Chapter 6

The one great want of the metropolitan pulpit is men abreast of the age, who can sympathize with its pulsation, can respond to its wants, can permeate it with a living faith. The majority of the men in the pulpit cease to be such when they get there. Of the human heart, as it is fevered with passion, or boils over with desire, they know nothing. They see men under a mask. Smith does not talk to his minister as he does to Brown; with Brown he is facetious--occasionally a little loose--and, after a good dinner and a bottle of wine, speaks in terms almost of approval of fashionable follies. The minister comes in and the conversation is changed--allusions are made to the 'Evangelical Magazine'--the Missionary Society is referred to--something is said of Sunday Schools, and the world for a time is dropped. Smith, junior, acts in a similar way. Before his minister he assumes a virtue, if he have it not--is sedate--quiet, anything, in short, but what his intimates find him to be. It seems to be the condition of the pulpit that it shall see life under a mask; and as to thought, that does not move in the regular time-worn ruts, that is condemned at once. It is not the thought of the pulpit, and it therefore must be false. It may be born of vigorous intellect; it may have been nursed by years of severe thought; to get at it, the thinker may have sacrificed many an early friendship--many a cherished association--many a sacred tie; but, nevertheless, the pulpit would blast it with its stern anathemas, and pronounces it a crime. Occasionally, a man in the pulpit can act differently. Some few years back, when Professor Scott, then of University College, London, now of Owen's College, Manchester, was in town, it seemed as if an honest attempt was made to meet and win to Christianity the philosophy that was genuine and earnest and religious, though it squared with the creed of no church, and took for its textbook the living heart of man rather than the written Word. In our time the same thing is attempted. The man who has had the courage to make the attempt--and to whom honour should be given for it--is the Rev. Thomas Lynch.

Judged by externals, the Rev. Thomas Lynch is a failure. He is a small spare man; his bodily presence is contemptible; he is a reed shaken by the wind. You get no idea of the church militant when you look at him,

'Of the drum ecclesiastic, Beat with fist instead of a stick.'

He is none of your bully 'Bottoms,' to roar 'so that the Duke will say, let him roar again.' His chapel is in the very unfashionable neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road. His hearers are few and far between. Out of the immense crowd of church and chapel goers in this great city, not three hundred can be got to hear him; and yet I know no man better worth your hearing. Your popular orators, your Dan O'Connells and your Dr. Leifchilds, are big men--and yet your small men have often the organization favourable to the development of poetry and thought. So is it with Mr. Lynch. It is the old Gospel he preaches; but he handles it in a new and fresh form. What is wearisome from others, comes with a peculiar fascination from him. The truths common-place men have made prosaic and common-place, the magic of his genius can render quite the reverse. His is the rare power, given to the true poet alone, 'to clothe the palpable and the familiar with golden exhalations of the dawn;' and his also is the still rarer power to show piety--

'Sitting as a goddess bright, In the circle of her light.'

You see that Christianity to him is life and power--no form of words, but a reality; that it fills his heart; that it works in his intellect; that it sanctifies his utterance. Hence it comes fresh to you as it does to him; it is alive with the light of genius and of God; with him it is applicable to the conditions of existence, to man's need and nature--no tinkling cymbal--no empty brass. A brother and a man preaches to you; your equal in philosophy, in thought, in lettered lore; your superior in what is greater and nobler still. Yes, that frail man, with an imperfect frame--with a voice so weak that you can scarcely hear him--with an appearance so homely that you would never think that in such a casket a soul of any greatness could be enshrined--can speak to you of the great things of God--of righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment to come, so that you--worldly scoffer or philosophic sceptic though you be--must listen with admiration and respect.

A tale is told of a certain divine who was much given to a practice common in the Scotch Church, though not very popular here--of exposition. Once upon a time, when remonstrated with, the worthy preacher, with a candour deserving of all praise, replied, that he did so because, when he was persecuted in one text, he could flee to another. Mr. Lynch needs no such practice. His Bible is no sealed book, but a revelation of light, and splendour, and truth. To him there is nothing common, or barren, or unclean. All is food for his intellect, always active--and his fancy, always copious and rich. Nor even does that, luxuriant though it be, lead him astray. All the while he is in earnest, illustrating, as he himself writes in that choice book of his, 'Theophilus Trinal'--that

'the powers that play in fancy, Can a holy earnest show, As the colours of the bubble Shine serenely in the bow.'

