CHAMPIONS.
OFTHE TRUTH
SHORT LIVES OF
CHRISTIAN LEADERS
IN THOUGHT in AND
ACTION
BY: VARIOUS : AUTHORS
:: :: EDITED BY ;
:M
PRESENTED
TO
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TORONTO,
BY JOHN CHARLES SHARPE,
191 1.
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'CHAMPIONS OF THE TRUTH'
SERIES
Large Crown 8vo. Cloth Gilt. 3/6
This series contains carefully "written Biographies of men to ivliom
— as leaders, teachers, and examples of devotion to duty — the Christian
Church in our own and other lands is permanently indebted. They
appeal to the student as well as to the general reader.
The Series will include
I* Champions of the Truth*
By R. Deniaus, A. Taylor Innes, S. G. Green, and others.
2» Hugh Latimer*
By Robert Deniaus, M. A.
3* John Wycliffe.
By Prof. Lechler.
4* William Tindale,
By Robert Demaus, M. A. Revised by Richard Lovett, M. A.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
CHAMPIONS OF THE TRUTH
JOHN HOOPER.
(Champions of the 1 ruth
Sbort Slices of Christian Xeafcers in
anb Hction
BY
W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., W. M. COLLES, B.A., S. G. GREEN, D.D.
BENJAMIN GREGORY, D.D., T. HAMILTON, D.D.
A. TAYLOR INNES, M.A., GEORGE KNOX, B.A., T.H.L. LEARY, D.C.L.
R. LOVETT, M.A., JAMES MACAULAY, M.D.,
CHARLES MARSON, M.A., F. B. MEYER, B.A., HORACE NOEL, M.A.
AND J. H. RlGG, D.D.
EDITED BY
A. R. BUCKLAND
a--?*,.
' "A
.
WITH FIFTEEN PORTRAITS
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard, E*C
CONTENTS
PAGE
JOHN WYCLIF (c. 1324-1384) . . . i
By the Rev. S. G. Green, D.D.
WILLIAM TINDALE (1484-1536) . . . 27
By the Rev. R. Lovett, M.A.
HUGH LATIMER (c. 1485-1555) . . 52
By the Rev. Charles Marson, M.A.
JOHN HOOPER (1495-1555) . -79
By the Rev. Charles Marson, M.A.
JOHN KNOX (1505-1572) . . . 104
By A. Taylor Innes, M.A.
JOHN FOXE (1516-1587) . . ... 134
By the Rev. S. G. Green, D.D.
RICHARD HOOKER (1553-1600) . . 158
By the Rev. T. H. L. Leary, D.C.L.
RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691) . . 184
By the Rev. W. G. Blaikie, D.D.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688) . . . . 211
By the Rev. S. G. Green, D.D.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791) ... . 237
By the Rev. J. H, Rigg, D.D,
v
vi Champions of the Truth
PAGE
CHARLES WESLEY (1708-1788) . . .263
By the Rev. Benjamin Gregory, D.D.
JOHN NEWTON of Olney (1725-1807) . . . 291
By James Macaulay, M.A., M.D.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836) . 317
By the Rev. Horace Noel, M.A.
DANIEL WILSON (1778-1858) . . . 340
By the Rev. George Knox, M.A.
THOMAS CHALMERS (1780-1847) . 365
By A. Taylor Innes, M.A.
REGINALD HEBER (1783-1826) . . 394
By W. M. Colles, B.A.
RICHARD WHATELY (1787-1863) . . 419
By the Rev. T. Hamilton, D.D.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892) . 437
By the Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A.
ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN HOOPER ...... Frontispiece
JOHN WYCLIF ...... To face page i
WILLIAM TINDALE „ 27
HUGH LATIMER „ 52
JOHN KNOX ,,104
JOHN FOXE ,,134
RICHARD HOOKER . . . . . „ 158
RICHARD BAXTER . ,,184
JOHN WESLEY ,,237
CHARLES WESLEY .... ,,263
JOHN NEWTON OF OLNEY .... ,,291
DANIEL WILSON ...... „ 340
THOMAS CHALMERS „ 365
REGINALD HEBER „ 394
RICHARD WHATELY . ... ,,419
vn
JOHN WYCLIF.
JOHN WYCLIF
By (i324?-i384)
S. G. Green, D.D.
THE village of Wycliffe (" water-cliff"), on the northern
boundary of Yorkshire, in the fair valley of the Tees,
between Barnard Castle and Old Richmond, had since
the Norman Conquest given its name to the family
that inhabited its Manor-house. From this family
sprang John of Wycliffe, or John Wyclif, born, it is
said, at Spresswell, a neighbouring hamlet which has
long disappeared, its site being occupied by ploughed
fields. The year of his birth is uncertain ; but he
must have been at least sixty years old when he died
in 1384. The date, therefore, generally assigned is
1324 ; it was probably a few years earlier.
Nothing whatever is known of Wyclifs parentage
or early training. Near Rokeby, two or three miles
higher up the valley, was the Abbey of Egglestone,
where it is probable that he received the rudiments
of instruction. At the age of fifteen or sixteen he
proceeded to Oxford, nor do we find that he ever
revisited his native village. In all his voluminous
writings no autobiographical details have been dis
covered, nor had his many antagonists a single tale to
tell, whether true or false, of his private life. As a
student and a recluse he pursued his quiet way, and
it is not until the year 1366, when he was more than
B
2 Champions of the Truth
forty years of age, that he comes fully into view, as
the deepest thinker, the profoundest theologian, and
perhaps the bravest spirit of his generation.
It was a memorable era for England and for
Europe. The life of Wyclif included the long and
eventful reign of Edward the Third (1327-1377), in
which, more than in any preceding age, the English
nation became consolidated into unity and power.
The Parliament, which was now definitely divided
into Lords and Commons, proved itself the true
protector of the national interests and honour. The
feudal system was gradually decaying ; there were
stirrings of life and thought among the masses, which
were yet to lead to disastrous conflicts before the
establishment of popular rights and individual freedom.
A national literature began to be developed, although
it was a hundred years before the invention of printing.
Sir John Mandeville, " the father of English prose,"
wrote his Travels in 1356, and Chaucer, " the father
of English poetry," published his earliest poems about
ten years later. The English language was ordered
by a statute of 1362 to be employed in the pleadings
of the courts of law, " because the French tongue is
much unknown." In the rivalry of nations, England
had never been so formidable. Cressy had been won
in 1346, Poitiers ten years afterwards. A little later,
at the celebration of King Edward's fiftieth birthday,
three kings offered their homage at his court — John
of France, still in honourable captivity ; David Bruce
of Scotland, pleading for a mitigation of the terms on
which he had been restored to his throne ; and the
king of Cyprus, to invoke the aid of England against
Saracen aggression.
It is no wonder that national pride rose high, and
that a spirit of resistance was aroused against that
John Wyclif 3
spiritual power which still claimed to control the mind
and conscience of the people. The seat of the Papacy
was now at Avignon. That the Pope should be under
the protection of France was bitterly distasteful to
England ; and the prodigal expenditure of the Papal
court in its new home imposed intolerable burdens
upon the community. Impatience under oppression
was thus combined with the growth of popular in
telligence, and with the advance of the spirit of
freedom, to seek a new and better order of things.
And in the cloisters of studious Oxford at length the
voice was heard which gave utterance to this demand,
in tones which united a profound philosophy with home
liest practical wisdom ; enforcing the appeal from first
to last by the teachings of the Word of God.
The particulars of Wyclif's first years at Oxford are
uncertain. His early biographers say, but apparently
without authority, that he was entered as a commoner
at Queen's College, then newly founded by Robert
Egglesfield, one of the chaplains of Queen Philippa,
in honour of whom the College had received its name.
The statement derives some likelihood from the fact
that the founder was a native of Cumberland, and that
the College was specially intended for students from
the northern counties. With regard to Wyclif's later
residence at Queen's there is little or no question ; yet
that this was originally his College must at least be
regarded as doubtful.1 His career as a student was
distinguished ; Knighton, one of his bitterest opponents,
acknowledging that "as a doctor in theology Wyclif was
the most eminent in those days ; in philosophy second
to none ; and in scholastic learning incomparable. He
1 By some biographers he is said to have been Fellow of Merton College
(1356), but it is most probable that another John Wyclif held that position,
being afterwards Warden of Canterbury Hall (1365), an office wrongly
attributed to the Reformer.
4 Champions of the Truth
made it his great aim, with the subtilty of his learning,
and by the profundity of his own genius, to surpass
the genius of other men — and," Knighton bitterly
adds, " to vary from their opinions."
In 1360 or 1361 Wyclif was elected Warden or
Master of Balliol College (then called simply Balliol
Hall), founded in the preceding century by the
Balliols of Barnard Castle, near Wyclif's birthplace.
He was now in priest's orders, and was soon afterwards
presented to the rectory of Fillingham in Lincolnshire.
He resigned the Mastership of the College after
a brief tenure ; but his home was often at Oxford,
where we find him occupying rooms in Queen's College
at intervals during many succeeding years ; having
exchanged Fillingham for Ludgarshall, in Buckingham
shire, to be nearer the University.
