes since, with the adaptation of Scripture passages on church walls, pointing to salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. One thought, too, of Ambrose, who forbade the approach of Theodosius, wet with the blood he had shed at Thessalonica. Speaking of the adaptation of Scripture in foreign churches, I may mention other passages inscribed on their walls in other places, for example, at Treves, where under a picture of “The Nativity” we read “Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself,” as applied to the Incarnation. Again, at Nismes, if I recollect aright, under the fresco of a captive rejoicing in his freedom, the words “Thou hast loosed my bonds”; and under another, representing martyrs and virgins at the portals of heaven, “With joy and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the King’s palace.” After all, the kernel of the Gospel continues in Roman Catholic Christendom, though too often concealed under manifold innovations. Still there it is, if you look for it.

My reference to Milan brings before me other recollections of that wonderful city, as revisited again and again since 1852. Amidst manifold associations of art, archæology, history, and religion, one image, indelibly impressed on my mind, is that of Augustine under the fig tree in a garden, listening to a voice which cried, “Tolle lege”; at the hearing of which he sat down, took the Testament in his hand, and read Rom. xiii., and thus became a new creature in Christ Jesus. Wandering in quiet old streets, I have paused near some fig tree in a little enclosure of grass and flowers, to think of him who became the grandest father of the Latin Church.

From Milan we proceeded to Verona, and thence to Venice, where I felt “one of the greatest emotions of life.” I have seen it again and again, but the first charm was greatest of all. Then Titian’s “Peter Martyr” adorned the walls of SS. Giovanni e Paulo. Wonderful picture that! but it does not, to my mind, eclipse his S. Jerome in the Brera at Milan.

Let me return to Kensington. Perhaps this is as good a place as any, for saying a few words about people there, and others with whom I was brought into contact, during my pastorate.

Under the ministry of my predecessor, Dr. Leifchild, there lived in one of the stately houses in the neighbourhood, a gentleman—commanding in person and polished in manners—who was drawn towards the Dissenting pastor, though he had no affection for Dissent; if he smiled at the system, he liked some of the people. He lost largely on the Stock Exchange, but he bore it with much magnanimity. I was acquainted with some of the family, who were in prosperous circumstances, and who became my kind friends. I once met at their house with an old general—uncle to the Duchess of Gordon—who related a singular anecdote. He had been at the Eglinton Tournament, and, as the castle was crowded with guests, he and another person shared the same bedroom. That person was no other than the future Napoleon II. He kept his companion awake with talk about the French Empire and his uncle, declaring, that he was sure one day of sitting on his uncle’s throne. The ambitious dream filled his mind, and overflowed in his abundant chat; though then it seemed a most improbable imagination. The incident was related some time after the tournament, and before the Republic was established; and when I afterwards heard of Napoleon’s election to the presidentship, I saw it was by no means unlikely that the daring prophecy he had ventured, would come to pass. I have heard from other people that he often, when residing in London, talked in society of his coming elevation, as imperial ruler of the French. The uncle had seen beforehand the dazzling star of his destiny. His nephew did the same. There were people who fancied something supernatural in this, but it may be accounted for on natural principles.

Another story, of an amusing kind, I heard at a Chiswick garden party, to which I was taken by the kind friends at whose house I met the old Scotch soldier. Amongst personages of rank present at Chiswick were certain bishops, who had not dropped the old episcopal costume of a big wig, a most decidedly broad-brimmed clerical hat, and a conspicuous apron. Right Reverend brethren are still somewhat distinguished from other people, though some of them reduce the distinction within very restricted limits; forty or fifty years ago it was quite otherwise. They appeared then commonly—to use an undignified expression—in full jig, and as some occupants of the Bench passed by, in unmistakable array of the kind just noticed, a clergyman at the garden party now mentioned, told me of a prime minister, who used to remark, he thought, “Bishops well deserved all they got” (and it was much more then than it is now), “for allowing themselves to be dressed up, as such regular guys.”

Literature and art were pretty well represented in Kensington, at the period I speak of. Contributors to Punch—Mark Lemon, Gilbert a Becket, and others—were my neighbours, and with one of them I spent a pleasant evening. Gilbert a Becket during a few weeks, when the parish church underwent repairs, used pretty regularly to attend our chapel, and I was struck by his attentiveness and devotion. He expressed his readiness to spend a few hours with me, at a friend’s residence, only he stipulated that it should not be on an opera night; and when it was proposed to me I stipulated that it should not be on one of my service nights. Preliminaries being settled we accordingly met, and got on exceedingly well. What amuses me, as I think of it, is that, though I am not at all given to pun-making, the presence of a brilliant punster so inspired me, that I perpetrated one or two hits, which Becket pronounced very fair. Perhaps I may be forgiven by those who achieve pleasant things in that way, if I remark that there is something contagious in the practice; and it is difficult not to catch it, when in company with those who are imbued with the habit.

With another celebrity I came in contact through intimacy with his family, and his early connection with our place of worship. I allude to Justice Talfourd. When a young man he used to attend on Dr. Leifchild’s ministry, his father and mother being members of the Congregational Church at Kensington. His mother, whom I knew well, related anecdotes of his early days at home, and at Mill Hill School, where he had schoolfellows who afterwards distinguished themselves in the walks of Dissent. He wrote home about his companions and told his mother of prayer-meetings amongst the boys; and of one boy in particular, very imaginative, and florid on such occasions. This schoolfellow became afterwards an eloquent minister, well known as Dr. Hamilton of Leeds. The Judge told me of his early attachment to that gentleman, and how, during the doctor’s last visit to London, he went to hear him preach, and stepped into the vestry afterwards, to talk of old times; but the preacher had left, which was a great disappointment.

There was a strong religious side to Judge Talfourd’s character, and he used to speak with much enthusiasm of my predecessor, Dr. Leifchild, whose preaching he said came up to his idea of the Apostle Paul’s ministry.

Amongst artists living in Kensington were two Academicians, Uwins and Philip, who both belonged to our congregation—the first a regular, the second an occasional, attendant. Philip’s wife—a beautiful woman, whom he introduced into some of his pictures—was a communicant with us at the Lord’s table. I often visited the artist’s studio, and listened to his picturesque description of Spain, and also to his accounts of family afflictions which elicited my sympathy.

From my boyhood I had taken an interest in art, and the friendship of several men distinguished in its cultivation was exceedingly instructive and pleasant. My travels on the Continent, which enabled me to visit most of the principal picture galleries,—rich in specimens by great masters,—educated and purified what little taste I had; and prompted me to somewhat extensive studies in artistic literature. These, blended with other habits of reading, I find an immense enjoyment in the leisure of my old age.

Mr. Theed, the sculptor, and his family, who attended Kensington Chapel, were our intimate friends; and he told me much about Gibson, his companion in art, and intimate acquaintance for many years, when they resided at Rome. With the latter gentleman I became acquainted slightly when I was in Italy, and had a long talk with him once about tinting sculpture,—which he advocated with zeal, and practised with skill. I felt there was force in what he said. Another Kensington name,—that of Edward Corbould, the water-colourist,—may be coupled with my friend Theed’s. Each was connected with the other in artistic service to Her Majesty and family. I remember on the Sunday morning after the Prince Consort’s lamented death, missing both these gentlemen at Divine worship, in consequence of their being summoned to Windsor—one to take a cast, and the other to make a drawing of the good Prince’s face.

There was another group of hearers during the latter part of my Kensington ministry, to whom I was much attached. One of them, Cozens Hardy, M.P., who has won eminence in the legal profession, is son to the oldest friend I have. All now referred to are distinguished, not only by professional position, but by continued study in classical learning.

I must not pass by “annals of the poor.” When I first went to Kensington, I was requested to visit an old shoemaker, crippled, and in humble circumstances, but with a good deal of natural politeness, the more striking from its surroundings. He had been a wild young fellow, daring to the last degree, and this was the cause of his incurable lameness. He was converted under the ministry of Dr. Leifchild. The preacher, in the course of a sermon, related an anecdote of Mr. Cecil, who previous to his becoming decidedly religious narrowly escaped with life, when thrown by his horse across the track of a waggon, which in passing only crushed his hat. The incident struck the listener. It resembled his own experience, and riveted his attention, preparing him to listen to the preacher’s appeals. He became an exemplary Christian; and I often sat by his bedside to hear him describe the wondrous change wrought in his character, by Divine grace. “I am a wonder unto many,” he used to say; and then, with faltering voice, would sing the old hymn—

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.”

This was not the only case in which the humbler members of the Church were a comfort to me. Often my heart was cheered by communications made by them, touching spiritual life. Such communications were perfectly artless, and arose from the absence of that reserve which, in the upper class, is the result of educational refinement. This circumstance often prevents a free revelation of what cultured people think and feel on the subject of religion. I have frequently noticed it, and never inferred, from delicacy touching soul secrets, any want of that which rises to the surface, and overflows in ready words, when uneducated people speak of their Christian experience.

I cannot omit a reference to the Gurney family, with some of whom I came into pleasant connection during my Kensington residence. As a boy, I had some knowledge of their ancestral relatives; and now I came into close friendship with Mr. Bell, brother to Mrs. John Gurney, who was mother to Samuel Gurney, the renowned London Quaker, and also to Joseph John Gurney, of Earlham, near Norwich—an equally renowned banker, and also a Public Friend, as preachers of that denomination then were wont to be called. Mr. Bell had become one of my hearers and a communicant, much to his spiritual benefit, as he and his family informed me. He was a chatty old gentleman, and used to talk of his sister, Priscilla Wakefield, of Miss Schemmelpenninck, and of Samuel Taylor Coleridge—whom he met at the house of his friend Gilman, resident in Highgate. Through frequent vivid references to these celebrities, whom I knew by their writings and by report, I came to have a sort of personal acquaintance with them. Thus they became, more than ever, living realities. Besides this, I came to have a slight personal knowledge of Mr. Samuel Gurney, just mentioned, the well-known bill-broker, and also of Mrs. Fry, his sister, who did so much good as a prison visitor. Mr. Gurney was a stately person, with a benign countenance, and a musical voice rich in persuasive tones. The mental anxiety he felt during money panics, not only on his own account, but also from sympathy with others, was such, that he was known to spend sleepless nights pacing his chamber. Mrs. Fry was as dignified as her brother, and I now in imagination see her in her becoming Quaker garb, as she talked to me about her nephew Bell, and spoke gratefully of the benefit he had derived from my ministry. The younger Mr. Samuel Gurney came to live at Prince’s Gate, Kensington, and used to worship with us occasionally. At his table I met with the Bunsens, and other remarkable friends and relatives of his. He told me that at any time when I needed, in Christian work, pecuniary help, I might apply to him without hesitation. The crash on “Black Friday” was a terrible trial, as it made him, after being one of the richest of London citizens, dependent on his relatives. I wrote to him words of condolence, to which he beautifully replied, saying that he trusted the tribulation which had befallen him would be for his spiritual welfare. His excellent wife bore up nobly, and the two afforded admirable instances of Christian patience and resignation.

CHAPTER VII
1854–1862

On April 4th, 1854, I started the first time for Rome, provided with letters of introduction to Gibson, the sculptor, Penry Williams, the landscape painter, and two Roman Catholic dignitaries, one a Monseignor, the other president of the English College. All these gentlemen were polite and helpful to me.