His theology we will describe in his own words. In the book we have already referred to, he writes: 'Human nature, like ancient Job, is foul and sore with disease, spirit-worn, and weary with incessant strivings of heart. The Philosophies, as friends, come with their sympathy and wisdom; but their words are dark clouds, edged brightly, which reveal the splendours of truth behind them, but disclose not the orb; and to the parched heart they are but as clouds, with a wind indeed, but without rain. But after the discoursings of philosophy with human nature, there is heard the voice of God, saying, "I am; behold my works; hope and believe!" As experience enlarges, spiritual questions accumulate, till at the last they pass into one great question concerning the world and human life, which the heart expresses not in words, but which fills it with a mute agony of wonder. To this question there is no answer, or hope of any, till the voice of God is heard, saying, "I am!" This voice from a whisper rises till it has the sound of many waters. Happy are we if we believe and feel that the man of sorrows, and of success after sorrows, Jesus, the Son of God, is still his real and sufficient representative. He is God's surety to the world. He, bearing the sins of the world, bears also its difficulties. In the faith of Christ have the men of many generations found fixed standing-place, immovably secure. In him they have heard the voice, "I am!" "Here we rest," they have said; "our God, we will not distrust thee!" He bears the golden key of love that shall unlock the secret of the world. This key is a key of escape from a prison; key of entrance to a palace. Oftentimes, in life, we may seem as those who struggle in a wide stormy sea, knowing their strength only by the greatness of their ineffectual efforts. Yet are we safe. For though we may feel as if rather drifting in a slight skiff over boisterous waters than making way over them in a strong vessel, yet if, after dreary days, Columbus found the land which reason taught him to hope for, much more shall we reach the country promised to the faithful.'

Having thus referred to 'Theophilus Trinal,' a book which has already reached a second edition, we may as well add here that Mr. Lynch has published a sermon explanatory of his views and aims, and Four Lectures delivered at Manchester, on various forms of Literature, and is, and has been for some time, one of the principal contributors to a magazine called the 'Christian Spectator'--a magazine understood to be intimately connected with that section of the religious world of which Edward Miall, late M.P., and Editor of the 'Nonconformist,' is the great exponent and type. In this sketch it is impossible altogether to ignore the Lynch Controversy; let me describe it in a few words. In 1856 Mr. Lynch published a volume of religious poems called the Rivulet, some of them for private perusal, some for public worship. The Eclectic Review had a favourable notice of the book; the Morning Advertiser was sorely offended with this review, and, in the style of criticism peculiar to that journal, proceeded to show that the Rivulet was deeply tainted with deadly heresy. Some leading ministers of the denomination to which Mr. Lynch belonged generously declared their belief that Mr. Lynch was a man to be honoured for his Christian creed and life, whatever the reviewer might think. This led to a still further storm. Not content with attacking Mr. Lynch, the Morning Advertiser made the protesting ministers the subjects of its censure. The British Banner endorsed all these charges, and gave to them, to the immense delight of the Record on one side and the Reasoner on the other, a wider circulation. Considerable confusion followed--reverend gentlemen and Christian laymen quarrelled with all that bitterness which usually distinguishes the divine--pamphlets and letters were plentiful as blackberries. Actually the Congregational Union postponed their autumnal meeting on account of the strife thus generated. The upshot of the whole matter was, that the publicans complained, and the Advertiser for a time directed its attention to more congenial subjects than those connected with theology--that Dr. Campbell's connection with the British Banner was terminated, and that Mr. Lynch had a much speedier sale for his poems than, I fear, otherwise he would have had.

That Mr. Lynch has no larger congregation, I take it, is a reproach to the Christian Church. One would think that there was a divorce between it and talent and taste, or Mr. Lynch would preach to crowded benches. As it is, however, more time is left him for the press, and, after all, the world is ruled by what is read, not heard. The spoken word may die--the printed one must live. What of truth there is in that is immortal. It will forever bud and blossom and bear fruit.

In conclusion, it may be as well to state here that Mr. Lynch is a minister of the Congregational body, and that his chapel is in Grafton Street, Tottenham Court Road; that he was educated at Highbury College, and then became minister of a small body of seceders from Dr. Leifchild's congregation. He is young yet. He is older in thoughts than in years. His inner life has been of richer growth than his outer one. A popular preacher he can never become; but to men of thought, especially to men of literature--to the school of Tennyson and Coleridge--his will always be a welcome name.

THE REV. S. MARTIN.

Is the language of the Psalmist, descriptive of himself, universally true? Is it true that man is born in sin, and shapen in iniquity; that he is depraved; that he hates what is good, and loves what is bad? If it be so, that fact, of itself, sufficiently accounts for the war ever carried on between faith and reason, the church and the world. If it be so, it is vain that philosophy attempts to break down the line of demarcation, and to lead men to what it deems a purer faith. At its best and highest it is powerless--nothing better than, in the language of Carlyle, 'Thrice refined pabulum of transcendental moonshine.'