His doctor's degree was now taken, and his fame
established as a profound and original teacher, while
still he was distinguished as a fervent preacher of the
Gospel. It was the custom, in the days of the school
men, for the admiring disciples of great teachers to
apply to each some distinguishing epithet, by which
many have become known to after -ages. Thus one
was "the Subtle," another "the Irrefragable" Doctor,
a third was " the Profound," a fourth " the Angelic,"
and so on. The Oxford epithet for Wyclif was Doctor
Evangelicus, " the Evangelical Doctor," in this dis
tinction the greatest of the schoolmen, as he was the
last.
The year 1366 was memorable in the history of
England. A hundred and fifty years before, John, the
most ignoble of her monarchs, had pledged himself to
hold the realm in vassalage to the Popedom, in token
of which the tribute of a thousand marks yearly was to
be paid to Rome. The money had, however, been
John Wyclif 5
paid irregularly, according to the disposition of the
monarch, the character of the reigning Pope, or the
importance of conciliating his favour. Thirty -three
years had now passed since the last payment. The
war with France had disinclined the English sovereign
to recognise the claims of a line of French Popes ;
and the victors of Cressy and Poitiers would hardly be
disposed to transmit their subsidy to Avignon.
But peace had now been concluded ; the needs of
the Papacy became more pressing, and the ill-advised
Pope, Urban V., took occasion to demand the tribute,
with the accumulated arrears, from Edward the Third.
The question was taken into consideration by the
King's Council. Wyclif, who had been nominated
one of the royal Chaplains some time previously, was
present, and in a tractate afterwards written, he
records the discussion in what has been termed " the
first existing report of a parliamentary debate,"
although the sentiments are no doubt coloured by
the writer's own mind. Seven barons delivered their
opinions. The first appealed to force, pure and simple.
" Our ancestors won this realm and held it against all
foes by the sword. Let the Pope come and take his
tribute by force, if he can ; I am ready to stand up
and resist him." The second reasoned from the nature
of true spiritual lordship. " It has nothing to do with
feudal supremacy. Christ refused all secular authority ;
the foxes had holes, the birds of the air had nests, but
He had not where to lay His head. Let us bid the Pope
to follow his Master, and stedfastly oppose his claims
to civil power." The third appealed to the conditions
of such a subsidy, for service done. " The Pope calls
himself Servant of the servants of the Most High ;
but what is his service to this realm ? Not spiritual
edification, but the absorption of our treasure to
6 Champions of the Truth
enrich himself and his court, while he shows favour
and counsel to our enemies." The fourth reasoned
from the idea of suzerainty. <( The Church estates
amount to one-third of this realm ; the Pope for these
estates is the King's vassal, and ought to do homage to
him'' The fifth argued that " to demand money as
the price of John's absolution was flagrant simony ; to
grant it, therefore, was an irreligious act, especially at
the cost of the poor of the realm." The sixth boldly
denounced the bargain as infamous. If the kingdom
were the Pope's, what right had he to alienate it, and
that for not a fifth part of the value ? Moreover,
Christ alone is Suzerain : the Pope, being fallible, may
be in mortal sin. Like the kings of old, let Edward
hold the realm immediately of Christ." The last took
his stand upon the incompetence of John to surrender
the realm. " He could not grant it away in his folly ;
the whole transaction was null and void."
These opinions are eminently worth recording, as
showing the spirit of Englishmen at that era, before
a doubt of Romish doctrines had entered the popular
mind. The barons refused the demand and, joined
by the Commons, declared unanimously that " neither
King John, nor any other sovereign, had power thus
to subject the realm of England, without consent of
Parliament ; that such consent had not been obtained ;
and that, passing over other difficulties, the whole
transaction on the part of the King was a violation of
the oath which he had taken on receiving his crown."
The Parliament further resolved, that " should the
Pope commence his threatened process against the
King of England as his vassal, all possible aid should
be rendered, that such usurpation might be effectually
resisted."
This bold stand was decisive ; and from that time
John Wyclif 7
no demand was ever made again by the Pope for
tribute from the realm of England.
Wyclif was now emboldened to make a further
stand against the Papal claims. A great and grow
ing abuse was the intrusion of the clergy into all
high offices of State. The Lord Chancellor, the
Lord Treasurer, the Keeper of the Privy Seal, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Master of the
Rolls, were all Church dignitaries. " One priest was
Treasurer for Ireland, and another for the Marshes
of Calais ; and while the parson of Oundle is em
ployed as surveyor of the King's buildings, the
parson of Harwich is called to the superintendence of
the royal wardrobe." Against all this Wyclif uttered
an energetic protest. " Neither prelates," he writes,
" nor doctors, priests, nor deacons should hold secular
offices ; that is, those of Chancery, Treasury, Privy
Seal, and other such secular offices in the Exchequer
neither be stewards of lands, nor stewards of the hall,
nor clerks of the kitchen, nor clerks of accounts ;
neither be occupied in any secular office in lords'
courts, more especially while secular men are sufficient
to do such offices." Parliament took up the question
with some effect. William of Wykeham, the celebrated
Bishop of Winchester, resigned the Chancellorship,
and the ecclesiastical holders of other offices were
removed.
This was in 1371. The success of their protest
seems to have encouraged the defenders of secular
rights to resist the Papacy on other points. The
complaint had become general, that foreigners were
intruded into English benefices — men who neither
resided on their livings nor understood the language
of the people. On all these appointments the Papal
Court levied large sums ; and in one way or another
8 Champions of the Truth
the treasures of the kingdom were passing to Avignon,
to an amount far beyond that of the royal revenue.
Attempts, only partly successful, had been made to
correct this evil. In 1350 the "Statute of Provisors "
had denied the claim of the Pope to dispose of English
benefices, and in 1353 the " Statute of Praemunire "
had vindicated the right of the State to prohibit the
admission or execution of Papal bulls or briefs within
the realm. But these laws were to a certain extent
inoperative ; and complaints were made by the English
clergy as well as by the laity, that the interferences
and exactions had become more oppressive than ever.
A commission was therefore appointed to lay the com
plaint of the English King, Parliament, and Realm
before Pope Gregory XL, and, after some ineffectual
preliminaries, proceeded to Bruges in 1374; Gilbert,
the Bishop of Bangor, holding the first place, and
Wyclif the second. In this city the Ambassadors of
Edward the Third, with John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster, at their head, were already negotiating
peace with France. Many of the highest rank from
the two countries had thus assembled ; the Papal
Court was represented by some of its chief dignitaries.
No details of the negotiations have come down to us.
The only practical result was in a series of Papal
letters addressed to the King of England a year after
wards, yielding some points in regard to the appoint
ment of particular incumbents, but abating no essential
claim. Wyclif himself had returned from Bruges after
two months' stay, having penetrated more deeply than
ever into the secret of the Papacy. He had conferred
with its foremost representatives, had studied their
arguments and their policy. Far more accurately and
certainly than in his quiet life at Oxford, he could
estimate the character and pretensions of the power
John Wyclif 9
that claimed to hold Christendom in subjection. As
the visit of Luther to Rome, nearly a century and a
half later, prepared the way for the Reformation, so
did Wyclif learn at Bruges that in the Pope were the
marks of Antichrist.
Soon after his return, Wyclif was presented by the
King to the prebend of Aust, in the collegiate church
of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester, and afterwards
to the rectory of Lutterworth, where his last days were
spent. With indefatigable activity, he still lectured,
preached, and wrote, both in his parish and at Oxford.
His teachings became bolder in their protest against
prevailing corruptions ; and with his passion for reaching
to the roots of things, he strove ever to give his practical
conclusions a scientific foundation.
From the time of his receiving his doctor's degree,
writes a contemporary opponent, he " began to scatter
forth his blasphemies." His celebrated doctrine on
" Dominion founded in Grace " was now formulated and
maintained. The only source of rightful authority is in
God Himself; and He delegates it to His ministers on
earth on condition of obedience to His commandments.
Was the Pope then Vicar of the Most High ? Assuredly ;
but so also was the temporal sovereign, each in his own
sphere. Nay, further, every Christian man still held of
God, not indeed " in chief," but with a right of direct
appeal to Him, and the right, whether of Christian man
or King or Pope, was invalidated by unfaithfulness.
Dimly, yet essentially, we have here the great principle
of the Reformation ; though as yet Wyclif had not
followed his theory to its ultimate consequences.
But the metaphysics of Oxford were taking a very
practical shape in the hands of " the Good Parliament "
of i 376 ; by which a whole list of Papal exactions was
drawn up and presented to the aged and failing King.
io Champions of the Truth
Whether Wyclif was a member of this Parliament or
not is uncertain ; at any rate, he was marked out as
the leading spirit in the great controversy, and at the
beginning of 1377 the Convocation of Canterbury
summoned Wyclif to appear before them at St. Paul's.
The charges made against him are not specified ;
we can only judge of them by subsequent accusations.
John of Gaunt resolved to accompany the Reformer.
The day was the ipth February 1377, the place
the Ladye Chapel of the Cathedral. The Archbishop,
Simon Sudbury, was seated in the chair, with Courtenay,
Bishop of London, a scion of the noble house of Devon,
beside him, and the rest of the bishops on either hand.