My companions were Dr. Raffles, Dr. Halley, the Rev. Spencer Edwards, and another friend. The first of them was wonderful for relating stories, which he always told secundum artem. He kept us awake one whole night with his amusing anecdotes; but, as we were travelling through France at a time when espionage was prevalent, he would not allow us to make any political allusions. I was surprised at the retentiveness of his verbal memory; whilst he repeated long pieces, in which the amusement consisted of odd words, connected with no rational meaning, when put together.

It was Holy Week when we reached Rome. On Thursday there was the feet-washing at St. Peter’s, and the supper afterwards: the Pope, as “servant of servants,” ministering to the poor, but with great pomp on both occasions. We arranged to see the former, and found a transept on the right hand, fitted up for the occasion. Rank, fashion, beauty, arrayed in mourning, found accommodation in galleries commanding a good view. Ladies were veiled, gentlemen wore evening dress. Admission to that part of the edifice could be obtained on no other conditions. Pio Nono, a pleasant, genial-looking old man, who won a good opinion as soon as you looked at him, did his part well. He read the Gospel (John xiii.) in tones wonderfully musical and distinct, and then washed the pilgrims’ feet with grace and reverence. The whole was artistically and solemnly done. “One can laugh at these things, as described in books,” said Dr. Raffles—a staunch Nonconformist—“but not when witnessed, as now, in this magnificent place.” Still, on a calm review, nothing like worship appears in any part of the ceremony. Then the Miserere in the afternoon! Those who did not witness it years ago can have no idea of it now; or of the gorgeous procession, amidst a blaze of light, to the altar of S. Paulo, and the prostration of the Pontiff and his Cardinals on the floor, in the midst of darkness, candles having been extinguished, one by one. The scene on the grand staircase was striking as the dignitaries returned, varying in appearance and character—an ascetic monk, a man of the world, another looking studious and reflective, a fourth keen and statesmanlike. Nobody could deny the Italian scenic skill in such matters. I have been at Rome in Easter, since then, much struck with subsequent changes. When all was over on my first Easter in Rome, I went to the English Episcopal Church, where the Lord’s Supper was administered according to Protestant rites, and I could not but be impressed by the contrast between the two services. It illustrated the change effected by the Reformation. I mentioned this once to the Rev. Frederic Denison Maurice, who, of course, agreed with me; and, talking of Rome, he happened to relate an anecdote which I do not remember having seen in print. Pio Nono, after the suppression of Latin nunneries in Poland, received a visit from the Emperor of Russia. “You are a great king,” said the former to the latter, “one of the mightiest in the world. I am a poor feeble man, servant of servants; but I cite you to meet me before the Judge of all, and to answer for your treatment of helpless women.” There was the old assumption of authority; but there was a touch of grandeur in the words.

I saw the catacombs, following my guide, taper in hand; and in one of the strange passages was accosted by name. “Who could have expected to be recognised in this dark underworld?” I exclaimed. It turned out to be a person who had lived at Eton, and been a hearer of mine at Windsor. Other recognitions have occurred to me of an odd kind, when visiting several places.

I became so attracted by what I saw in Rome, and drank so deeply into the spirit of Arnold’s letters, written there, that my last day was spent in pensive leave-takings of ruin after ruin, church after church. I have been there twice since, each for a longer time than the first; but not with quite the impression which I felt in the first instance.

We proceeded to Naples, stopped at Cisterna, at Terracinia, at Gaeta, and at S. Agata. Whoever has travelled the same road must long remember the fragrance of the orange-groves and the coloured dresses of the peasantry.

We had no trouble at custom-houses on the way, for my two companions and myself travelled in humble fashion. Otherwise did the two doctors, already mentioned, fare. Large sums were demanded of them on the Neapolitan frontier; and when they refused to pay, their luggage was searched, and a coloured pen-wiper being found, the officials declared it was a revolutionary cockade, and that books in their portmanteaus were no doubt full of treason and heresy. There was no alternative but to stay where they were, or to allow a soldier to accompany them in charge of the suspected articles. All this trouble was followed by apologies on reaching Naples, after an appeal had been made to the English Consul.

We saw the picture galleries and museums in Naples, and explored the city as well as we could during our short stay. Religious services of a special kind were being held in one of the churches; and I remember entering it on an evening when it was crowded with people, listening to a friar, who was earnestly preaching. Next morning, on revisiting the place, it was crowded as the night before, and the same priest occupied the pulpit. We drove along the old coast road, by the so-called Tomb of Virgil to Castellamare, Sorrento, Posilipo and Pozzuoli (the Puteoli of the Acts), and had dreams of the luxurious life once spent on these shores, and of Paul’s disembarkation on his way to Rome. We also spent a day at Vesuvius, where clouds of vapour were rolling upward; and I, with one of our party, crawled down to the crater, as near as we could, much to the dismay of our senior companions. On our way back to Naples we tarried as long as possible at Pompeii, looking at the wonders of that memorable spot.

An important step was taken at Kensington on my return from Italy. The “swarm” sent to Notting Hill did not permanently reduce the numbers of our congregation. On the contrary, they considerably advanced. The old chapel became more than ever inconvenient, and we resolved to build a new and much larger one.

I must now pass from local and personal affairs to notice a movement in Congregationalism at large. Independency leads to isolated action on the part of local Churches. It is unfriendly to cohesion and co-operation. It provides for freedom, and nothing else. Old Independents saw this, and checked the evil by maintaining local fellowships between Church and Church, by the employment of “messengers” one to another. [126]

About 1830 the wiser heads amongst us had clearly seen the evil, and endeavoured to overcome it. They concluded that centrifugal tendencies should be met by a centripetal force. Mr. Binney used to say, we were a collection of limbs—legs, arms, feet, and hands—all in motion, but not an organised body. To frame a body out of so many members, was the design of the Congregational Union. Algernon Wells may be regarded as its founder. He was one of the most beautiful characters I have ever known—intelligent, well read, sagacious, with extensive knowledge of men and things, and a profound attachment to evangelical truth. He had a rare order of eloquence, and wove pleasant tissues of thought in his sermons and speeches. If his speeches were not always sermons, his sermons were almost always speeches. There was a great charm in his conversation, and it often overflowed with wit. Though a decided Congregationalist, he was full of charity, and cultivated harmonious intercourse with other denominations. His policy as to the newly-formed organisation, was to make the meetings fraternal rather than controversial—a brotherly society to promote edification rather than an ecclesiastical army to fight with soldiers outside, or a council to settle disputes inside. The early meetings were held in the Congregational Library, and did not muster more than a hundred members. “Business” received at times a look askance: spiritual edification excited desire, and stimulated expression. Now and then came touches of humour, as when after talking about the state of the denomination till we were hungry, one brother rose and gravely asked “whether any intelligence had arrived from the Sandwich Islands.”

Good Algernon Wells died in 1851, and soon afterwards I was requested by a sub-committee to meet them in conference on an important matter. It was to propose my election as Mr. Wells’ successor. Now, secretaryships have always been my aversion—from an instinct, I suppose, such as guides inferior animals to shun what they were never made for. The secretaryship of the City Mission had been pressed upon me soon after my arrival in London, but I steadily refused it, from a conviction of utter incompetence; and, for the same reason, I declined to entertain the proposal just mentioned. He who proposed the office for me accepted it for himself, and we worked together pleasantly through several years. I was elected chairman of the Union in May 1856, amidst much excitement. There have been strains on its strength more than once, but this first was the greatest.

Dr. Campbell had been for some time a prominent member. Hard-headed and hard-handed, of a bold, open countenance, and with a habit of planting his foot pretty firmly on the ground,—the outer man well indicated the inner; kind-hearted and affectionate at home, but not the same on a platform, or with an editorial pen in hand. He then gave no quarter to anybody who opposed him. “You are a good fellow,” it was once said to him by a loving spirit; “but I don’t like that great club you carry.” That great club he swung about, much to the terror of many, and consequently he exercised a despotic sway, to which they were indisposed to submit. He held the doctrines of Calvinistic theology with a firm grasp, and looked with alarm upon certain opinions springing up amongst his brethren. He considered that there was looseness of sentiment, and a range of thought too free, existing amongst younger men, which imperilled the evangelical soundness of the Churches. He gave it the name of Negative Theology. The name took, and was bandied about to the annoyance of persons to whom it was applied, many of them holding positive truths as firmly as Dr. Campbell himself. It happened that in 1856 Mr. Lynch, a man of genius and sensibility, with a mind cast in a mould the opposite of Dr. Campbell’s, published a small volume of poetry entitled “The Rivulet.” Some of the hymns it contained excited admiration, and are now extensively used; but the book, as a whole, aroused Dr. Campbell’s wrath beyond measure. He wrote a criticism upon it, which awakened indignation in those who had read “The Rivulet” with approval. Fifteen brethren drew up and signed a protest against this style of review.

There existed, no doubt, a tendency on the part of a few brethren to give up certain theological expressions long held sacred, and also to throw into the background, if not to question, points of doctrine deemed perfectly Congregational. In the opposite quarter there appeared a tenacity of diction and an emphasis of opinion on old lines, accompanied by ungenerous reflections respecting those whom they deemed innovators. Very naturally, personal feeling was thus stirred up, and the Union seemed threatened with disaster.

“We men are a mysterious sort of creatures,” said John Howe to Richard Baxter. No doubt we are, and that in more ways than one: in this especially, that whilst discussing theories of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit—all fountains of love—we are apt to be found drawing water from the wells of Marah.

The controversy, now spoken of, related to old and new aspects of theological thought. Looking back, I can but say, the balance sheet of past and present, in respect to what is now noticed, shows both gain and loss. All the gain, it strikes me, might have been secured without incurring loss at all; and, in making up the whole account, there should have been more charity in judging individuals, and more justice in discussing principles.

I wished, in my address, to combine the two, and so render the whole a sort of Irenicon.

A personal correspondence followed between two good men, which is now, I hope, buried in oblivion; but no secession of members from the Union took place, that I know of. The two tendencies still exist, but they call for no criticism in these pages. My views on the subject I have often expressed.

Before the close of my Windsor ministry I had begun to indulge in foreign travel, and in 1854, when I had spent some time in my Kensington pastorate, I ventured on a trip to Rome, which I have described already. After that, visits abroad were numerous, and from amongst them I select one paid in 1856, when I spent a few weeks with my two sons, who were then being educated in Berlin. My dear wife accompanied me through the greater part of the tour, as she was anxious to see how the lads were getting on. We made our way to the Prussian capital through Hanover, and, on reaching our destination, found all well. After spending a little while in Berlin, seeing the sights and becoming acquainted with some excellent people, we made an excursion to the South, and spent a few days at Dresden, where antiquities, pictures, and drives in the neighbourhood greatly delighted us. We proceeded to Schandau, a pretty little village, and there took lodgings, initiating ourselves into amusing details of German life. We attended the parish church on Sunday, taking interest in the clergyman, who was expounding to his people the history of David. We witnessed some of life’s joys and sorrows, especially a funeral, which was very picturesque—bright flowers, red roses and green leaves, relieving the darkness of death, the hope of Heaven shedding light on the sorrow of bereavement. Excursions in the neighbourhood added to our family enjoyments of this sojourn, and one day we came in contact with royalty. The King of Saxony, the Queen, and a few of the Court, climbed up a hill which we had selected as a resting-place, commanding views of the Elbe. Their Majesties’ servants in livery (who, by the way, were very civil to us) paid the royal reckoning to a humble châlet-keeper, as any of his subjects might do. We watched the King and attendants as they embarked in a boat for their Dresden home. My boys and I pushed on to Prague, where the bridge and St. John Nepomuk, the Hradschin, and the thirty years’ war, John Huss and his house in the Bethlehem platz, the Jews’ town on the banks of the Moldau, the Jewish burial ground, and the old synagogue, inspired historical memories of deep interest. We joined mamma and returned to Dresden the way we came; and there, after long gazings on the picture gallery, especially at Raphael’s “Madonna and Child”—opposite to which people sat reverently, as if engaged in devotion—father and mother parted from the dear boys, and we wended our way homewards; not without lingering in Lutherland to look at homes and haunts of the great Reformer.