The only remedy for this is to return to the practice of the Wesleys and the Whitfields of an earlier day, to proclaim the naked truth: That man is a rebel against God--that he is destined to eternal perdition--and that every step he takes, till his heart be touched by divine grace, and won by the attraction of the cross, leads him further and further in his downward way. It is a terrible doctrine, this; yet, strange to say, it is a popular one. The men who preach it are the most popular preachers. Their Gospel tramples on intellect, and they do the same. According to them, the weak things of the world, and the things that are despised, are powerful to bring to nought things that are; and, therefore, they take their stand above the science and literature and philosophy of man, which they hold but as dirt in comparison with the truths they teach and the discoveries they reveal. Their appeal is not to the intellect or the taste. For neither do they care. They display no pride of learning, no affluence of imagination, no pomp of words. They abound with no thoughts rich and rare. The perilous paths which the human intellect finds for itself, when in wandering mazes lost, they altogether ignore.

Hence their immense success. The common mass of church and chapel goers are not given, by mental speculation, to trains of abstract and protracted thought. Generally, their education is of the most limited description, consisting of little more than is requisite for the ordinary business of ordinary life. The London _bourgeoise_ are not a very learned folk. Were a Coleridge set down amongst them they would say, 'Much learning hath made this man mad.' They would at any time prefer a Hall to a John Foster, or such a man as Robert Montgomery to Professor Maurice or Mr. Lynch. But they can be reached through the heart, and they love so to be reached. Nor on religious matters is this very difficult to do so. The chief requirements are simplicity and earnestness--that you should not reason, but command and appeal. The more simply and authoritatively this is done, of course, the better it is done. An audience does not love to be distracted, or to have its mental powers severely taxed; but it comes to be excited, to be quickened, to be delivered for a time from the things which are seen and temporal, and to realise those which are unseen and eternal. The men who aim straight at this end--if they have at all the requisite amount of voice and manner--are sure to have an audience fit, and not few.

Thus Mr. Martin has won his way, and become a power in the pulpit. About fifteen years since, he came to London from a provincial college--a college which the self-satisfied young gentlemen of Highbury, with their acknowledged popular preaching talents, regarded in much the same way as Nazareth was regarded by the Jews. A new chapel had just been erected in Lambeth by the Congregationalists, and immediately Mr. Martin filled it. Where there had been a few wretched hovels there rose up a temple crowded with worshippers. Every part was full. The preacher was young; his style was exceedingly simple; but he had the calm self-possession of a man with a mission to men's souls, and he had a clear voice, and a manner grave and, at times, pathetic or severe. It was seldom that men had seen, on such young shoulders, so old a head; and the Dissenting world rushed to hear the boyish preacher who seemed miraculously endued with the wisdom and gravity of age, and whose popularity even seemed to have left him simple and unaffected, in spite of it all. In time, a new chapel was erected in Westminster, not far from the residence of royalty; and of that chapel Mr. Martin became the minister. There he yet remains, and there his popularity is as great as ever. You are lucky if you get a seat, the chapel, which has recently been enlarged, being always full.

Mr. Martin's forte is seriousness. He appears always solemn and devout. In the man himself you see no sign of great intellectual power. Dressed in sober black, close buttoned to the chin, you see a young man, with a pale heavy face, worn down by work. You may listen a long time before fire flashes from those eyes and lips, or before that brain thinks out of the commonest style of pulpit thought. It is really remarkable with how little instrumentality Mr. Martin produces so great an effect. He looks perfectly unimpressible--as if the world's vanities never could charm him--as if he passed his life in some hermit's dismal cell, and not in the city's passionate and restless crowd. You would fancy that he was the inhabitant of an altogether different sphere, that he never laughed or smiled or read 'Punch;' and this appearance, I take it, is some help to his pulpit success. Charles Fox said it was impossible for any one to be as wise as Lord Thurlow looked. I would not go so far as to say that no man can be as devout as Mr. Martin looks, but certainly his appearance must be in his favour with the large class who attend public worship, although his nasal twang is not very agreeable, and his face itself is more indicative of the priest of narrow thought and of ascetic habits, than of the man with glowing sympathies and generous life.

In the pulpit all this tells. Wait awhile, if you are sceptical, and you will soon be convinced of the fact. The mass around you will soon be permeated by the preacher's power. As he unfolds his subject--as he goes directly to the point--as, with plain and terrible language, he warns men of sin, and of its fearful results--as he expatiates on the terrors and splendours of a world to come--as he realises the day when the trumpet shall sound, when the grave shall give up its spoil, when the dead, small and great, shall stand before God--you see that he has got at the heart of his audience--that it hangs upon his lips--that he sways it at his will--that at his bidding it trembles and despairs--or that it believes and hopes, and loves and lives. And all this seems done with little effort, in the boldest and plainest language possible.