Many of the English nobility were there also, to witness
the examination of the renowned Oxford Doctor. A
great crowd surrounded the entrance of the Chapel.
Wyclif was escorted by Lancaster, and by Lord Henry
Percy, Grand Marshal of England. A small band of
armed men followed ; and it is remarkable that there
were among the attendants of the Reformer five friars
of the mendicant orders, summoned by the Duke, their
chief patron, to assist in the defence of Wyclif. As
they approached the place of meeting, his friends bid
him be of good cheer. " Dread not the bishops," they
exclaimed, " for they are all unlearned in comparison
with you ! "
The Lord Marshal found it a difficult matter to
secure an entrance into the Chapel, and when he with
his retinue emerged from the eager, pushing crowd,
Bishop Courtenay angrily exclaimed : " Lord Percy, if
I had known beforehand what masteries you would
have kept in the Church, I would have stopped you out
from coming hither." John of Gaunt fiercely replied :
" He shall keep such masteries here, though you say
Nay ! "
John Wyclif n
Wyclif was now standing calmly before his
episcopal judges, the angry lords, his attendants, beside
him. The Reformer's last and best biographer here
takes occasion to sketch his portrait — " a tall thin figure,
covered with a long light gown of black colour, with a
girdle about his body ; the head, adorned with a full,
flowing beard, exhibiting features keen and sharply cut ;
the eye clear and penetrating ; the lips firmly closed
in token of resolution — the whole man wearing an
aspect of lofty earnestness, and replete with dignity
and character."
What words he would have spoken we cannot tell,
but he was still silent. For now an unseemly brawl
broke out in the assembly. Percy turned to Wyclif
and bade him be seated. " For," said he, " you have
many things to answer to, and you need to repose
yourself on a soft seat." The bishop rudely interposed :
" It is unmeet that one cited before his ordinary should
sit down during his answer. He must and shall stand."
Lancaster rejoined : " The Lord Percy's motion for
Wyclif is but reasonable. And as for you, my lord
bishop, who are grown so proud and arrogant, I will
bring down the pride, not of you alone, but of all the
prelacy in England." The bishop scornfully retorted :
" Do your worst, sir " ; while Lancaster, hurried forward
by his rage, continued : " Thou trustest in thy parents,1
who can profit thee nothing ; they shall have enough
to do to help themselves." By this time the prelate
had recovered his self-possession, and rejoined : " My
confidence is not in my family, nor in any man else,
but only in God, in whom I trust, by whose assistance
I will be bold to speak the truth." Lancaster made no
reply, but turning away, muttered : " Rather than I will
take these words at his hands, I will pluck the bishop
1 The Earl and Countess of Devonshire.
12 Champions of the Truth
by the hair out of the church." The words were over
heard by the crowd, and roused them to violent anger,
Courtenay being popular with the citizens. The duke
and his companions were violently menaced, and the
assembly broke up in a riot. All this occurred before
nine o'clock in the morning. An attempt in Parliament
the same day to humble the municipality of London
led to a more serious renewal of the tumult. The
mansions of the obnoxious noblemen were attacked ;
and a priest was killed in the fray.
So unexpectedly and unsatisfactorily did this pro
cedure terminate : Wyclif neither heard of what he
was accused, nor had the opportunity of declaring
himself. He retired peacefully to his work at Lutter-
worth and Oxford, and awaited the next attack, which
was not long in coming — this time from Rome itself.
The year 1377 appeared an auspicious one for the
Papacy. The " Seventy Years' Captivity," as the period
of residence at Avignon was termed, was now over,
and on I7th January Gregory XI. made his solemn
entry into Rome. It would seem that the English
bishops seized the earliest opportunity of representing
to the Pope the tenets, real or supposed, of the man
whom they now regarded as their formidable enemy ;
and the result was the issue on 22nd May follow
ing of a series of Papal bulls, in which we find for
the first time what were the grounds of accusation
against Wyclif, and may thus learn from his enemies
how far he had advanced in the path of reformation.
The bulls are five in number, three addressed to the
prelates, one to the University of Oxford, and one to
the King himself. The bishops are directed to ascertain
by private inquiry whether certain doctrines, set forth
in Nineteen Articles, are really taught by Wyclif; if
so, to cause warning of their erroneousness and danger
John Wyclif 13
to be conveyed to the highest personages of the realm.
Wyclif himself is to be imprisoned pending further
instructions from the Pope, or should he escape by flight,
to be solemnly cited before the Papal tribunal.
When the bulls reached England, Edward the Third
was a dying man. On 2ist June he breathed his last.
Without royal sanction it was impossible to proceed,
and the spirit of the new reign was as yet uncertain.
Richard the Second, son of Edward, the Black Prince,
was still a boy of twelve, under the guardianship of
his widowed mother. The designs of the bold and
crafty Duke of Lancaster, the King's uncle, were uncer
tain, as well as the amount of popular support which any
rising on his behalf would command. One of the first
questions, however, submitted to Parliament was "whether
the kingdom of England is not competent to restrain
the treasure of the land from being carried off to foreign
parts ; although the Pope should demand it under the
threat of Church censures." To this question, by
command of the young King and his Council, Wyclif
drew up a detailed, argumentative answer — a very
marvel among State papers ! That such treasure may
be lawfully retained for the uses of the kingdom is
argued from the principles of natural reason, from the
teachings of Scripture, and from the law of conscience ;
the conclusion being sustained by reference to the evils
that would follow another course. With regard to the
mischief that might ensue from resistance to the Papal
demands, and especially to the possibility that the Pope
might lay the realm under an interdict, Wyclif reasons,
not without a touch of sarcasm, that " the Holy Father
would not thus treat his children, especially considering
the piety of England " ; but if he should, " it is one
comfort that such censures carry no divine authority,
and another, that God does not desert those who trust
14 Champions of the Truth
in Him, and who, keeping His law, fear God rather
than men."
But Parliament was prorogued without decisive
action being taken, and in December the Pope's mandate
was presented to the University of Oxford, with a
schedule of the nineteen dangerous opinions. The
University demanded time for consideration ; to the
honour of Oxford, its authorities were unwilling to
surrender their foremost teacher even to the Pope, and
no action followed.
The prelates were more compliant ; and early in
1378 a Synod was convened in the Archbishop's chapel
at Lambeth, before which Wyclif was summoned to
answer for himself in the presence of the Papal delegates.
He produced a long apologetic document, moderately
written, subtle and scholastic in its reasonings. He
vindicates his true meaning in the passages inculpated,
which had been often strangely perverted, and sets forth
his views in a manner which is interesting to us as
showing the extreme point to which, as a Reformer, he
had as yet attained. The Nineteen Articles, from
beginning to end, deal with such topics as ecclesiastical
dominion and property, the right of " binding and
loosing " as inherent in the Church, the nature and
limits of excommunication. " It is not possible," says
Wyclif, " for any man to be excommunicated unless
he be excommunicated first and principally by himself."
" It is not Church censure," says the bold Reformer,
" but sin that hurts a man." " Neither the Pope nor
any other Christian can absolutely bind or loose, but
only as he obeys the law of Christ." " It seems to me
that he who usurps to himself this power must be the
Man of Sin ! " These were bold words. Nor was the
final proposition of the nineteen the least unpalatable,
that " an ecclesiastic or churchman, even the Pope of
John Wyclif 15
Rome, may lawfully be corrected for the benefit of the
Church, and be accused by the clergy as well as by
the laity." For, says Wyclif, " the Church is above the
Pontiff." " If the whole College of Cardinals is remiss
in correcting him for the necessary welfare of the
Church, it is evident that the rest of the body, which
may chance to be chiefly made up of the laity, may
medicinally reprove him, and induce him to live a
better life."
The Duke of Lancaster and the Lord Percy were
no longer at hand to befriend Wyclif. But their place
was better supplied by a throng of eager citizens, who
now supported him for his doctrine's sake, as they had
formerly opposed him because of his associates. They
cried out menacingly : " The Pope's briefs shall have no
effect in England without the King's consent." (t Every
man is master in his own house ! " A tumult was
threatened, when Sir Lewis Clifford, an officer in the
Court of the Queen -mother, entering the chapel,
demanded, in the name of his mistress, that the Synod
should pronounce no final judgment in the case. The
Archbishop was fain to content himself with com
manding Wyclif to cease from preaching or teaching
the obnoxious doctrines. On the Reformer himself
none dared to lay hands, and he calmly retired. A
contemporary chronicler, an enemy of Wyclif, scornfully
writes of the prelates assembled that " their speech
became soft as oil, and with such fear were they struck,
that they seemed to be as a man that heareth not, and
in whose mouth are no reproofs."
About the time of the stormy Lambeth Synod, a
yet more tumultuous conclave was assembling in Rome.
Gregory XI. was dead, and after much angry debate
among the cardinals, a Pope was chosen who, though
an Italian, was not a Roman. As Urban VI. he
1 6 Champions of the Truth
assumed the Chair, and all seemed to promise well.
But his stern ascetic rule soon disgusted many. The
cardinals with one exception deserted him and elected
Clement VII., who established his court at Avignon.