To return to my Kensington flock. In the year 1857, one Sunday night, after I had retired to rest, I heard a loud ringing at the door-bell, and immediately rose. On opening the window, there stood a carriage; and the coachman, as soon as by gaslight he saw my face, cried out, “Oh, sir, my mistress is dead!” His mistress was Mrs. Jacomb, residing with her husband and family at Notting Hill. They had all been at Divine worship that morning in their usual health. The carriage had been sent to take me back to the mourners. I immediately rose and went. On reaching the house I witnessed a scene of domestic distress such as I never witnessed before. My deceased friend had in the morning worshipped with us, in her usual delicate health, and, as I learned, in more than her usual cheerfulness. She was preparing for evening service, when she was suddenly seized with illness, and in a short time expired. The husband and family were in deep distress, but they had a blessed knowledge of Him who brought life and immortality to light. She was a woman rich in spiritual sympathy, and had been no ordinary friend to me and mine, in our early married life. We had a large family, and, though favoured above many, had our domestic trials. How often I thought of what Paul said of “Phœbe, our sister”: “She has been a succourer of many, and of myself also.” I never knew any one who had more tender sympathy in trouble than Mrs. Jacomb, or was more swift in expressing it. Her husband was worthy of her, and her children “rise up to call her blessed.” Those who survive are cherished friends. He was of an old Puritan stock, descendant of Dr. Jacomb, a renowned ejected clergyman after the Commonwealth; and the family genealogy is rich in noted names and memories.

In this chapter I cannot refrain from recording my own domestic sorrows. In 1853 a sweet child had died—little Catherine, born shortly after we left Windsor; and in 1858 another, more advanced in life, a boy named Arnold, full of energy and promise, was taken from us by our Heavenly Father. His illness was brief; but beforehand my dear wife had been anxious for his spiritual welfare, and her conversations were followed by the Divine blessing. His joyous, winning ways had won the hearts of visitors, and his death widely affected my congregation, awakening sympathy to a degree which inspired my liveliest gratitude. Our friend Joshua Harrison preached a funeral sermon for the dear boy, full of pathos and power.

In 1859 a friend accompanied me to the Pyrenees. Travelling by French railways, we reached Bayonne at the end of August, and then crossed the Spanish frontier in a Spanish diligence, which had all the lumber and shabby trappings of French ones. We reached San Sebastian at night, and next morning took a walk on the promenade, where the ladies in mantillas and veils flourished their fans with grace and dignity; and if there be something gay in French solemnity, there is something grave in the gaiety of Spaniards. We again climbed up a diligence, and travelled through the Lower Pyrenees to Pau, where, from the Grand Terrace, we saw peering out from the haze of a hot summer sky the mountain range—not near, as many imagine, but many miles off. Of course we saw the old palace where Henri IV. was born and wrapped up in his shell cradle. Along roads bordered by woods and hills, reminding one of Wharfedale, we reached an elevation at Sevignac, overlooking the valley of the Gave, with magnificent mountains in front, Pic du Midi coming into full view. Eaux Bonnes, with all the luxuries of a French watering-place, was then reached, whence we proceeded to Eaux Chaudes, where the mountains become awfully precipitous. We looked down from zigzag roads, cut out of declivities buttressed by rocks and embankments, with boiling torrents at the foot, roaring like thunder. The Pic du Midi, streaked with snow, rises up so as to remind one of an Egyptian pyramid.

We determined to visit Pantacosa, and passed through a romantic defile, crossed the Spanish frontier again, and halted at a village, where the houses seemed walls without windows, the outlook being altogether from the back. Glimpses of Aragon’s broad plain were caught, as we looked south, and crowds of Spanish muleteers passed us, laden with merchandise. The baths of Pantacosa occupy a gloomy region, shut in by rocks, and there I spent the Sunday as an invalid, my strength being overtaxed; but next day I rose in the enjoyment of health and vigour. Then we made our way to Luz. The church of the Templars built there is half fortress and half sanctuary. You enter through a machicolated gateway, into a church, the gloomiest I ever saw. Through a little door, the Cagots, a proverbial race weak both in body and mind, used to enter for worship.

Near to Luz is St. Sauveur, a narrow valley, richly wooded, with a tiny village jammed in among the rocks. At the time of our visit, the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie were staying there. The house they occupied was small and plain; nothing distinguished it but the two sentinels at the door. All was silent and solitary, and nobody seemed to notice the royal residence, besides ourselves. In the afternoon, we saw their Majesties returning from a drive in open carriages with outriders. Napoleon sat on the box, Eugenie was chatting with her lady attendants. On alighting she remained at the door of the house, playing with her walking stick, and receiving a letter-bag. The Emperor came out, lighted a cigar, smoked and then walked on to inspect some men at work on a new road.

We made an excursion to Gavarnie—a shady defile with precipitous rocks, overhanging woods, and a river foaming and roaring four hundred feet below. Beyond is the Cirque, a basin-shaped valley of semicircular rocks, with steps and stages, whilst a drapery of water fringes them all round. We ascended the Pic de Bergons, tarried a day at Bagnères de Bigorre, a central spot for tourists, with the usual appurtenances of such places. We proceeded to Bagnères de Luchon, by a romantic drive, commanding a view of the Maladetta with its snows and glaciers.

In the course of our rambles in the Pyrenees we were struck with Eastern customs. An unmuzzled ox went round a heap of corn. Sheep were not driven but led, and wine was kept in leathern bottles.

CHAPTER VIII
1862–1865

The year 1862, being the Bicentenary of the Bartholomew ejectment, was largely given by English Nonconformists to a remembrance of the confessorship and heroism which marked the ejectment of ministers in 1662. A meeting was held in the spring at St. James’s Hall, Piccadilly, when papers were read, bearing on the commemoration. The preparation of one of them fell to my lot; but I was taken ill at the time for its delivery, and it had to be read by my friend, the Rev. Joshua Clarkson Harrison. A story is told of Garrick’s reading a poem of Hannah More’s, before a party of friends, when the effect produced was by Garrick attributed to the lady’s composition, and by the lady to the reader’s elocution. Whatever might be the impression made at St. James’s Hall on the reading of the paper, it was divided between my friend and me, after the same fashion. In this address I advocated a Bartholomew celebration, on the ground, that it was good to remember sacrifices made for conscience’ sake, and therefore professed my readiness to honour Jeremy Taylor as well as Richard Baxter. This brought a letter from the Bishop of Down and Connor testing my sincerity by an appeal on behalf of an Irish cathedral restoration in memory of Jeremy Taylor. I sent a small contribution, which brought back a pleasant response, such as I highly valued. Afterwards I met him at the Athenæum, when he invited me to visit him, with a view to Christian union in Ireland. I should add that the Bishop’s scheme for the cathedral restoration failed, and he politely returned my small contribution.

In the autumn of 1862, I read a paper to the Congregational Assembly, in which I advocated certain methods of improvement. This subject I took up afterwards, with no result, however, that I could discover. The faults of other systems are always more welcome than the reformation of our own.

In 1863 we were visited by a family bereavement which was one of the heaviest sorrows of my life. John Howard Stoughton, born at Windsor in 1842, was a lad of extraordinary character, witty and artistic beyond his brothers and sisters, who loved him with no ordinary love. His love of art led us to place the youth under Mr. Thomas, a distinguished sculptor and decorator, largely employed in works at Windsor Castle. Our boy devoted himself to his pursuits with an assiduity which created much anxiety in his mother and in me, for it evidently injured his health. In the spring of 1861 we took him to Hastings, and Dr. Moore, an eminent physician there, carefully studied his case, and, as the result, advised that his artistic pursuits should be for awhile suspended, and that he should travel abroad, where he would see and learn much, without tasking his physical power. Accordingly, in the summer of 1861, he visited the Continent with his elder brother and me, went up and down the Rhine, and saw pictures, statues, and decorations, which interested his mind without overtasking his bodily strength. In the following autumn he was better, and under medical advice we arranged that, in company with one of his sisters, he should spend the winter in Rome. They did so accordingly, and our hopes were raised; but in the spring he had an attack, which rendered it advisable that he should remove from Rome to some other part of Italy. He did so, and paid a visit to friends in Leghorn. I left home with another of my daughters and two nieces, joining my children where they were staying; thence I accompanied them, on a pleasant tour through Florence, over the Apennines, and, by way of Bologna, Milan, and the Alps, to Geneva. Thence we came home through France. We returned in good spirits; but, as winter approached, fears reawakened. Gradually the invalid became weaker; but faith in the Invisible and Divine Father grew stronger and stronger. The youth spent with us a cheerful Christmas; but in spring it was obvious he was not long for this world. As the end approached he talked calmly on the subject with his beloved brother, the two being united in bonds of Christian faith, as well as natural affection. I can never forget the Holy Communion we—mother, father, brother, and sisters—enjoyed in a room overlooking our garden, when bursting buds told of nature’s returning life, and the dear sufferer bore unmistakable signs of approaching death. But he was calm and cheerful, and took deep interest in the gracious ordinance. It was administered with solemnity by our dear friend Harrison, who loved Howard as though he had been his own son. He expired on March 31st, 1863, and on the following Sunday evening my brother just named preached a memorable funeral sermon in Kensington Chapel.

In 1864 Dr. Stanley became Dean of Westminster, and on his expressing a wish to be introduced to some Nonconformist brethren, Dr. William Smith—editor of so many valuable dictionaries, and with whom I was then associated in the business of New College—kindly gave a dinner party to which he invited me. The Dean afterwards finding there was between us some similarity of taste in literature, and sympathy in desires for union, invited me to the Deanery; and so began a friendship with him and Lady Augusta, which lasted as long as they lived, and proved one of the most precious privileges vouchsafed to me, by the providence of our Heavenly Father. On December 28th, 1865, “the Feast of the Holy Innocents”—the Dean preached a sermon in Westminster Abbey. The sermon was in commemoration of the Abbey’s foundation by Edward the Confessor eight hundred years before. The text was felicitously chosen from John x. 22, 23,—“It was the feast of the Dedication, and it was winter, and Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.” “Feast of the Dedication” corresponded with the character of the service; “winter” was the season of both celebrations; the northern porch—a main entrance to the Abbey—is called “Solomon’s porch.” The sermon was not less appropriate than the text. It sketched the history of the venerable edifice, and contained marked allusions to Nonconformist ministrations within its walls during the Commonwealth. Being present on the occasion, I wrote to the Dean afterwards in reference to his allusions, when, in reply, he said, “It gave me additional pleasure to deliver them, from the reflection that there was at least one person present capable of entering into them.” In the sermon, as delivered, he spoke of the Westminster Confession as the only one ever imposed in the whole Island, and on my calling his attention to this statement, and pointing out the distinction between the doctrinal and ecclesiastical part of the Confession, he answered, “I was not ignorant of the distinction, nor did I mean to say it was imposed in any offensive sense. For I was anxious not to say a word that could be offensive to any of my brethren, and merely wished to call attention to the fact, that a document, which had received in part a wider legal recognition than any other since the Reformation, came from Westminster Abbey.” In the sermon, as printed, are the words “sanctioned by law for the whole Island,” and in a note, “The doctrinal Articles of the Westminster Confession of Faith (were) sanctioned by the English Parliament in 1647, and the whole Confession by the Scottish Parliament in 1648.”