A man of one book is always a formidable foe. Mr. Martin is a man of one book. That one book, as he reads it, proclaims one fact--salvation by the cross; and to proclaim that fact is the one mission of his life, and the one message on his lips. Out of that book other men may get more; out of it Mr. Martin gets but one great and all-absorbing idea. This being the case, one is not surprised that Mr. Martin is not met with frequently out of the pulpit, or that what little he has published has been in the sermon line. He has identified himself with Ragged Schools and the Early Closing Movement, and the United Kingdom Alliance for the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic; and has, I believe, written and spoken in their favour. But the pulpit is his peculiar sphere: there he is great--there he has no rival near the throne--there he speaks as one having authority, as an accredited ambassador from God to man. In thus acting he shows his wisdom; for there he has achieved a success which men of greater brilliancy, of wider intellectual power, have often sought in vain. Cowper draws his model preacher:

--'Simple, grave, sincere-- In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty man.'

Mr. Martin might have sat for the portrait.

THE REV. A. J. MORRIS.

The Rev. A. J. Morris is an Independent, _alias_ a Congregational, minister at Holloway. Of course my fashionable readers don't know where Holloway is. I may as well then briefly inform them that it is a suburb of London, not far from Islington and the New Cattle Market. Holloway belongs to the Dissenting part of London. The metropolis is cut up into sections:--Quakers congregate in Tottenham, and Edmonton, and Stoke Newington; Jews in Houndsditch; the Low Church party is very strong in Clapham; at the east, down by the river, there is an immense number of Baptists; in that large district, known at election times as the Tower Hamlets, Dissenting chapels are plentiful as blackberries, while in the more fashionable districts of Chelsea and Brompton you will hardly find one. The philosopher of Malmesbury (Sir W. Molesworth could have shown you the passage in the Leviathan) argues that a man should always be of the religion of his country, and thus is it these sects have become hereditary in their respective localities. You never hear of Puseyism in the Tower Hamlets; you might as soon expect to find the Italian Opera there as a St. Barnabas. Almost all the Dissenting families of London have been born, brought up, and gathered to their fathers in one locality. To this day the Dissenters of London are buried on almost the very spot where De Foe wrote his satires, and Dr. Watts his hymns.

In spite, however, of this intuitive faith in the past, a faith no logic, no mental illumination, can root out or destroy, dissent has its new chapels and new men. Of these latter the Rev. A. J. Morris is one. People who read Mr. Ruskin, and talk sentimentally about architecture--a practice very rare among architects themselves--will see in Mr. Morris's chapel something of the character of the man. It is new, but still it appropriates to itself what is graceful and useful in the past. For instance, it has more of an Episcopalian character than dissenting chapels at the time of its erection generally had. Up to that time dissenters had prided themselves on the uncomely and unpoetical aspect of the places in which they met for public worship. Your dissenting chapel was generally a square, built of the ugliest red brick, and rendered hideous internally by square deal boxes, called pews, in which the people sat under a common-place divine, generally as plain as the place. Such was the meeting-house, as it was termed in the hallowed days of dissent, in the good old times. The whole affair was an abomination to men of taste. Mr. Morris has introduced a great reform--he has abolished the pew system. He has as graceful a gothic chapel as heart could desire; his place of worship is reverential and in keeping with its character. 'That man of primitive piety,' as glorious old Isaak Walton termed him, Mr. George Herbert, says in his Temple:--

'quit thy state, All equal are within the church's gate.'

Such certainly is the language of Mr. Morris's chapel, and such I imagine more or less would be the language of Mr. Morris himself.

Having entered the chapel and got a seat, a matter of some little difficulty,--for the place, which is not very large, is almost always full,--of course you naturally look in the direction of the pulpit. There you will see a man in the prime of life, of average size, with a light complexion, with a head nearly bald, and with what little hair it can boast of a colour popularly known as sandy. The head is well shaped, round and compact, and complete. Mr. Morris's appearance is that of a recluse, of a student of books and his own thoughts rather than of manners and of men. He wears no gown, but, nevertheless, has an ecclesiastical appearance, partly possibly resulting from the fact of his wearing an M.B. waistcoat. M.B., perhaps it may be as well to observe on the authority of a late Edinburgh Reviewer, means Mark of the Beast, and was a term used by clerical tailors to denote those square, closely buttoned vests, much affected at one time by curates and other young people suspected of a Puseyite tendency. Mr. Morris's voice is loud, but not very agreeable. He has a singular mannerism which is anything but pleasant till you are used to it, and when, as was the case the last time I heard him preach, the reverend gentleman asks--'Ow shall we lay up for ourselves treasure in Eaven?' you are apt to forget the gravity of the occasion, and to indulge yourself with a feeble smile.