Pope and antipope thus presented themselves before
astonished Christendom, and the great schism lasted for
half a century. " Now," said Wyclif, " is the head of
Antichrist cloven in twain, and one part contendeth
against the other ! "
The event was on the whole favourable to the
Reformer. Urban was too much occupied in the great
dispute with his rival to have attention to spare for
the distant English controversy. Again, therefore,
Wyclif was unmolested ; and the three years that
followed mark a most important advance in his con
victions and his work.
His attacks upon the friars mainly belong to this
period of his life, although no doubt he had already
taken frequent occasion to expose the rapacity, the
hypocrisy, and the spiritual pride too often found in
connection with the " voluntary humility " of the Orders.
These evils had already been often denounced, notably
by Grossetete, Bishop of Lincoln, and Fitzralph, Arch
bishop of Armagh. How the friars were regarded by
the community at large may be seen in Chaucer's
satirical picture of " The Pardoner." With a roving
commission to preach, to celebrate mass, to receive
confessions, and to grant absolution, the Dominicans,
or Black Friars, and the Franciscans, or Grey Friars,
with the smaller orders of Carmelites (White Friars)
and Augustinians (Austin Friars), traversed the country
as mendicants. The gifts bestowed on them were
profuse, as the parade of asceticism is often taken as a
mark of sanctity ; and the convents of the " poor "
orders were correspondingly enriched. Their encroach-
John Wyclif 17
ments irritated the regular clergy, whom they threatened
to supersede. The Universities themselves were alarmed.
The friars became lecturers in theology ; and so allur
ing were their representations, that young men were
induced to abandon other pursuits and to take the
vows. Parents refused to send their sons to Oxford
or Cambridge, lest they should be thus seduced ;
and the number of students in the former University
was diminished, it is said, by thousands ! University
statutes were passed to meet the evil. But Wyclif
took up the subject on other than academical grounds.
His words were but a part of his long protest against
the usurpation of spiritual authority : " I say this for
certain, though thou have priests and friars to sing for
thee, and though thou, each day, hear many masses,
and found churches and colleges, and go on pilgrimages
all thy life, and give all thy goods to pardoners, this
will not bring thy soul to heaven. While, if the com
mandments of God are revered to the end, though
neither penny nor half-penny be possessed, there will
be everlasting pardon and heavenly bliss."
There is a story that during this period of his
residence in Oxford, Wyclif was confined to his bed
by illness, the result of his incessant labours and trials.
For awhile his life seemed in imminent danger, and
the Mendicant Friars hearing of it sent to him a
deputation, to adjure him to repentance. Four doctors
from their different bodies, with four aldermen of
Oxford, entered what they supposed to be the dying-
chamber. After some words of sympathy, they entered
on the main object of their visit. Wyclif still remained
silent. They spoke to him of the wrongs inflicted, as
they said, by his tongue and pen upon the brotherhood,
and they put it to him whether, as he now seemed near
his end, he would not confess his errors, revoke his
C
1 8 Champions of the Truth
charges against these pious fraternities, and seek recon
ciliation with them. Wyclif heard them patiently to
the close, then beckoned to his servant to raise him in
bed. This done, he fixed his eyes on his visitors, and
said, with a loud voice : " I shall not die, but live, and
declare the evil deeds of the friars." The doctors and
aldermen departed in confusion, and Wyclif recovered.
Still further to counteract the evil influences of these
brotherhoods, and to provide for the dissemination of
the Gospel, Wyclif organised a company of " poor
preachers," graduates of Oxford, trained under his
influence, to traverse the land, preaching the Gospel.
This was their simple commission, They had no
pardons to dispense, no spiritual authority to assert ;
but went forth from town to town, and village to village,
clad in long russet gown, barefooted, stafT in hand, to
tell of Christ, and to call sinners to repentance. They
were afterwards suppressed, being confounded with the
adversaries of law and order in the great peasant
revolt, but their work was self-denying and noble.
They were the " Methodists of the fourteenth century."
Of Wyclif's Translation of the Bible, which engrossed
at this time many studious hours at Oxford, we must
speak separately. He devoted himself at the same time
to the preparation of the great works on Divinity,
which no doubt contain the substance of his University
teaching through many years, especially the series of
treatises called Summa Theologice, and the Trialogus,
so called because it consists of a series of conversa
tions between three speakers, Truth, Falsehood, and
Wisdom. This latter work is remarkable as contain
ing the conclusions to which Wyclif had at length
been led on the subject of Transubstantiation. His
rejection of the Roman doctrine had now become
distinct and unhesitating. The doctors of the Uni-
John Wyclif 19
versity took alarm, and issued a solemn declaration, the
preamble of which fairly enough recites Wyclif s main
conclusions :
" i. That in the Sacrament of the altar the substance
of material bread and wine do remain the same after
consecration that they were before.
" 2. That in that venerable Sacrament, the body and
blood of Christ are not essentially nor substantially, nor
even bodily ', but figuratively or tropically, so that Christ
is not there truly or verily in His own proper Person."
It was thereupon solemnly enacted, " that no one for
the future, of any degree, state, or condition, do publicly
maintain, teach, or defend the two aforesaid erroneous
assertions, or either of them, in the schools, or out of
them, in this University, on pain of imprisonment and
suspension from all scholastic exercises, and also on
pain of the greater excommunication."
The Chancellor of the University, with his assessors,
immediately proceeded with this decree to the schools
where Wyclif was lecturing, and, interrupting him, read
it aloud before the assembled students. All were taken
by surprise : for the moment Wyclif himself appeared
bewildered ; but recovering himself, he quietly replied
that neither Chancellor nor doctors could refute his
opinion. Then, rising from his professor's chair, which
he was never to resume, he solemnly appealed from
this condemnation to the King in Council.
This same year of 1381 witnessed great and por
tentous events, which were not to be without their
influence on Wyclif's remaining days. John Ball,
falsely * averred to have been one of Wyclif Js " poor
priests," had been preaching communistic doctrines,
which threatened to destroy the very framework of
1 He had. been preaching for twenty years, long before the time of the
" poor priests."
20 Champions of the Truth
society : " When Adam delved, and Eve span, who was
then the gentleman ? " The incident in the tyler's
cottage at Dartford but furnished the spark for the
explosion. The popular rising that followed, and its
swift and sanguinary suppression, are matters of
ordinary history. While the insurgents held the
Tower, they had murdered Archbishop Sudbury ; and
Courtenay, Bishop of London, succeeded him in the
primacy. Some delay necessarily occurred before his
investiture, but no sooner was this accomplished than
the Archbishop instituted proceedings against Wyclif.
Meantime, in the early part of 1382, the Reformer
had presented his appeal from the Oxford Chancellor
to the King in Council and to the Parliament. But
nothing decisive was accomplished. The Duke of
Lancaster now looked coldly upon Wyclif. As long
as the question had been one of revenue and power,
John of Gaunt had been for reform. But theological
subtleties lay quite beyond the statesman's range of
thought. To insist on them was to introduce a dis
turbing force into society, the issue of which who could
see? Accordingly, Lancaster went down to Oxford
and enjoined Wyclif to be silent. What could be
more easy, more politic than to obey ? Men of action
cannot estimate the force of an overmastering idea ;
men of the world know nothing of the imperial power
of a religious conviction. Wyclif persisted ; he strove
to maintain his doctrine in the terms of a scholastic
philosophy. To our mind he refines overmuch, and
perplexes himself with his own subtleties ; but on the
main point he was clear ; expressively adding that the
third part of the clergy are on his side, and would
defend their views at the peril of their lives.
Courtenay was installed at Canterbury on 6th May
1382. On the i /th of that month he convened
John Wyclif 21
an assembly of bishops and divines at the Dominican
monastery in Blackfriars, to consider Wyclifs views.
Ten bishops, sixteen doctors of law, thirty doctors
of theology, and four bachelors of law attended the
sittings. Wyclif himself was not present, perhaps
he had not been summoned. During the conference
on 2 ist May an earthquake, mentioned in contempo
rary chronicles and poems, shook the city, and filled
the assembly with consternation. Some regarded it
as an adverse omen ; but the Archbishop was equal
to the occasion, and declared the earthquake to be an
emblem of purification from false doctrine. Wyclif, on
the other hand, regarded the portent as a sign of God's
judgment against error, and was in the habit of describ
ing the assembly as " the Earthquake Council."
Ten articles were pronounced by this Council
heretical and fourteen erroneous. They range over the
main points of Wyclifs teaching, with more or less of
misrepresentation. The first three of the " heresies "
concern the Lord's Supper, and amount to a restate
ment of what had already been condemned. The
conclusions of the Council were promulgated with
extraordinary solemnity ; a procession of clergy and
laity passing through London barefoot to St. Paul's,
where the Carmelite monk, John Cunningham, preached
a sermon against the inculpated doctrines, followed by
the reading of the Twenty-four Articles and the utterance
of a solemn condemnation against all who should here
after teach or receive these doctrines.
The Archbishop promptly followed up these measures
by proceedings at Oxford, as the headquarters of the
heresy. Wyclif was inhibited from all academic
functions, and expelled from the city and University.