In further illustration of the Dean’s ingenuity when turning Scripture to account in the improvement of events, I may here repeat what he once related to me. He happened on a Saturday to be preparing a sermon for the Abbey, on some occasion when he was to plead for two objects, and had chosen for his text Gen. xxvii. 38—“And Esau said unto his father, hast thou but one blessing my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” As the Dean was writing his discourse, some one stepped in and told him, the American President, General Grant, intended to be at the Abbey the next day, and suggested that it would be gratifying to Americans if some allusion was made to the incident. Immediately it was turned to account by the Dean in this way—that God had many blessings which He distributed amongst his children; that bounty to one did not mean denial to another; that Great Britain, for instance, had been blessed, but God had rich benefactions for America as well.

For years I felt an earnest desire to visit the East, and thus to become personally acquainted with Bible lands. A meeting was held in 1865 to present me with a purse of £400, and a pledge that expenses incurred through my absence from Kensington should be met, without any pecuniary responsibilities on my part. The friends who accompanied me were Dr. Allon, of Union Chapel, Islington, Dr. Spence, of the Poultry Chapel, London, Dr. Bright, minister of the Independent Chapel, Dorking, and two young lay friends—Stanley Kemp-Welch and Thomas Wilson. The Dean of Westminster gave me introductions to people he knew in Palestine, and afforded valuable assistance in other ways.

We started in February 1865. I kept a journal and sent home long letters. We visited Alexandria and Cairo, and then proceeded through the desert of Sinai to the monastery at the foot of Jebel Mousa. Turning north, we made our way to Gaza, thence to Ramleh, and so onwards to Jerusalem. The members of our little party, as we approached the city on horseback, rode at a considerable distance from each other. I knew that we should cross some ridges, before we caught sight of the city, and I happened to be in the rear of my fellow-travellers. I watched the foremost of them till I saw him pull up his horse, pause awhile, then take off his hat. I knew what that meant, and the feelings awakened I can never forget while I live. I eagerly, and I may say reverently, followed the foremost horseman, and as soon as I caught sight of the walls and the gate, I am not ashamed to say, my eyes were full of tears.

As we entered the Holy City the bustle was very great. Bedouins with yellow scarves round their heads, and striped robes on their shoulders; Syrians with snowy turbans, short jackets, and flowing trousers; Turks wearing the crimson fez; a rich man “clothed in purple and fine linen,” mounted on a smartly caparisoned white ass, and a poor man on foot, ragged and tattered; camels and donkeys carrying loads of timber and brushwood, to the peril of wayfarers; Egyptian, Copt, Armenian, Greek, the black Nubian, the white Circassian, with groups of veiled women, shuffling over the stones in gay slippers—all these made a motley picture, which dazzled the attention of pilgrims from England. At length we reached our hotel, and had to make ladder-like ascents, and mount on roofs, story after story, before we could get to our apartments, whence we caught our first view of Mount Olivet.

We met with Christian friends in the Holy City, and were kindly invited by Dr. Gobat, Bishop of Jerusalem, to spend an evening at his house, when he gathered together a party consisting of the principal foreign visitors at the time, most of whom were English. For two Sunday mornings we worshipped at the church on Mount Zion, near the Episcopal residence, and were glad of an opportunity to partake of the Communion. I have always delighted in fellowship at the Lord’s table with Christian brethren of different churches, who, under different forms of administration, worship and adore the same Lord. Not only when travelling on the Continent have I received the Lord’s Supper at the hands of Episcopalian brethren, but in England, on a few occasions I have availed myself of a similar catholic privilege.

Before proceeding further, let me relate a story I heard from Dr. Rosen, the German consul, respecting the famous Sinaitic MS. Tischendorf had reason to believe a precious treasure was hid in the monastery at Sinai. He obtained letters which he thought would assist him, but, on further consideration, declined to employ them. He found in the library part of his coveted prize; and, it happened at that moment, the office of Okonomos was vacant, and a keen contest for it was going on between two monks. He joined one party, and promised to use influence with the Russian Emperor in favour of their candidate, hinting that the present of a valuable MS. would promote their object. After a good deal of diplomacy this plan prospered. The MS. coveted by the scholar was secured, and the once hopeless candidate was installed in office. This was not all. The MS. was incomplete, and the missing part was found by Tischendorf in the possession of a Greek merchant. The promise of a Russian title proved more effectual than gold, and Tischendorf carried off his prize to St. Petersburg in triumph. I jotted down the story the evening Dr. Rosen related it, and here in a few words have I given the substance.

Of course we explored Jerusalem as far as our limited time allowed; and, under the guidance of Dr. Rosen, I had the privilege of visiting certain spots where recent discoveries had been made. I remember seeing what looked like indications of a well, from which, it was easy to imagine, people, in our Lord’s time, used to draw water. Nor can I forget rambles on the line of walls commanding views of the city and neighbourhood. I can now distinctly recall my visit to a sepulchre outside the city, where a stone, like a large millstone, was lying at the door, as if recently “rolled away.” I studied (as well as time, and what I had read on the subject, would allow), the question as to the place of crucifixion, and where our blessed Lord rose from the dead. Points still remain to be settled, as to the direction in which the city wall ran in the time of Christ. I cannot adopt any modern theories on the whole subject, which have made way in America and in England. It appears to me after long study, that grounds can still be maintained in support of the old tradition in favour of the spot where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands. We made a memorable excursion to Bethlehem, by way of Rachel’s sepulchre, and descended the cave where, it is said, our Lord was born. We next proceeded to Hebron, where I stood by a flight of steps leading to the tombs within, longing to ascend and explore those hallowed resting places. Returning northwards, we stopped at the traditional oak, by which Abraham sat in the heat of the day—and at the vineyards of Eschol where old stocks are thriving still—and at Solomon’s pool and gardens, not far from David’s hiding-places. Then, after a long and exciting day, we found rest in the old monastery of S. Saba, from the terrace of which, we caught a view of the Dead Sea. We rambled on its melancholy shores, dipped in the Jordan, and then spent a night by the ruins of Jericho.

The order of our journey followed Dr. Stanley’s directions, that we might have the advantage of crossing Olivet, so as to come suddenly on the point where our Lord “beheld the city and wept over it.” From Jerusalem we proceeded northwards by Bethel, Sychar, Samaria, Esdraelon, and Nazareth, to Tiberias and the Lake. Thence by Safed we travelled over the hills of Galilee to Banias (“the Syrian Tivoli”), Damascus, and Beyrout. Banias is a charming spot. With the scenery from a hill overlooking Damascus I was charmed beyond measure, and was intensely interested in the antiquities of that grand old city. Dr. Allon, Dr. Bright and Mr. Wilson visited the ruins at Baalbec, but Mr. Kemp-Welch remained with me in Damascus to take care of Dr. Spence, who was very ill. He had to be leisurely taken over the mountains to Beyrout, approaching which we had never-to-be-forgotten views of the beautiful Mediterranean.

After leaving Palestine I wrote in my notes the following impression as to the Bible, which had been a constant companion and guide in our travels:—It is the Book of the Holy Land—the gospel of Palestine. It is Oriental; it is Syrian; it is Samaritan; it is Galilean; it is Jewish. It paints the scenery of the Land of Promise from end to end, and the wilderness too. It echoes the voices of the people. We hear in it the murmur of towns and villages, we pass through; it breathes the pure, fresh, bracing air of the desert; everywhere as I opened the Divine pages I found them reflecting surrounding scenes. Even the brilliant Frenchman, who has tasked his genius to demolish the authentic life of Jesus and to build out of the ruins an imagination of his own, virtually admits the truth of what I have now advanced, for he points out the minute accuracy of the Volume; which shows how true in detail are the Gospels, how faithful to rock and stream, river and lake, tree and wild flower, is the entire narrative. Thus, after all he says to the contrary, he really raises in the reader’s mind a fair presumption of its fidelity in higher matters.

One circumstance struck me as very noticeable—that is, the compression, within a small compass, of a number of stirring incidents related in Holy Writ. Dothan, where Joseph sought his brethren and their flocks; the plain of Megiddo, the battle-field of Israel; the river Kishon, “that ancient river,” so fatal to Sisera’s army; the valley of Jezreel, with its wide panorama, where Ahab had a palace; the heights of Gilboa, where fell Saul and his sons, with the well of Harod at the foot, where Gideon’s three hundred men stooped and lapped the water; the garden of the Shunamite, opposite to Mount Carmel; the city of Nain and the cave of Endor; Tabor and Nazareth—all these spots come within a few hours’ ride. Well might Issachar think “that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant.”

Our party began to separate at Beyrout. Dr. Spence, accompanied by Mr. Wilson, returned direct to England; the rest of us came home through Europe.

In crossing the Mediterranean with Dr. Allon and Kemp-Welch we touched at Cyprus. The coast looked flat and uninteresting, but the bright morning, the sparkling sea, and the manifold associations attaching to the islands inspired great curiosity and deep interest, though I felt by no means well. I began to be conscious that my appetite for travelling had somewhat palled, if not become almost dead. We landed at Larnaca, and found it a very poor place. The Greek churches were somewhat curious, from the circumstance of old columns with characteristic capitals being built into the walls. I noticed Greek priests sitting in wine shops, and some of them occupying places of traffic, selling different articles in huckster-like hovels. These men indicated the social degradation of inferior orders in the Eastern Church. However it may be with the dignified clergy in Russia, certainly priests in Palestine, Syria and the Mediterranean Isles afford low types of civilisation. After dwelling on what is related about Cyprus in the Acts of the Apostles, the conversion of Sergius Paulus, and the conduct of Elymas the sorcerer, became very real narratives; and with these memories in our minds we re-embarked and had a pleasant evening as we sat on deck. I fell asleep with the prospect of reaching Rhodes the next day.

The harbour, with its well-known mole and adjuncts, is very picturesque. We climbed up narrow streets, full of houses once occupied by the knights, and from the fortification, had an extensive view of the island and the Mediterranean. The Church of St. John, blown up by gunpowder, and shattered to fragments, seized on my imagination for a good while, as I wandered, and sat down on a spot, so rich in romantic story. We then returned to the interior of the town, and at the harbour watched the boatmen, busy at the seaside. As we were doing so, one of my companions exclaimed, “Stoughton, you’ve got the jaundice!” and, sure enough, when we reached our steamer, the looking-glass proved this was true. When I rose next morning my limbs were of a saffron colour.