He remained unmoved, well content to remain in his
beloved Lutterworth, and to perfect his Translation of
22 Champions of the Truth
the Bible. Public opinion was still so strongly on his
side, that no more stringent measures were possible.
A Romanist chronicler of the period writes : " A man
could not meet two people on the road, but one of
them was a disciple of Wyclifs."
The amazing literary activity of the Reformer during
the last two years of his life can only be explained by
the fact that much material had been prepared by him
year by year, which now only for the first time saw the
light. His writings cannot, indeed, be very accurately
dated ; but Dr. Buddensieg, in his edition of Wyclifs
Latin Tracts, assigns most of them, especially of his
most trenchant assaults on the friars, to this part of his
life. Tracts and Sermons, Latin and English, meta
physical and popular, issued without intermission from
his pen ; while his great work, the Translation of the
Bible, engrossed all his powers.
When this work was begun, we have no means of
knowing ; and his other writings contain few or no
allusions to the progress of the task. We only know
that it was finished in the latter years of his life, after
he was silenced at Oxford. The New Testament was
completed first, and is entirely Wyclif's. His friend,
Nicholas Hereford, an old associate at Oxford, and
honoured in sharing his expulsion, was his zealous
coadjutor, translating the first part of the Old Testa
ment ; and John Purvey, Wyclif's curate at Lutter-
worth, rendered valuable service, re-editing and revising
the whole. When the work was finished, many tran
scribers took in hand the task of multiplying copies ;
the elaboration and costliness of not a few proving the
demand which existed for the work among the opulent
as well as the humbler classes. Mr. Forshall and Sir
F. Madden, the editors of the noble edition of 1850,
were able to consult nearly 150 manuscript copies,
John Wyclif 23
most of which were written within forty years of
Wyclif s death.
" Christ delivered His Gospel," writes Wyclif s an
tagonist, Knighton, " to the clergy and doctors of the
Church, that they might administer to the laity and to
weaker persons, according to the state of the times and
the wants of men. But this Master John Wyclif trans
lated it out of Latin into the tongue Anglican — not
Angelic ! Thus it became of itself vulgar, more open
to the laity, and to women, who could read, than it
usually is to the clergy, even the most learned and
intelligent. In this way the Gospel-pearl is cast abroad
and trodden underfoot of swine ; and that which was
before precious both to clergy and to laity is rendered,
as it were, the common jest of both."
How Wyclif performed his noble task has been
abundantly told in many a treatise on that theme of
inexhaustible interest, the English Bible. If there were
drawbacks in the execution of the work, it should be
remembered that he was the pioneer, and again that,
being ignorant of Hebrew and Greek, he could translate
only from the Latin Vulgate. But, indeed, he scarcely
needs such apology. For accuracy, perspicuity, and
terseness, as well as for frequent and exquisite felicities
of expression minglingwith his quaintest phraseology, the
version may to this day be studied with delight. To
all who would trace the history of the English tongue
it is essential. Professor Montague Burrows does not
speak too strongly when he says : " To Wyclif we owe,
more than to any one person who can be mentioned,
our English language, our English Bible, and our
Reformed religion. How easily the words slip from
the tongue ! But is not this almost the very atmo
sphere we breathe ? "
It is instructive to note that in a Synod of 1408,
24 Champions of the Truth
headed by Archbishop Arundel — whence the name
" The Arundel Constitutions " — the following resolution
was adopted : —
" We enact and ordain that no one henceforth do
by his own authority translate any text of Holy
Scripture into the English tongue or into any other, by
way of book or treatise ; nor let any book or treatise
now lately composed in the time of John Wyclif, or
since, or hereafter to be composed, be read in whole or
in part, in public or private, under pain of the greater
excommunication."
Still from generation to generation copies of the pro
scribed volume were handed down as heirlooms in many
an English home, often stealthily circulated from hand
to hand ; until they were superseded by the invention
of printing, and the labours of Tindale and Coverdale.
The spirit of persecution seemed to have exhausted
itself in Wyclif s case in his expulsion from Oxford,
and in the rancorous words of his enemies that followed
him to the close. He dwelt unmolested in the peaceful
seclusion of Lutterworth, possessing the martyr's spirit
without the martyr's fate. Not yet did the enactment
" for the burning of heretics " disgrace the English
statute-book, and Wyclif's friends were still too power
ful to allow of his being imprisoned. Meantime, he
saw the progress of his doctrines. The Lollards, as
his followers were called — mostly humble folk, who had
been won to Christ through Wyclif's " poor priests," and
the reading or hearing of his pungent, practical tracts
— multiplied on every hand. The hour of deliverance
from Papal domination, and of the triumphs of a pure
Gospel, seemed near. But the persecutions of the
fifteenth century, the wars between the Houses of York
and Lancaster, and perhaps the reaction that followed
the Peasants' Revolt, appeared for a time to blight the
John Wyclif 25
fair promise. Yet Lollardy, though crushed, retained
the principle of life. Men and women appear, from
time to time, all through those dreary years, bravely
confessing the truth, and patiently suffering in its
defence. Many more, unknown to fame, cherished the
treasure which Wyclif and his coadjutors had given
them, and learned from the English Bible the lessons of
a pure Christianity. Silently, but effectually, the soil was
thus prepared, in which, when the time came — nearly
a century and a half afterwards — the doctrines of the
Reformation struck deep root and sprang to vigorous life.
In yet another direction the influence of Wyclif
remained. The Queen Consort, Anne of Bohemia,
who had come to England in 1382, was an eager reader
of his works, and especially of the Four Gospels in
English. Through her influence, and that of persons
connected with her Court, his doctrines found footing in
Eastern Europe. John Huss and Jerome of Prague
(who had studied in the University of Oxford) accepted
them with eagerness, and the testimony which they
sealed with their blood was the intrepid utterance of
the truths that they had largely learned from Wyclif.
The works of the English Reformer were widely circu
lated in Bohemia ; many were burned ; many others
fell by the fortune of war into Austrian hands, and are
now in the Imperial Library at Vienna. Even on the
Continent, therefore, the way to Reformation was in
great measure prepared by the teachings of Oxford and
Lutterworth. Of that Reformation Wyclif was, in the
phrase of John Foxe, the " Morning Star."
The Reformer's work on earth was done. In 1382
he had an attack of paralysis, which incapacitated
him to some degree from public labours; on 28th
December 1384, while hearing mass in the Church at
Lutterworth, he was stricken down a second time, and
26 Champions of the Truth
remained speechless until his death, three days after
wards, on New Year's Eve.
His remains were laid in the churchyard in the
midst of his beloved people ; but not there to rest. In
the year 1415, the Council of Constance having selected
from his writings a series of propositions which they
condemned as heretical, commanded that " his body
and bones, if they could be distinguished from those of
the faithful, should be disinterred and cast away from
the consecrated ground." This inhuman and absurd
decree was disregarded for some thirteen years, when,
at the peremptory mandate of the Pope, it was executed
under the direction of the Bishop of Lincoln. The
bones were not only disinterred but burned, and cast
into the little river Swift, a rapid stream which runs at
the foot of the hill on which Lutterworth is built, and,
after a course of some miles, falls into the Avon.
" Thus," says Thomas Fuller, in his Church History of
Great Britain, " this brook did convey his ashes into
Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow sea,
and this into the wide ocean. And so the ashes of
Wyclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now
dispersed all the world over." The thought is beauti
fully expanded by Wordsworth :
Wycliffe is disinhumed :
Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed
And flung into the brook that travels near ;
Forthwith that ancient Voice which streams can hear
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human kind) —
" As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear
Into the Avon — Avon to the tide
Of Severn — Severn to the narrow seas —
Into main ocean they, — this deed accurst
An emblem yields to friends and enemies
How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed."
WILLIAM TINDALE.
WILLIAM TINDALE
By (1484-1536)
Richard Lovett, M*A»
"THE true servant and martyr of God, who, for his
notable pains and travail, may well be called the Apostle
of England," — these are the words that Foxe places
at the head of his sketch of the life of Tindale, and no
truer description of the man can be given. For, bold
as the statement may seem to those who have not care
fully studied the wonderful story of his life and work,
England to-day owes more to no man whose name
stands on her roll of fame than to Tindale. To be
honoured and reverenced, the man's character and work
need only to be known.
Of Tindale's youth and early manhood very little is
known. Foxe says he " was born about the borders
of Wales, and brought up from a child in the University
of Oxford, where he, by long continuance, grew up and
increased as well in the knowledge of tongues and other
liberal arts, as especially in the knowledge of the
Scriptures, w hereunto his mind was singularly addicted \
insomuch that he, lying then in Magdalen Hall, read
privily to certain students and fellows of Magdalen
College some parcel of divinity ; instructing them in
the knowledge and truth of the Scriptures. His
manners also and conversation being correspondent to
the same, were such that all they that knew him,
27
28 Champions of the Truth
reputed and esteemed him to be a man of most
virtuous disposition and of life unspotted."
Later research has added little to Foxe. It seems
to be established that Tindale was born about 1484,
most probably in Gloucestershire, possibly at the village
of Slymbridge. It is certain that he was not born at
the place fixed on by tradition — the village of North
Nibley ; and equally certain that he began life in some
part of the beautiful landscape over which ranges the
eye of the traveller who stands beside the monument
erected in Tindale's honour on Nibley Knoll.
Tindale entered Oxford about 1508 or 1509, and
recent researches have discovered that he was admitted
to the degree of Bachelor of Arts 4th July 1512,
and that he was created Master of Arts 2nd July
1515.
From Oxford Tindale passed to Cambridge, where
"he was further ripened in the Word of God." Why
he went is not known. It may be that he found it
prudent to go because the authorities had heard of his
habit of " instructing in the knowledge and truth of
the Scriptures." Perhaps the fame of Erasmus, who
was at that time teaching the supremacy of Scripture
and pouring ridicule upon the traditional theology of
the day, drew him thither. A group of remarkable
men were then in residence at Cambridge : Cranmer,
Latimer, Stephen Gardiner, and Bilney, who was first
to deny and then to die for the truth. Here he
doubtless diligently pursued the study of Greek, and
quietly but most efficiently fitted himself for what, all
unknown to him then, was to be the great work of his
life.
How long Tindale lived at Cambridge is not certainly
known, nor why he finally left it, but "he resorted,"
most probably about 1521, "to one Master Welch, a
William Tindale 29
knight of Gloucestershire, and was there schoolmaster
to his children, and in good favour with his master."
" Master Welch " lived at the manor-house of Little
Sodbury, in Gloucestershire, which still stands, and has
the honour of being the only place to which the traveller
can go with the certainty of seeing the rooms in which
Tindale once lived and talked. It was in this house
also that he finally decided to translate the Scriptures
into English.
In all probability he acted, after the fashion of those
days, rather as a chaplain to the household than as
tutor to " Master Welch's," or, to give him his full title,
Sir John Walsh's children. The residence at Little
Sodbury proved the turning-point in Tindale's life.
Again we quote Foxe : As Sir John Walsh " kept a
good ordinary commonly at his table, there resorted
unto him many times sundry abbots, deans, archdeacons,
with divers other doctors, and great beneficed men ;
who there, together with Master Tindale sitting at the
same table, did use many times to enter communication,
and talk of learned men, as of Luther and of Erasmus ;
also of divers other controversies and questions upon
the Scripture. Then Master Tindale, as he was learned
and well practised in God's matters, so he spared not
to show unto them simply and plainly his judgment in
matters, as he thought ; and when they at any time did
vary from Tindale in opinions and judgment, he would
show them in the book, and lay plainly before them the
open and manifest places of the Scriptures, to confute
their errors, and confirm his sayings. And thus con
tinued they for a certain season, reasoning and contend
ing together divers and sundry times, till at length they
waxed weary, and bare a secreJ^ grudge in their hearts
against him."
It was at this time that Tindale began his work as
30 Champions of the Truth
a translator, and thinking that he might convince some
by the authority of Erasmus who refused to be per
suaded by his own arguments and by Scripture, he
rendered into English a book written in Latin by
Erasmus, called The Manual of a Christian Soldier.
This was a famous book at that time, and had been
translated into many European languages. It was a
bold, outspoken protest against the whole method of
theological study of that age, and against the wicked
lives of so many of the monks and friars.
This translation was never printed, but Tindale lent
it to others to read, and especially to Sir John Walsh
and his wife ; and " after they had read and well
perused the same, the doctorly prelates were no more
so often called to the house, neither had they the cheer
and countenance when they came as before they had ;
which thing they marking, and well perceiving, and
supposing no less but it came by the means of Master
Tindale, refrained themselves, and at last utterly with
drew, and came no more there."
Having won over Sir John Walsh and his wife,
and thus established himself firmly at Little Sodbury,
Tindale began preaching in the surrounding villages,
and on the College Green in Bristol. This practice at
once aroused the hostility of the ignorant and violent
priests, who " raged and railed " against him in the
alehouses, and misrepresented his teaching. The
bishop of the diocese, after the fashion of that day,
was an Italian prelate, living in Italy ; and Wolsey,
who farmed the revenues, was also non-resident, so
that Tindale might have been left in peace, had not
the chancellor who administered local matters happened
to possess a keen scent for heresy. At a special sitting
all the priests of the neighbourhood were summoned to
appear, Tindale being of course included. He went,
William Tindale 31
and has himself told what took place. " When I came
before the chancellor, he threatened me grievously, and
reviled me, and rated me as though I had been a dog ;
and laid to my charge whereof there could be none
accuser brought forth." He seems to have successfully
refuted the charges, and to have escaped without any
penalty. But he began to see that ignorance and
superstition and wickedness die hard. The men with
whom he reasoned were more likely to turn and rend
him than to prize the pearls of truth he cast before
them. He unburdened his soul to a friend in the
neighbourhood, a man who had held the post of
chancellor to a bishop, who put into language what
Tindale had long been thinking. " Do you not know,"
he said, "that the Pope is very antichrist, whom the
Scripture speaketh of? But beware what you say ;
for if you shall be perceived to be of that opinion, it
will cost you your life."
A train of thought like this having once been
started, Tindale was not the man either to miss the
evidences of its soundness or to shrink from its logical
issue. Scripture had taught him, and could teach
others. He had begun to know the truth, and the
truth was setting him free from the spiritual tyranny
of Rome and from any fear of man. In his Preface to
the Five Books of Moses, written long years afterwards,
Tindale has traced for us his mental experience at this
time. Speaking of the desire felt by the papists to
suppress the Scriptures, he states : " A thousand books
had they lever (rather) to be put forth against their
abominable doings and doctrines than that the Scripture
should come to light . . . which thing only moved me
to translate the New Testament. Because / had per
ceived by experience^ how that it was impossible to
establish the lay -people in any truth, except the
32 Champions of the Truth
Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in their
mother-tongue, that they might see the process, order,
and meaning of the text ; for else, whatsoever truth
is taught them these enemies of all truth quench it
again."
Hence, not long after his visit to his friend, in a
discussion with a divine, " recounted for a learned
man," Tindale drove him to this rash assertion : " We
were better without God's laws than the Pope's." To
this Tindale rejoined, " I defy the Pope and all his laws ;
if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy
that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture
than thou doest" These words set forth the toil to
which henceforth he was to devote himself, in the
accomplishment of which he was to be " in journeyings
often, in perils of waters, in perils by his own country
men, in perils in the city, in perils among false
brethren," and for which he was at last to lay down
his life.
As Tindale's purpose became known, his opponents
grew more and more bitter against him, and at length
he resolved to go to London and there see what help
he could get for his great undertaking. He reached
London in July or August 1523. The first flush of
Henry VIII.'s successes was over and troubles were
beginning. Wars and pleasures had emptied the
treasury, and Wolsey, who had little love for parlia
ments, was compelled to summon a parliament and
then to submit to a tardy and partial grant of his
demands for money. Into the midst of the angry dis
cussions, the rival sections, the pomp, the pleasure, the
wickedness of the capital, Tindale came. He looked
out upon all things with the clear, unclouded vision of
a pure soul, and he saw much in the actions and words
of men which, when tested by Scripture, became utterly
William Tindale 33
corrupt. We cannot do better than tell in his own
words how he fared.
Tunstal, Bishop of London, had a reputation for
learning and liberality to scholars, and had been praised
by Erasmus. " Then thought I," writes Tindale, " if I
might come to this man's service, I were happy. . . .
But God (which knoweth what is within hypocrites)
saw that I was beguiled, and that that counsel was not
the next way to my purpose. And therefore he gat
me no favour in my lord's sight ; whereupon my lord
answered me, his house was full, and advised me to
seek in London, where he said I could not lack a
service. And so in London I abode almost a year, and
marked the course of the world, and heard our praters
(I would say preachers) how they boasted themselves
and their high authority ; and beheld the pomps of our
prelates, and how busy they were, as they yet are, to
set peace and unity in the world ; and saw things
whereof I defer to speak at this time ; and understood
at the last not only that there was no room in my lord
of London's palace to translate the New Testament,
but also that there was no place to do it in all England,
as experience doth now openly declare."
In May 1524 Tindale went to Hamburg, and
then, in all probability, visited Wittenberg, and during
a stay of some months completed there his translation
of the New Testament. He doubtless saw much of
Luther and was greatly influenced by his writings, but
modern research has demonstrated that Tindale was no
mere translator of Luther's German version. He was,
for his age, a skilled Greek scholar, and he translated
from the 1522 edition of Erasmus' Greek Testament,
using at the same time the Latin translation of Eras
mus, the Vulgate, and Luther's New Testament. For
reasons that can only now be guessed at, when the
D
34 Champions of the Truth
work was nearly finished he went to Cologne, a town
then famous for its printers, to get the book in type.