The weather changed. The sky was dark, and the views we caught of Asia were by no means inviting. At night there came a storm; and a storm in the Mediterranean is no trifling matter. Wind roared through the rigging; the vessel lurched and laboured, groaning as if the timbers would burst. Lying in my berth I could feel the dashing billows. Tables and stools were sliding about. The suspended lamps swayed to and fro, like the pendulum of a clock. Overhead confusion was terrible. Horses were kicking, and the sailors were swearing. We had a pasha with his harem on board, and, as might be expected, they were exceedingly terrified. Crowds of pilgrims returning from the Eastern celebration at Jerusalem, were lying on deck resembling herrings in a barrel, and the noise they made was terrific. Waves beat over our boat, till the poor creatures were almost drowned. Beside we had horses, bears and monkeys on board, and, of course, they added to the inharmonious concert. I rose from my hammock early, and with my companion, Mr. Welch, sought comfort from a cup of tea. Reaching the deck, I talked with one of the engineers, an Englishman, and asked what he thought of the storm. “Is there any danger?” I asked. He replied, “This has been a very queer night, and we have made no way. If it had lasted, that would have been serious.” We safely reached Smyrna harbour in the afternoon.

Of course, I thought as we approached land:—There, on one of the hills yonder, the martyr, Polycarp, by death sealed the truths which he had proclaimed in life. As we landed, I thought myself in an Italian port, so European at a glance everything looked—houses, shops, and people—but, entering the town, the scene changed, for there the streets, bazaars, and costumes told of Oriental manners and customs. The next day a party was organised to visit the ruins of Ephesus. It can be reached by railway, and when we entered the station, we might have fancied ourselves at home; for there we met with English guards, and railway porters, like our own. We had a special train to convey us to the far-famed ruins. We visited what is left of the forum, the theatre, and the stadium, but it is difficult to identify anything; and it seemed to me, a definite idea of what Ephesus was in its glory is impossible. The view from the loftiest eminence is magnificent, including the vast plain, the winding river Cayster, and what, in Paul’s day was the harbour of Miletus. At the time of our visit, Greek Christians were celebrating the Festival of St. John, on a lofty hill, the church there being a rude-looking structure. The cave of the seven sleepers was pointed out, on our way back to the railway station, and by the cave is a beautiful mosque of the fifteenth century.

On Saturday morning we embarked at Smyrna for Constantinople. We faintly discerned in the far distance, as we crossed those classic waters, point after point closely connected with ancient story. Of course, all the way, amidst Homeric scenes and associations, we called them to mind by Homer’s help; but the thought of St. John’s labours, his epistles, to the seven churches in the Apocalypse, more prominently occupied one’s mind on the Lord’s day, when we had worship in the saloon, and I preached, as well as I could, to a few sympathetic fellow-passengers.

On Monday morning early, we reached the Golden Horn, filled with shipping. Caiques were quietly gliding over still waters; but we were troubled at the Custom House by an ignorant soldier, who laid hold upon my “Homer” and detained it for two or three days.

Kemp-Welch was the only member of our party left, the rest proceeding homeward by another route. I made the most of what was possible during the four days spent at Constantinople. My friend and I followed the circuit of the city on horseback; through Stamboul, which appeared very Oriental, ruinous and dirty—through lines of cypresses, near cemeteries with turbaned headstones; and so, all round, till we reached the sweet waters. There we tarried a while, looking at the gardens, and their summer houses, called kiosks. The place is a resort like Hampton Court. Thence we returned to the city. Next day we crossed the Golden Horn, and saw the Sultan’s seraglio, attached to which are more gardens and more kiosks. The place contains a library full of Arabic MSS., and a throne room, with the Sultan’s divan, surmounted with a baldacchino. There His Majesty used to hold his court, attended by janissaries, and was screened from the view of subjects, except that his hands were visible. The Sublime Porte is the grand entrance to the room of audience for ambassadors from other courts.

We visited the arsenal with its ammunition, muskets, and swords. The building, it is said, was in the fourth century a church—the Church of S. Irene, where Chrysostom preached some of his wonderful sermons—and it has still in the apse an antique cross. But the grand ecclesiastical edifice of Constantinople is S. Sophia, with columns brought from Ephesus, and representations of four cherubim with their faces obliterated. A legend is preserved to this effect, that when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, a priest was saying mass—immediately a chasm opened in the wall and received him. There he still remains, chalice in hand, waiting to finish the service, when Christians recover the ancient edifice.

But I must not enter into further details of what I saw and heard during my short stay at Constantinople. I was now left alone, as my only remaining companion was obliged to return home by a different route.

Let me add in closing this part of my story, that the banks of the Bosphorus on which I gazed, as I left Constantinople, surpassed previous imagination. The gardens and kiosks by the waterside, looked paradisaical; and as we steamed along I was enchanted, one instant after another, by objects on the shore. All the way to the Black Sea was delightful. Then surroundings changed. Travellers, landed to find themselves amidst indescribable confusion. Thence we proceeded by rail across a dreary district, without trees, and abounding in shallow sheets of stagnant water, with plenty of storks, Egyptian geese, and other wild birds. Still, within the region crossed, there were fields of grain. We reached our steamer on the Danube, between six and seven o’clock on Friday evening.

We found the great river improve as we ascended it. At first we had low banks dotted with mosques and minarets, showing we were still in Turkey. On board the boat I was treated as an invalid, and the attention shown by captain, crew, and servants, was such as to inspire the warmest gratitude on my part.

The scenery on the banks of the Danube, in the earlier part of our voyage up the river, was very magnificent—rocks rising loftily from the water’s edge on one bank, but low on the other. We passed richly wooded scenery, and caught glimpses of pleasant glens, with running streams and picturesque bridges. Further on were comfortable farm-houses and smiling villages. We reached Pesth on Tuesday, travelling by rail, and then proceeded, in the same way, to Vienna, where I tarried for a couple of days—seeing the magnificent cathedral, the vaults of the Capuchin Church, the Prater, the Royal Palace, and the Picture Galleries. Travelling across Germany by rail I reached the Rhine, thence to Brussels, where I was entertained by my nieces then on a visit there. At last I found two dear daughters waiting at the Victoria Station, and at Fairlawn House, Hammersmith, there was a loving welcome.

At the conclusion of my narrative of Eastern travel, let me remark. What one sees in travelling through Palestine gives vividness to the narrative—makes what before were pale outlines, pictures of glowing colour and dazzling light. I do not forget the danger there is of being too much engaged with what is outward in Biblical studies—tarrying in the porch instead of worshipping in the temple—lingering by the hedge to gather flowers instead of pressing into the field to cut down corn—playing the geologist, instead of working as spiritual miners—finding out what is curious as to literature, instead of appropriating “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” But still, what I gathered in the East is precious, and may minister to spiritual edification, as well as to mental enjoyment. How marvellous it is that whilst the Bible is so Eastern—while Oriental manners, customs, and scenery are photographed there, it is nevertheless an universal book! The Koran is not so Eastern as the Bible; at least, so it struck me, as I read it in the East; yet the Bible is the Englishman’s book as the Koran could not be, even if we were all Mussulmans.

Specially forcible and beautiful were the impressions we derived touching the life of Christ; we felt how toilsome were his journeys as He walked along the rough and rugged pathways from Jericho to Jerusalem, over which we rode. How humiliating must have been his intercourse with the poor, who, no doubt, then lived in wretched mud hovels, such as we saw, not only in Palestine, but in Egypt; types of domestic habitation for the lower classes in ages past! We thought: Through such collections of “houses of clay” did He pass! Here did He tarry, and within such abodes! Not one of them was His own; He had not where to lay His head.

CHAPTER IX
1865–1872

In the year 1867 I published the first volumes of my “Ecclesiastical History of England”; this calls for explanation of what preceded and prepared for it.

Immediately after I left college, and settled at Windsor, I commenced the study of Church history with much earnestness; and the first fruit was a course of lectures on the subject to my congregation, delivered on week evenings. When I had completed them they were sent by me to my revered tutor, Dr. Henderson, for criticism and advice. He encouraged me to pursue my studies in that direction, with the hope and intention of making use of them in after life. I followed his advice, and during the remainder of my Windsor ministry devoted all the time I could spare from pulpit and pastoral duties to researches into early annals of Christendom. In my investigations I was kindly allowed to use the Dean and Chapter’s library. After I left Windsor, I turned attention to ecclesiastical affairs during the Puritan period. This happened just as I was about to pay a visit to my native county—Norfolk—where I commenced studying original records in Norwich. Proceedings against Nonconformity and other records there came within my reach, that part of England being somewhat rich in this department of history. “Spiritual Heroes” was the title of my first volume, which not long after was revised and enlarged in a second edition. The Congregational lecture on “The Ages of Christendom,” was delivered and published in 1856. This led, in 1867, to the “Ecclesiastical History of England, from the Opening of the Long Parliament to the Death of Oliver Cromwell.” “The Church of the Restoration,” forming two volumes, appeared in 1870, and “The Church of the Revolution” in 1874. To complete the list of works on English Ecclesiasticism, there followed other volumes on the reigns of Queen Anne and the Three Georges. Afterwards came “Religion in England from 1800 to 1851.” I state all this, because some confusion has arisen from a fragmentary publication of the original works and of successive editions.

In 1867 correspondence and personal intercourse commenced between a distinguished Episcopalian and myself, of an interesting character. In that year I received an invitation to Chichester from Dean Hook. He was much talked of, on account of his High Churchmanship, and his pre-eminent activity as Vicar of Leeds. Dissenters counted him amongst their bitter foes; and I should have been much surprised, years earlier, had I been told I was to be a guest at his house. Yet so it was. Historical sympathies brought us together, and each found that the other wished to be fair in dealing with men who held opposite opinions. Both believed in a spiritual brotherhood reaching beyond denominational bounds. Soon after my arrival at Chichester he asked: “What shall we talk about? If I thought I could make you a Churchman, I would try to do so; and if you thought you could make a Dissenter of me, you would make the attempt.” I replied: “Nothing of the kind; let us leave out ecclesiastical controversy, and talk of literary and religious matters, on which we are pretty well agreed; and when we have exhausted them we will take up points of difference.” He went on to say, that his great friend Lord Hatherley, then High Chancellor, differed from him politically, and yet they had walked up together to the polling booth to record opposite votes, without any breach of friendship. “And so,” he said, “you and I can unite to a certain extent; and when we come to the parting of the way, we can each take our own course, with mutual good will.” I entered into the compact. On historical and social subjects, and as to religion in its spiritual and experimental aspects, we were of one accord, and felt no inclination to unsheath swords.

We had pleasant drives in the country and cheerful chat at the dinner-table, when he included within his party members of the cathedral body. Plenty of anecdotes were related, some about Dr. Wilberforce, when Bishop of Oxford. The Bishop, I heard, used to tell a story, which showed how a man might, unconsciously, make a good pun. He had engaged to dine with somebody whose name was Hunter, a cattle grazier, and on his way, as was his wont, the Bishop bethought himself: “What topic of talk can we have together?” At the railway-station his eye caught an advertisement of “Thorley’s Food for Cattle.” That would suit very well. So the bishop asked the grazier his opinion of such provision for beasts of the field. The host replied: “It might do very well for Oxen, but not for a Hunter.” He did not know he was quoting the diocesan name of his right-reverend guest (Oxon.), and forgot at the moment he was also repeating his own. The Dean gave a conundrum, invented by the Bishop, for the amusement of a young lady:—

“What part of your dress resembles two popular preachers in the Church of England?”

“Give it up?”

“Hook and I.”

The Chancellor of the Cathedral, I think it was, spoke of Wilberforce’s power of adapting himself to people whom he met. He liked to know beforehand who he was to see. Introduced to a Yorkshire-man, he began to talk in the county dialect. Visiting a screw manufactory, he won the confidence of workmen by showing some knowledge of their business. Once at the Earl of Derby’s (grandfather of the present Lord) he met gentlemen of the turf, and surprised them by giving the pedigree of a celebrated racehorse. On being asked how he came to be “well up” on such a subject, he said he had gleaned knowledge of that kind as a boy, in the stables of a trainer, near his father’s house. He scarcely ever forgot anything he had heard.

The Dean was an early riser; and retired early to bed. We had family prayer in the library about nine o’clock, the family and the guests standing and kneeling together. He read the Psalms for the day, and used parts of the Morning and Evening Service. Once, about half-past ten in the evening, I said to Mrs. Hook—a charming woman, “light of the dwelling”—“I must bid the Dean good-night. Where is he?”

“In bed and asleep the last hour,” she gently answered.

He told me that early rising had been his habit during his residence at Leeds, and was so still; that demands on his time, from forenoon to night, were such at Leeds as would have prevented all literary work, had he not secured hours for study before breakfast. Then it was he wrote his books. He worked hard all day when vicar, and adopted unusual methods of usefulness, holding something like Methodist class-meetings, which took strong hold on his Yorkshire parishioners. Familiar devotional gatherings he kept up at Chichester; and a poor old woman was so delighted with them, that, by an odd association of ideas, she compared them to feasting on “lamb and salad.” These meetings he would humorously call by that name. I had a good deal of talk with my kind hostess about clerical incomes, and the demands made on them; and so I became disabused of false notions common amongst outsiders. From what I heard of large outgoings, payments on promotion, and so on, I am able to form a more correct estimate of pecuniary affairs in the Establishment, than I could before.

Considerable correspondence passed between us. A friendly intercourse was also maintained by subsequent visits. In a letter dated June 4th, 1867, he says:—

“I like a companion who will look out for points of agreement, and then coze upon them. I never court the society of those who love an argument, and look out for topics on which we disagree. You will, perhaps, infer from this, that I want vigour of mind; but I really believe that many minds are drawn out and strengthened by cozing instead of arguing, and I am sure that this conduces to brotherly affection. My wife and I after many years of hard work—and what is worse than work, worry—came here to retire from the world. We see little of general society, and confine ourselves to pleasant cozy intercourse, with our large and united family, and old friends. We cannot, therefore, offer you any gaiety when you come amongst us, but if you take us as we are, we shall hope to have some pleasant cozes.”

In a letter, dated March 1868, he remarks:

“In the Peninsular War the pickets of the two armies were accustomed often to meet on the most friendly terms, and enjoy each other’s conversation. But when the trumpet sounded each man was at his post, ready to do his duty. So it is with us. I have always acted on this principle of refusing to admit the assertion, that our differences are on nonessentials—and of offering, nevertheless, the right hand of friendship in private to those whom in public I might oppose, or rather by whom I was myself opposed. I was freely censured at one time for this; but when I left Leeds my Nonconformist friends rallied round me to bid me farewell, and several of them saw I had pursued the right course.”

“The great thing which you and I have to do is to guard against the deadly sin of too many of our contemporaries—imputing motives. If we can discover a good motive, we may rejoice, even though we condemn the action to which it may have led. But no words can express, or thought conceive, the indignation I experience, when men seek to attribute good actions to bad motives.”

The Dean was not one of your modern correspondents. The last of these extracts is from a letter on quarto sheets, which covers sixteen closely written pages.

Dr. Hook was a delightful talker, English to the backbone—“a thorough John Bull,” as an Oxford don once said to me. There was a strong dash of humour in his constitution, and he was ready to tell amusing anecdotes of himself. He was no ritualist, no Puritan, certainly no Erastian; but a godly, warm-hearted, Christian man, whom it was a privilege to know.

During visits to Chichester I became acquainted with one of the canons, Dr. Swainson, then Norrisian Professor at Cambridge, afterwards Master of Christ’s College in that University. He rendered me essential service whilst I was writing my volumes on “The Church of the Restoration.” Some of the books and MSS. in the library of the cathedral were of great use; and when I visited him afterwards at Cambridge he rendered me further valuable aid. I had the pleasure of meeting some Cambridge dons at his dinner table, and I remember being interested and instructed by a long conversation on the rendering of names given in our version of the Bible to ancient instruments of music. In 1869 I was present at the announcement of wranglers for that year. I stood side by side with my friend in the gallery, close to the gentleman who held in his hand a paper big with the fates of university competitors. It was a dark morning, and at eight o’clock, amidst breathless silence, the personal secrets so many waited to learn, were publicly proclaimed. It was a grand piece of living mosaic which lay before me, as upturned eager countenances were fixed on the spot where I was standing; and the announcement of the new senior wrangler raised applause which seemed enough to lift the roof.

My friendly relations with Dr. Swainson continued through after-years; and his laborious investigations into Church creeds were frequent topics in our conversation. His inquiries into the date of the Utrecht MS. containing the “Quicunque vult,” etc., were extraordinarily extensive, minute, and careful, as I can bear testimony from repeated accounts he gave of Continental journeys and inquiries. I apprehend that nobody ever spent so much time and labour on the inquiry, as he did; therefore his conclusions ought to carry much weight in the settlement of a controversy touching historical theology, as well as an archæological question.

On the occasion of my visit to Cambridge I went to see my friend, Mr. Fordham of Melbourne, who possessed a valuable collection of paintings; and I mention him here, for the sake of what he related respecting Lord Beaconsfield, who had been a schoolfellow with Mr. Fordham’s brother-in-law, the Right Honourable Russell Gurney, Recorder of London.

They were educated at an academy in Walthamstow, kept by Mr. Cogan, a Presbyterian minister, whose son I knew well. Young Dizzy, as people called the politician, was famous at school for two things. He delighted in forming parties and getting up cabals—there was an embryo politician; next he excelled in telling stories, and would keep the boys awake at night by his romantic inventions—there was an embryo novelist. He had early dreams of future greatness, I think; and my friend informed me that he had talked to his schoolmates of being one day Prime Minister of England.

In the winter of 1867–68, Dr. Alford, Dean of Canterbury, delivered and printed a lecture on “The Christian Conscience,” which was followed up, in The Contemporary by an article expressive of kindly feelings towards Nonconformists, and a desire for more friendly intercourse with them. I felt it a duty to respond to this overture, and did so, both privately and publicly. This prepared for a friendship which I highly valued. About the same time, Archdeacon Sandford, father of the Bishop of Gibraltar, made a move in the same direction. I spoke to brethren in sympathy with myself, as regards union, and we thought of inviting a few clergymen to meet us—when, on my acquainting Dean Stanley with what we had in our minds, he expressed a wish to take the lead by getting several friends on both sides to dine with him at Westminster. Accordingly Dean Alford, Archdeacon Sandford, Prebendary Humphreys, and other clergymen, met my friends Binney, Allon, and others, at our good friend’s hospitable board; and the party proved most agreeable. Other gatherings of the same kind followed, and at Fairlawn, where I lived, a long conversation took place, when, in addition to those just mentioned, Lord Ebury, Henry Winterbotham, M.P., Dr. Angus, Dr. Rigg, Dr. Roberts, and my intimate friend, Joshua Harrison, interchanged views in reference to Catholic intercourse. Dr. Alford, the Dean of Canterbury, afterwards invited Mr. Binney and myself to one of his garden parties, and soon afterwards he presided at the Cheshunt College Anniversary, when he uttered sentiments which were followed by a pleasant response from ministers of different denominations. On another occasion he met the Professors of New College, by invitation from the Coward Trustees; thus, and in other and similar ways, brotherly intercourse was considerably advanced.

If I may be permitted to trespass a little on what was at the time in futurity, I will, for the sake of preserving connection between incidents at that period, mention other circumstances which brought together, in a friendly way, members of different religious bodies. The first was of no great importance. I think it was in 1870, the Archbishop of Syra visited England, and made some little stir. Dr. Stanley entertained him in the Jerusalem Chamber, and invited a larger party to meet him afterwards. The host was not likely to lose such an opportunity for bringing together people of different opinions. Several were introduced to this stranger, who occupied during his visit, perhaps, a position above his usual one. The simple fact of this introduction was magnified, by newspapers, even the Times, into a sort of submission to Greek Archiepiscopal superiority; for the few whose names were mentioned were represented as receiving his formal benediction, and I wrote to explain the nature of the interview, which really amounted to nothing more than a respectful bow on the part of an Englishman to a foreigner, and the return on the foreigner’s part of an accustomed Greek salutation. The intended effect of private civil reciprocities is often spoiled, by attributing to them meanings never intended and utterly absurd. Reports of them in quite a ridiculous way get into newspapers.

It was owing to the circumstance of my being “capped” in Edinburgh at the same time with Matthew Arnold, that I became acquainted with that remarkable man. He was by no means popular with Dissenters, owing to what, in some of his books, he said with reference to them. They appreciated his ability, but censured the spirit which appeared in some of his criticisms. My acquaintance with him convinced me that in some respects he was misjudged. When I came to know him pretty well, I playfully referred to some things he had written, which stung people whom I knew. “But I am not such a bad fellow,” he rejoined, “as Dissenters think.” “No,” I replied, “but Dissenters look at you through your books; I look at your books through you—and that makes a great difference.” I always found him kind, gentle, tender-hearted. He sympathised with me in domestic sorrows, and was pleased with some things I had written.

The publication of “Ecclesia,” a volume by Dissenters, about the same time that another volume appeared written by Churchmen, was the means of bringing the editors and writers of the two works together at the house of a common friend, the Rev. H. S. Toms of Enfield. The Rev. W. D. Maclagan, editor of “The Church and the Age”—incumbent of a neighbouring parish (afterwards Vicar of Kensington, then Bishop of Lichfield [176a])—and Dr. Reynolds, of Cheshunt College, were present. Each editor proposed success to his brother editor on the other side.

This was an instance of mutual recognition and charity, worthy of being known; standing out, as it does, in pleasant contrast with bitter ways in which ecclesiastical controversies have been too often waged. Nor did that single interview end the intercourse thus begun, as I have had a few opportunities since of kindly intercourse with Dr. Maclagan, both as Kensington Vicar, and as a distinguished Bishop, earnestly doing his Episcopal work.

Another event occurred about the same time, in favour of union. The question of Bible Revision ripened to a practical issue in 1870. [176b] A committee was formed by Convocation to carry out the project, and I had the privilege of being present during a part of the discussion. I heard the Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Alford, make an eloquent speech in favour of the design he had done so much to initiate, and for the accomplishment of which he laboured to the last. That speech was pronounced by some members as the most effective he ever delivered. In the evening of the same day, I came across Archdeacon Denison, at a clerical meeting, to which I was invited by an old Kensington neighbour, the Rev. J. E. Kempe, Rector of St. James’, Piccadilly. There is nothing like private chat with men of pronounced opinions, who in public are accustomed to speak with vehemence. Judging from newspapers, one regards them as repulsive, whereas a little tête-à-tête in a quiet corner, makes a marvellously different impression. It was so in this instance, and the fiery Archdeacon, as I had thought him, proved a genial, humorous old clergyman, joking me on misconceptions of character formed by reading outside critics.