At first all went well. A man named Quentel
undertook the work, an edition of 3000 was decided
upon, and day by day Tindale saw the end of his long
labour of love drawing near. But he was once again
to feel the bitterness of hope deferred, and once again
to find how powerful to hinder good work one mis
guided man may be. At the very time when the New
Testament was taking on its English dress, Quentel
was also printing a book for one of the most watch
ful and rancorous enemies of the Reformation, John
Cochlseus. This man, in a book written years after
wards, tells us that he learnt that in Cologne " were
two Englishmen lurking, learned, skilful in languages,
eloquent, whom, however, he never could see or con
verse with. Inviting, therefore, some printers to his
lodging, after they were excited with wine, one of them
in private conversation disclosed to him the secret by
which England was to be drawn over to the party of
Luther, viz. that there were at that very time in the
press 3000 copies of the Lutheran New Testament,
translated into the English language, and that they had
advanced as far as the letter K in the order of the sheets."
This information, correct in all points except that
the work being printed was not a translation of the
" Lutheran New Testament," at once enraged Cochlaeus
and aroused him to instant action. An order prohibit
ing the printing was obtained from the Senate of
Cologne ; but Tindale and Roye, warned of their
danger, collected the sheets already printed and sailed
up the Rhine to Worms. Cochlaeus sent tidings of his
discovery to Henry VIII., Cardinal Wolsey, and to the
Bishop of Rochester, in order that the English ports
might be strictly watched.
William Tindale 35
Nothing daunted, Tindale was no sooner safe in
Worms than he began to urge on his great undertaking.
The size and style of the book were altered, and 3000
copies of an octavo edition were printed, and probably
very soon afterwards the original quarto edition was
completed, making in all 6000 precious volumes.
There are many interesting details connected with these
two editions which we have no space here to consider,
and which belong more to the bibliographer than to
the general reader. The problems are rendered more
difficult of solution from the fact that of the 3000
quarto copies only one mutilated fragment (now in the
British Museum) has come down to us, and of the
3000 octavo copies only two are now known to exist —
one, wanting only the title-page, in the Library of the
Baptist College, Bristol ; and the other, lacking many
leaves, in the Library of St. Paul's Cathedral.
This wonderful book probably reached England
about the middle of 1526. During the summer of
that year a copy fell into the hands of one of the
bishops. A conclave was summoned ; Tunstal, the
Bishop of London, denounced it, and it was resolved
that the book should be burnt wherever found. But
there were not a few who held " that the book was not
only faultless but very well translated, and was devised
to be burnt because men should not be able to prove
such faults as were at Paul's Cross declared to have
been found in it were never found there indeed but
untruly surmised."
Commenting in after years upon the criticisms
passed on his work, Tindale said, " There is not so much
as one i therein if it lack a tittle over his head, but
they have noted it, and number it unto the ignorant
people for an heresy." On 24th October 1526 Tunstal
proclaimed that all in his diocese possessing the book
36 Champions of the Truth
who did not at once deliver their copies to his Vicar-
General would be excommunicated, and a similar procla
mation was issued on 3rd November by the Archbishop
of Canterbury. All the authority of the Church was
exerted to arrest the circulation, to punish those who
sold and those who bought it, and to destroy the volume
which by a kind of instinct the prelates of Henry VIII.'s
day felt would be ruinous to their influence and a
constant rebuke to their pomp and pride.
Since 1526 Tindale's English New Testament has
been one of the mightiest influences upon English life
and thought. The comparison of a passage taken at
random from the Grenville Fragment and compared
with the Authorised and Revised versions, will help the
reader to appreciate not only how greatly Tindale in
fluenced all subsequent translations, but how much of
our New Testament still stands as he left it in 1525.
Take Matthew xviii. 19-27, which is here printed
exactly as it stands in the Grenville Fragment, except
that the spelling and type are modern. The words
in italics remain in both the Authorised and the Revised
versions :
Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree
in earth in any manner thing whatsoever they shall
desire, it shall be given them of my father which is in
heaven. For where two or three are gathered together
in my name there am I in the midst of them.
Then came Peter to himy and said, Master, how oft
shall my brother trespass against me and I shall forgive
him ? shall I forgive him seven times ? Jesus said
unto him, I say not unto thee seven times but seventy
times seven times. Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven
likened unto a certain King which would take account of
his servants. And when he had begun to reckon one was
brought unto him which owed him ten thousand talents :
William Tindalc 37
but when he had nought to pay the lord commanded
him to be sold and his wife and his children and all that
he had and payment to be made. The servant fell down
and besought him saying, Sir, give me respite and I
will pay it every whit. Then had the lord pity on the
servant and loosed him and forgave him the debt.
Thus much more than half of our New Testament,
even in its latest form, stands as it came first from
Tindale's pen. And what is even more important, the
style, the simplicity, the character and spirit of the
translation are what he made them in his singleness
of purpose, in his devotion to his labour, and in his
dependence upon God. He who can measure what the
New Testament has been to England can measure what
the nation owes first to Tindale and in a less degree to
those who carried on and completed his work.
In the margin stand brief notes and comments, the
" pestilent glosses " which Tunstal and his colleagues
were never weary of denouncing, which exhibit a keen
insight into the very heart of Scripture and throw
a vivid light upon many a passage. For instance,
against the verse, " Whatsoever ye bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven," Tindale notes, " Here all bind and
loose," a statement cutting at the root of all the high
sacerdotal claims of the Pope. Against the words
" If thine eye be single all thy body is full of light," he
writes, " The eye is single when a man in all his deeds
looketh but on the will of God, and looketh not for
land, honour, or any other reward in this world ; neither
ascribeth heaven or a higher room in the heaven unto
his deeds : but accepteth heaven as a thing purchased
by the blood of Christ and worketh freely for love's
sake only."
But in some respects the most touching and most
suggestive part of this fragment is the prologue prefixed
38 Champions of the Truth
to it. Through this we can look into Tindale's very
heart. It is through writings like this that we, in the
enjoyment of our manifold religious blessings and
privileges, can see what manner of men they were who
died in the dark ages of the past to win them. Here
is one extract :
" When we hear the law truly preached, how that
we ought to love and honour God with all our strength
and might, from the low bottom of the heart ; and our
neighbour (yea, our enemies) as ourselves, inwardly,
from the ground of the heart, and to do whatsoever
God biddeth, and abstain from whatsoever God for-
biddeth with all love and meekness, with a fervent
and a burning lust from the centre of the heart, then
beginneth the conscience to rage against the law and
against God. No sea (be it never so great a tempest)
is so unquiet. It is not possible for a natural man
to consent to the law that it should be good or
that God should be righteous which maketh the law ;
man's wit, reason, and will are so fast glued, yea, nailed
and chained unto the will of the devil. Neither can
any creature loose the bonds save the blood of Christ."
From the time of its first issue until his imprison
ment Tindale constantly laboured to improve his version
of the New Testament and also to translate the Old.
The best proof of this is a comparison of the editions
of 1525 and 1534. It is hardly too much to say that
he succeeded as if inspired from above for this special
work, and he toiled at it with a persistence that sprang
from intense love for the work, the keenest sense of its
supreme importance, and a self-sacrifice culminating in
martyrdom nobly met. Bishop Westcott, than whom
no scholar was better fitted to pass judgment, said of
Tindale, in his capacity as a translator :
" In rendering the sacred text, he remained through-
William Tindale 39
out faithful to the instincts of a scholar. From first to
last his style and his interpretation are his own, and in
the originality of Tindale is included in a large measure
the originality of our English Version. ... It is of
even less moment that by far the greater part of his
translation remains intact in our present Bibles, than
that his spirit animates the whole. He toiled faithfully
himself, and where he failed he left to those who
should come after the secret of success. . . . His
influence decided that our Bible should be popular,
and not literary, speaking in a simple dialect, and
that so by its simplicity it should be endowed with
permanence."
During 1527 and 1528 Tindale seems to have
lived in quiet retirement at Marburg. Roye, who had
helped him in seeing the New Testament through the
press, had published a coarse satire on Wolsey, which
for some time was thought to have been written by
Tindale. The Cardinal used his great influence to get
Tindale into his power, but without avail. In his
quiet retreat Tindale heard with indignation of the
burning of the Testament, but in no way ceased his
toil in the cause of the Gospel.
The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, the first of
Tindale's books, was printed at Marburg in 1528. It
purports to be a comment on the parable of the unjust
steward ; it really is a powerful setting forth of the
doctrine of justification by faith, and a careful examina
tion of those passages of Scripture considered to tell
against and for that doctrine. It abounds in passages
like the following :
" See therefore thou have God's promises in thine
heart, and that thou believe them without wavering ;
and when temptation ariseth, and the devil layeth the
law and thy deeds against thee, answer him with the
40 Champions of the Truth
promises, and turn to God, and confess thyself to Him.
Remember that He is the God of mercy and of truth,
and cannot but fulfil His promises. Also remember
that His Son's blood is stronger than all the sins and
wickedness of the whole world ; and therewith quiet
thyself, and thereunto commit thyself, and bless thyself
in all temptation (namely, at the hour of death) with
that holy candle. Or else perishest thou, though thou
hast a thousand holy candles about thee, a hundred
ton of holy water, a ship full of pardons, a cloth-sack
full of friars' coats, and all the ceremonies in the world,
and all the good works, deservings, and merits of all
the men in the world, be they or were they never
so holy."