I must say, after all his antecedents, I found him a thoroughly hearty and kindly disposed Englishman and Christian. “The Revision,” had a powerful and permanent effect in the relations of several distinguished Churchmen and Nonconformists. Some of my scholarly brethren, I need scarcely say, were chosen on the committee, and nothing could be more harmonious than their co-operation on both sides. Having enjoyed the friendship of some, and the acquaintance of more, I can testify to their mutual regard and affection. Some High Churchmen—as I know from having seen notes in their handwriting—expressed thankfulness to Almighty God for having brought them into this new relationship. It evidently removed prejudices, and inspired a feeling of religious oneness, where there had been before estrangement, if not alienation. At the same time Dissenting scholarship rose in estimation; and I found from conversation, that Churchmen held their fellow-revisers in high respect as critical students of the sacred volume. Some betrayed their possession of an idea, that Nonconformist learning in our day had risen far above what it was of old; an idea I endeavoured to correct, by maintaining that, whilst there has been a wider diffusion of knowledge amongst our ministers, it may be questioned whether the attainments of living men amongst us have not been exceeded by those of a past generation. Distinguished Hebrew scholars, such as Drs. Boothroyd, Pye-Smith, and Henderson, famous in the early years of the century, are dropping out of notice in the present day.

Social intercourse went on between the revisers and their friends. Reunions were held at New College, and Regent’s Park College, and also in private residences.

An attempt on a bolder line to promote Christian union, came into prominence about the time now under review. I allude to a proposal for what has been called an “interchange of pulpits,”—more properly an interchange of preaching officers. A hundred years ago it was not altogether uncommon for Incumbents of the Establishment to preach in Dissenting chapels, especially those of the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion; in a few instances a Nonconformist occupied a parish church pulpit. Such irregularities died out early in this century. But twenty years since there appeared a willingness on the part of several clergymen to revive the practice. Conferences were held with reference to the subject, and discussions occurred as to what measures should be taken to secure legally, what seemed desirable to many. The Right Honourable Cowper Temple, afterwards Lord Mount Temple (now deceased), took an interest in the matter, and prepared a Bill to remove legal impediments out of the way. He sent me the following note:—

“My desire is to give power to the Bishop and Incumbent to allow any minister of any denomination, or any layman, to preach occasional sermons without requiring the person who preaches to do any of the things required of a Priest or Deacon.

“I shall not touch the Act of Uniformity, but provide for a case which is not included in its provisions—that of preaching sermons which are not part of the daily Church Service, though they may be delivered at the same time. All that is wanted is the admission that preaching in a church belonging to the Establishment is not exclusively a function of the Established Church.”

I insert a copy of the Bill which he sent me.

“A Bill

“To enable Incumbents of Parishes, with the approval and consent of the Archbishop or Bishop of the Diocese, to admit to the Pulpits of their Parish Churches persons not in Holy Orders of the Church of England, for the purpose of delivering occasional Sermons or Lectures.

“Whereas it is expedient that facilities should be given for the occasional delivery of Sermons in Churches of the Church of England by persons not in Holy Orders of the Church of England.

“May it therefore please Your Majesty,

“That it may be enacted, by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows (that is to say):—

“1. It shall be lawful for the Bishop of any Diocese in England, on the application of the Incumbent or Officiating Minister of any Church or Chapel belonging to the Church of England within his Diocese, or for the Ordinary of any Collegiate Church or Chapel, to grant, if he shall think fit, permission under his hand to any person, although he is not in Holy Orders and has not made or subscribed a Declaration of Assent in the terms set forth in ‘The Clerical Subscription Act, 1865,’ to preach occasional Sermons or Lectures in such Church or Chapel; and thereupon it shall be lawful for the person mentioned in such permission, on the invitation of the Incumbent or Officiating Minister, to preach an occasional Sermon or Lecture in such Church or Chapel without making any subscription or declaration before preaching.

“2. The preaching of an occasional Sermon or Lecture, in pursuance of this Act, may take place in any Church or Chapel either, after any of the Services in the Book of Common Prayer, or at a time when no Service is used, as may seem best to the Incumbent or Officiating Minister of such Church or Chapel.”

This Bill did not propose liberty for an Episcopalian incumbent to preach in a Nonconformist edifice—that object could be sought afterwards—and the limited freedom contemplated by the proposed measure failed to receive parliamentary support. The fact was, Members of Parliament, who were Dissenters, did not take up the question with any zeal, and some were decidedly against the proposal. They felt no more desire to see Nonconformists in Church pulpits than the Established clergy and laity did; though, of course, they took a different ground of objection. Lines of division remained strongly marked, and those who aimed at Disestablishment were bent on a more sweeping change. The time had not become ripe even for so small an alteration, and as there seemed no great willingness in any party to promote the proposal, it came to an unfortunate end. All kinds of means for promoting union have been suggested, and I have supported some very earnestly; but, in my old age, I am persuaded there is truth in the remark: “The more we grow in knowledge and advance in love, the more we should strive to preserve that simplicity, which is so peculiarly the characteristic of the Gospel, and the more we should guard against the uncharitableness of supposing that every other view, except our own, must be useless or erroneous.” [183]

The year 1871 was marked by an educational measure, opening Oxford to all denominations more fully than it had been. The Bill met with opposition from the Marquis of Salisbury and his friends. Some time before I had been requested by Lord Ebury to draw up for the Ritual Commission an account of Nonconformist modes of communion. The account is printed in the Report for 1870 (p. 139). Now I received a note from the Marquis, who had obtained a committee for collecting information, asking me to give evidence with regard to matters referred to them. Accordingly I attended. After listening to what Dr. Jowett, Master of Balliol, had to say, I took my seat, to answer their Lordships’ queries. [184] I had looked forward to examination as somewhat formidable, but found it far otherwise. It turned out to be a pleasant conversation.

When the Bill came under discussion in the House of Lords, I felt an interest in the debate, and consequently attended as a listener. After Lord Carnarvon had spoken, he stepped over to the spot where I stood, saying that his desire had been not to say anything discourteous to Dissenters. I received from him afterwards a note, written in the same spirit, and expressing a desire for the maintenance of friendly relations. About the same time it happened that a course of lectures was given on “Christian Evidences,” in which bishops and other clergymen took part with Dissenting ministers.

The British and Foreign Bible Society is a bond of social, as well as religious, union. A dinner at Mr. George Moore’s house, Palace Gardens, was, at that time, an annual institution, and after the Exeter Hall meeting in May, the committee, speakers, and other friends, met under his hospitable roof. The host appeared at his very best, frank, generous, and kind—no affectation, no assumption; only a rich vein of English geniality. On his right hand at such occasions, usually sat Lord Shaftesbury, on the left perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury. Without flattery, but in homely ways of recognising service, the master of the table would call up one after another of his guests, and after we left the dining-room, we had family prayer together, a bishop and a Dissenter taking part in conducting the worship.

In 1871 the Dean of Canterbury was suddenly taken to his rest. The tidings gave great sorrow; and I felt it was due to his memory that some Dissenting brethren should attend the funeral. Harrison, Baldwin Brown, Newman Hall, and others did so; I was invited by the family to be one of the pall bearers. Dr. Stanley, Dr. Merivale, Dean of Ely, and others, met in the good man’s library, where his picture of St. Michael’s Mount,—on which he had spent some of his last hours—stood upon the easel, and Walton’s Polyglot lay open at the Book of Exodus, where Dr. Alford had been reading just before his death. Slowly and sadly we walked into the cloisters, where places were assigned us, and the procession moved into the cathedral. There Mrs. Alford, with wonderful composure, joined in the solemn service. Shops were shut, and the streets lined with people, as we were conveyed to St. Martin’s Churchyard, where we joined in singing one of his hymns, “Ten thousand times ten thousand,” etc. He had expressed a wish to be interred there, and wrote the following memorandum: “When I am gone, and a tomb is to be put up, let there be, besides any indication of who is sleeping below, these words only: Deversorium viatoris Hierosolymam proficiscentis—i.e., the inn of a traveller who is on his way to Jerusalem.”

In a letter which I received from Canon Robertson, he said, in reference to this inscription: “Perhaps Mr. Bullock may be able to tell you, that some one has discovered the source of the words engraved at the bottom of the tombstone. My own inquiries have been fruitless.” I have not been able to ascertain their origin.

A committee was formed to raise some testimonial to the Dean’s worth, and they invited me to join them. They acted in correspondence with the Chapter, and it was determined that a painted window should be placed in the cathedral, and that it should contain symbols of the evangelists, and the scenes of our Lord’s Temptation, in the larger circles; whilst the four smaller ones around, were to contain subjects showing that He exercised miraculous power of the same kinds, in which He refused to exert it, at the Tempter’s suggestion.

In the following year I lost a valued friend, member of our Kensington church, Sir Donald F. Macleod, C.B., K.C.S.I. He had occupied the position of Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjaub, and met his death from a railway accident in December, 1872. He possessed a rare gift for putting himself into kindly fellowship with those he ruled, whether rich or poor, entering into their feelings and cultivating their regard so that he acquired a widespread influence in the Indian province, which might be called the country of his adoption. All the people loved him as a friend and father; hence it was said, that if the natives had to choose a prince, he would be their choice. In a leading journal, the remark of an Indian gentleman was preserved to the effect, that, “If all Christians were like Sir Donald, there would be no Mahomedans or Hindoos.” His private life was of a piece with his public career. He had the power of making numerous friendships through the happy blending of religion with an affectionate disposition. “Wherever he went,” said a relative, “his presence was like sunshine, and the sunshine was the reflection of another presence, even of Him of whom it is said, ‘In Thy presence is fulness of joy.’” As he communed with us at Kensington, and was a personal friend, I can bear testimony to his cheerful manners in company. His tall, commanding figure attracted attention, and his calm, pleasant utterances won all hearts, especially those of the young, who would gather round him, attracted by the magic of his sympathy. This Indian gentleman visited the Cripples’ Home; this Oriental scholar addressed a class in the East of London; this ruler, who might have died a rich nabob, gave away the surplus of his income in acts of charity.

In 1872 an incident occurred of an amusing description, which, as it has some significancy, is worthy of notice. A paragraph appeared in a religious newspaper to the following effect: “The Revs. Dr. Binney, Dr. Allon, and Dr. Stoughton have been, it seems, presented to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, by that consistent advocate of comprehension, Dr. Stanley, Dean of Westminster. It remains to be seen whether the Archbishop will invite either of the Doctors to preach in any of the Metropolitan churches, if not in the Abbey, or in the Cathedral. The Act of Uniformity will have to be repealed.” If anybody who read this announcement had been acquainted with the circumstances, he would have seen its absurdity. The visit arose from an informal invitation to a party at Lambeth—from Dr. Tait, who was well acquainted with all the three persons. They needed no “presentation,” such as the newspaper imagined. It is a curious fact, that, while some people complain of Dissenters being ignored or repulsed by the upper classes, when, instead of it, there is friendly recognition, the complainants imagine that, if the two classes do meet, there must be obsequiousness on the one side, and patronage on the other. It is supposed an impossible thing, for a Dignitary and a Dissenter to meet as gentlemen, without any professional design; on the occasion referred to, ecclesiastical objects no more entered the head of the host, as he welcomed us with cordiality, than it entered the heads of his guests. It was an affair of social courtesy, in which politeness on the one side, I hope, was returned on the other. By the way, at a Lambeth reception, after mingling with friends whom I had known for some years, I heard Mr. Binney say to Bishop Wilberforce: “Are you not surprised to see us here?”

“Surprised! Why, if you were not here, who should be here?”

This rejoinder puzzled my friend, when I ventured to add, “I understand your compliment, my lord, but at least you will acknowledge, it is something new.”

“No, not new,” he rejoined, and laying his hand on my shoulder, proceeded to say, “What is right is not new: is not righteousness as old as the creation?”

“Then you consider it is right for us to be here,” I ventured to remark.

“Certainly; delighted to see you.”

Some one overhearing this colloquy, observed in a whisper, “He will talk in a different way in different company.” Possibly; but I believe there is force in what I have heard his friends say—he was a man of many-sided sympathy, thoroughly good-natured, fond of approbation, wishing to stand well with everybody, and for the moment sincerely meaning what he said. But he was changeful and inconsistent, saying one day, under an amiable impulse, what it was difficult to reconcile with his conversation another day in different company. I knew little of him personally as a man; but as a preacher, and author, I must say I have derived no small advantage from his sermons and addresses.

Further, in reference to Bishop Wilberforce, remarkable stories were current showing what a marvellous gift of extemporary eloquence he possessed. Archdeacon Sinclair told me that once the Bishop came to a meeting of the National School Society, totally unprepared, and whispered to him: “What points had I better take up?” The Archdeacon mentioned two or three. Wilberforce a few minutes afterwards rose, and delivered a speech on those very points, as if he had spent the morning in preparation. Dean Stanley told me that when the Bishop held a confirmation in the Abbey, he asked, as they walked together up the nave, whether there was any particular subject he would like to have introduced. One was mentioned. Forthwith the Bishop took it up in his address to the confirmed, in a way which led his hearers to suppose he had carefully prepared what he said.

Dr. Guthrie was one of the most genial men I ever knew; full of anecdote up to the brim. Indeed his conversation almost entirely took that form, and his racy way of telling a story gave what he said an irresistible charm. He was far more catholic than many of his brethren, and though he had respect for his ecclesiastical party, his sympathies went far beyond his own circle; and with reference to the Established Church of Scotland, though himself a Free Churchman, he cherished no animosity, and was not indisposed to preach occasionally in the old parish pulpits. His attachment to Evangelical truth was very strong, and for any deviations from it he would listen to no excuse. He visited some of my people at Kensington, and that brought me frequently into his society. How he used to talk of his visits to Mr. Disraeli and the Countess of Beaconsfield, of the wedding of the Marquis of Lorne, when he escorted the children of the family to Windsor Castle, and was especially noticed by Her Majesty, and was addressed as “My Lord” by somebody who thought him a bishop; and of a dinner-party at Argyle Lodge, when he met Mr. Bright, and could hardly get in a word himself, because the great orator would talk so much! The last time I saw him was at breakfast with me at my house, when I think he was more brilliant and merry than usual. He knew I was entertaining thoughts of retirement, and he strongly urged me to relinquish pastoral duties and become an occasional preacher. Moreover he said, “It is better to be too early than too late in this respect. ‘Why do you give up so soon?’ one of Her Majesty’s Ministers once asked me; ‘you have all your wits about you.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and if I were to wait, as some do, till my wits are gone, I should never give up at all.’”

An important crisis in the summer of 1872, had occurred in the history of New College. Dr. Halley from age and infirmities, retired from the principalship. Dr. Newth was chosen successor, and to fill up the chair, left vacant by my old friend and tutor, the services of three London ministers were called into requisition. Mr. Binney undertook the Homiletic Class, Dr. Kennedy became Theological Professor in the department of Apologetics, and I was invited to conduct instruction in Historical Theology. My hands were pretty full, but this was an engagement congenial to my taste, and for which I felt I was better qualified than I had been at the time when an invitation was given me to accept the office of principal. [193]

The question of my retirement from the pastorate occupied my thoughts at a later period, and I indicated this in a communication to the Church through my deacons. That communication was met by a warm and earnest request that I would continue at Kensington Chapel a little while longer. I consented to tarry till the end of two years.

About the time just noticed, education in reference to public schools assisted by Government grants was keenly discussed. Those amongst Nonconformists who were disposed to accept State aid in support of schools in which religion was taught were regarded as acting inconsistently with their principles in opposition to State endowment of Christianity. Into that question it is unnecessary to enter here, but I repeat what I urged at the time referred to, that Government aid and Government inspection were co-extensive; that if Government assisted a school, and inquired exclusively into the secular instruction of pupils, the aid bestowed was to be regarded as in aid of that alone. The separation in a school of religious from secular instruction, appeared to me inconsistent with our duty as Christians. In guiding the intellect of the young, an infusion of Gospel truth is, I believe, of essential importance. A declaration to the effect that the Bible should be used in public schools was signed by several hundred Christian ministers, and in that declaration I most cordially joined. The severance of revelation from other fundamental grounds of youthful knowledge was, in my estimation, very mischievous.

Mr. Forster was condemned severely by a large number of Dissenters as being opposed to the interests of Nonconformity. I have good reason for believing that he wished to deal fairly between Church and Dissent. The opinions of all parties had to be consulted, and it was no easy thing for any man in his place to give universal satisfaction. I conversed with him at the time on the subject of his measure, and am persuaded he was honest throughout the whole business. When the strongest feeling against him existed, I know, from what he said to me, that he gave full credit to his opponents for good intentions. Of some friends we both knew, who differed from him widely, he spoke in the kindest terms. When he was regarded as an enemy by some Nonconformists, I was informed he attended a Nonconformist chapel in the country during a summer holiday; and I know he helped the pastor by pecuniary assistance,—that very pastor being my informant. Mr. Forster never lost sympathy with Quakerism. Our common friend, Mr. Braithwaite, a well-known member of that denomination, spoke at his funeral; and an eminent Baptist minister told me of his pleasant visits to Mr. Forster’s residence.

Matthew Arnold proposed my name for election to the Athenæum Club. The usual mode is vote by ballot, which, on account of the number of candidates, occasions delay for many years. But the committee have power to choose annually nine members by special vote. I did not know fully until the secretary wrote to me, that I had been so elected—an honour to which I felt myself by no means entitled. The influence of Dr. Stanley, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and other kind friends, secured for me this great privilege, which has been a source of literary advantage and pleasure to me ever since. And I may here mention, from what occurred in the proceedings of the committee, as I was told, Nonconformity was, in my case, rather a help than hindrance; as the club, in a catholic spirit, desires to have representatives of different classes and opinions included on its rolls. On the same principle not long afterwards Dr. Martineau was introduced to the Athenæum.

I was surprised a few weeks after my election to receive an invitation to the Academy dinner, and was pleased to learn from one of the Academicians that this compliment, as well as the preceding, arose from the same spirit of catholic sociality. Nothing but presence at one of these banquets can give an adequate idea of their remarkable magnificence. A sudden burst of light, just before speeches commence, has a magical effect. Mr. Disraeli, then Prime Minister, delivered a highly finished oration, after sitting silent and sphinx-like for an hour before.

At an early part of the period to which this chapter belongs, the famous volume entitled “Ecce Homo” was published. It excited much controversy. I read it with interest and attention. It has long been my habit, in perusing works unfavourable to orthodoxy, to search in them for admitted principles which, by a fair application, may be employed in support of truths to which the author is regarded as being opposed. In the work just mentioned there is a chapter on what is called “Christ’s Royalty!” [197] Christ is represented as having established in the world a new theocracy in describing Himself as King of the kingdom of God; in other words, as a King representing the Majesty of the Invisible Ruler of a theocracy. He claimed the character of Founder, of Legislator, and, in a certain high and peculiar sense, “of Judge of a new and Divine society.” Whatever might be the views of the writer with regard to the nature of Jesus Christ, such a position as he reached, seems to me to involve Christ’s true and proper Divinity. In other words, it is tantamount to saying that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

I remember that at the time, whatever might be the tendency of the work on the whole, I thought there were in it admissions of such a nature as to afford a basis for convincing arguments in favour of Evangelical Christianity.

One evening, at that time, I met Lord Shaftesbury at a friend’s house, and had a conversation with him on the subject of the book. It is well known that, with the impetuosity which was so natural to that great and good man, he was swept along by a hurricane of indignation, which led him to pronounce “Ecce Homo” a work of most pernicious tendency. Of Lord Shaftesbury it might be said that he was like a cloud which moveth altogether, if it move at all. He could do or say nothing by halves; and however minds of a different order might judge of his acts and utterances, there can be no doubt that by the enthusiasm of his advocacy he carried beneficial measures which otherwise might not have succeeded. When I was talking with him after the manner just indicated and pointing out arguments which I conceived might be constructed out of some of the writer’s admissions, he was evidently very restless, and expressed his strong conviction, that the book deserved to be strongly reprehended, in order to warn people against being led away by its contents. In the course of conversation he manifested, that he had not read what he so severely condemned. This habit of condemning books without reading them, it is to be feared, is too common in the present day.

Here let me add Lord Shaftesbury’s manner was not always the same. At times he was gentle and exceedingly affable, of which I remember an amusing instance. We were travelling together from Peterborough, after a jubilee meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in that city. He was speaking of the profound ignorance of the upper classes respecting the character and habits of Nonconformists; and I ventured to relate to him, in illustration of what he had said himself, a story which I had heard respecting his father, who was Chairman of the Committee of the House of Lords. A solicitor waited upon him to confer respecting a Bill, which was coming before the Upper House, in reference to matters which affected the rights of Dissenters. The old Earl said to this gentleman, “I hear a good deal about these Dissenters, and some things very strange. I have been told they are people who go about without clothes.” The Earl laughed, and said, such a thing as I related was just like him.

CHAPTER X
1873

The sixth General Meeting of the Evangelical Alliance had been fixed for the year 1870, in New York; but, owing to the war between France and Germany, it was postponed to the autumn of 1873. Canon Leathes, Mr. Harrison, and myself, received invitations from the American committee, to attend the assembly; and, accordingly, we started for our destination in one of the Cunard steamers at the close of the month of August. With the exception of rough weather in the earlier part, we had a fine passage. Going out we touched on the Irish coast, and, it being Sunday, we landed and spent the day on shore. We were on the coast of Waterford, and found the country very pleasant. We attended church in the forenoon, and afterwards took walks in the neighbourhood. I had spent a week or more in Ireland some few years previously, and had then seen spots in the Green Isle, which created a desire to see more. The city of Limerick on the Shannon had given me delight. Dublin is a magnificent city, and the object of my visit there had been to preach on a special occasion in Dr. Urwick’s church. I saw at that time something of Irish society, and found controversy rife between Protestants and Papists. I took an opportunity of visiting the Killarney lakes, and found them all, and more than, I had imagined. Nor could I fail to be amused with the humour of carriage-drivers and other Irish people. Returning to our steamer on Sunday afternoon, we started for New York, and had, in the course of our voyage, rough weather and smooth. For some-time it was unfavourable—“four-fifths of a gale” somebody said; but in the latter part of our trip we had charming weather. Where the whistle at night had sounded like a wail of distress, it was now felt to be means of safety. Flag signals and rockets now and then relieved the tedium; so did the gambols of porpoises. Moonbeams in a mottled sky, were pleasant variations, as we steamed along at a rapid rate. The night before we landed in New York harbour, the sun went down like a ball of fire, the sea was intensely blue, whilst alive with little billows, like children at their sports; the bow of the steamer was crowded by passengers looking out for the pilot–a capital subject, I thought, for some clever pencil. The next morning when we reached Sandy Hook, I could not help comparing the coast scenery near us with some views I had seen on the Bosphorus.

“For the first time I am in America,” I said to a Yankee fellow-passenger.

“Yes,” he replied; “you are now, sir, in the land of the brave, the home of the free.”