" Some man will ask, peradventure," says Tindale
in his preface to the book, " why I take the labour to
make this work, inasmuch as they will burn it, seeing
they burnt the gospel. I answer, in burning the New
Testament they did none other thing than that I
looked for : no more shall they do if they burn me also,
if it be God's will it shall so be" Tindale was beginning
to see that even on the Continent the room was getting
too strait for work like his. The four years of exile
were telling upon him, the shadow of the end was
beginning to fall upon his path. But he goes bravely
on, knowing that his duty to God and to his fellow-
men constrained him to do just those things that most
enraged against him the great officials and the almost
resistless power of the Church of Rome.
Tindale's foresight as to the reception his work
would meet in England was only too correct. The
Archbishop of Canterbury denounced it as containing
" many detestable errors and damnable opinions." The
united wisdom and piety of prelates and scholars con
demned it. Sir Thomas More called it " The Wicked
William Tindale 41
Book of Mammon, a very treasury and well-spring of
wickedness."
Nothing daunted by the reception of The Wicked
Mammon, Tindale shortly afterwards sent forth from
the press his longest and most elaborate composition,
The Obedience of a Christian Man. This treatise stands
second in power and importance only to his great
translation. Next to God's Word, it was one of the
most potent influences on the side of the Reformation
in England. It raised the anger of the Church
authorities to fever heat. It rendered them all the
more frantic because they could neither prevent its
circulation nor could they confute its terse, homely,
telling arguments. Tindale threw all his force into
the book, and in its pages we see that exile had not
deadened his true love for England, and that the study
of God's Word had made him wise to discern the signs
of the times.
/ In the body of the book he examines the kind of
obedience the Word of God enjoins upon children to
their elders, servants to masters, subjects to rulers, etc.,
and passes on to argue against " the Pope's false power."
He next turns to the converse, how a father, a husband, a
landlord, a king, a priest ought to rule, working out finally
with great elaboration the conclusion that the Pope
is Antichrist himself, and after a minute examination
of the vices, errors, unscriptural doctrines and practices
of the priesthood from the Pope downwards, he reaches
this conclusion : " Remember that Christ is the end of
all things. He only is our resting-place, He is our
peace. For as there is no salvation in any other name,
so there is no peace in any other name. Thou shalt
never have rest in thy soul, neither shall the worm of
conscience ever cease to gnaw thine heart, till thou
come at Christ ; till thou hear the glad tidings, how
42 Champions of the Truth
that God for His sake hath forgiven thee all freely.
If thou trust in thy works, there is no rest. Thou
shalt think, I have not done enough. ... If thou trust
in confession then shalt thou think, Have I told all ?
. . . Likewise in our holy pardons and pilgrimages
gettest thou no rest. As pertaining to good deeds
therefore, do the best thou canst, and desire God to
give strength to do better daily ; but in Christ put thy
trust, and in the pardon and promises that God hath
made thee for His sake ; and on that rock build thine
house and there dwell."
This teaching stirred the earnest hearts of those
who received it like a trumpet call ; it came like the
sweet pure air of heaven to dwellers in the loathsome
atmosphere of a charnel-house. To us the tyranny,
the abominations, the ignorance, the slavery under
which Englishmen in the sixteenth century groaned
are but matters of history. To the men who first read
The Obedience of a Christian Man they were so many
chains that could only be broken by risking all that
was most precious, even life itself, y/
Several incidents of special interest are recorded in
which it figures prominently. Bilney, one of the early
converts to Protestantism in Henry VIII. 's reign, in
1529 recanted from fear of Tunstal's threats, and for
two years suffered the stings of an accusing conscience.
At the end of that time " he came at length to some
quiet of conscience, being fully resolved to give over
his life for the confession of that truth which before he
had denounced. He took his leave in Trinity Hall of
certain of his friends and said he would go up to
Jerusalem. . . . And so, setting forth on his journey
toward the celestial Jerusalem, he departed from thence
to the anchoress in Norwich and there gave her a New
Testament of Tindale's translation and The Obedience
William Tindale 43
of a Christian Man^ whereupon he was apprehended
and carried to prison, there to remain till the blind
bishop Nixe sent up for a writ to burn him."
Bainham, a London lawyer, had also recanted, but
afterwards " was never quiet in mind or conscience
until the time he had uttered his fall to all his acquaint
ance and asked God and all the world forgiveness.
And the next Sunday after he came to St. Austin's
with the New Testament in his hand in English and
The Obedience of a Christian Man in his bosom, and
stood up there before all the people in his pew, there
declaring openly, with weeping tears, that he had
denied God." "After this," adds Foxe, "he was
strengthened above the cruel death by fire with remark
able courage."
Incidents like these are no mean testimony to the
power of Tindale's teaching and the influence he was
exerting in his exile over the religious thought and
action of the noblest men of his day.
No sooner had The Wicked Mammon and The
Obedience been issued than Tindale proceeded to trans
late the Old Testament, and published in 1530 the
Pentateuch. The one perfect copy of this book which
has come down to us is in the British Museum, and the
colophon reads, " Emprented at Malborow (Marburg), in
the lande of Hesse, by me, Hans Luft, the yere of oure
Lorde,M.CCCCC.XXX.,the XVII dayes of Januarij." Where
it was translated and under what circumstances are
questions not easy to determine, both from the scanty
information we possess and the conflicting nature of
it. Of much greater importance is it to get a clear
conception of the book itself.
As in the case of the New Testament, Tindale
translates direct from the original, and while using the
Vulgate, Luther's German Bible, the Septuagint, and in
44 Champions of the Truth
all probability Wyclifs version, he does so with com
plete independence. Wyclif's manuscript Bible was an
all-powerful agent in preparing the way in England
for the Reformation.
From the famous prologues we have only space for
one extract, taken from the beginning of the prologue
to Genesis, and teaching a truth as much needed now as
the day it was written. " Though a man had a precious
jewel and rich, yet if he wist not the value thereof, nor
wherefore it served, he were neither the better nor richer
of a straw. Even so, though we read the Scripture,
and babble of it never so much, yet if we know not
the use of it, and wherefore it was given, and what is
therein to be sought, it profiteth us nothing at all. It
is not enough, therefore, to read and talk of it only,
but we must also desire God, day and night instantly,
to open our eyes, and to make us understand and feel
wherefore the Scripture was given, that we may apply
the medicine of Scripture, every man to his own sores ;
unless that we intend to be idle disputers and brawlers
about vain words, ever gnawing upon the bitter bark
without, and never attaining to the sweet pith within."
During 1530 Tindale among other things found
time- to write his renowned Practice of Prelates, a book
which points out the practices by which the Pope and
his priests, from being the humblest and poorest of all,
managed to become the haughtiest and richest of men.
The oft-quoted " Proper similitude to describe our holy
Father" is a fine specimen of Tindale's controversial
style : he likens the Pope to the ivy first clinging to
and then "sucking the moisture so sore out of the tree
and his branches that it choketh and stifleth them,"
and closing with the words, " The nearer unto Christ a
man cometh, the lower he must descend, and the poorer
he must wax. But the nearer unto the Pope ye
William Tindale 45
come, the higher ye must climb, and the more riches
ye must gather." The book also shows how the power,
when obtained, was kept, and how England fared under
the rule of Thomas Wolfsee, as he calls Wolsey, who
had become "even porter of heaven, so that no man
could enter into promotion but through him." It con
cludes with a solemn appeal and warning to Henry
VIII. and the English people.
But we have anticipated somewhat. The circulation
of such books as the EnglisJi Nezv Testament and The
Obedience of a Christian Man convinced the Church
authorities that the Romish doctrine and practice must
be defended not only by authority, imprisonment, and
the stake, but also by argument and literary skill. To
one of the most finished scholars and cultured minds
of the day was the task entrusted, and to Sir Thomas
More, in order that he might refute them, "a formal
licence was given to read the heretical books," by
Tunstal. The first result was a folio volume, entitled
A Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, treating of " many
things touching the pestilent sect of Luther and
Tindale," published in June 1529. In 1531 Tindale
published an Answer, which met the argumentative
subtleties, the submission to Church authority and
tradition of More, by one of the best exhibitions in the
English language of reasoning under the guidance of
" sanctified common-sense." The most telling evidence
of the power of Tindale's Practice of Prelates and
Answer is the fact that More, occupying the great
office of Chancellor, at once set about a Confutation
which ultimately extended to 500 folio pages, and
which even the author later on admitted men found
" over long, and therefore tedious to read."
Tindale, misinformed on several points, and smart
ing under his wrongs, had used strong language in
46 Champions of the Truth
several parts of his Ansiver ; but in this he was no
match for his opponent. More describes him as " a
shameful, shameless, unreasonable, railing ribald," as
one who learned his heresies " from his own father, the
devil, that is in hell," as being one of the " hell-hounds
that the devil hath in his kennel."
Tindale's friendship with Frith is one of the most
touching and sacred experiences of his life. It is
hardly possible that they can have met at Oxford ; but
most probably in London, whilst Tindale was " mark
ing the course of the world," he became acquainted
with the young, enthusiastic student, and sowed " in
his heart the seed of the Gospel and sincere godliness."
From that time until the end of his life Frith was
Tindale's " dear son in the faith." He, like his master,
found England an ill place for earnest, godly men, and
in 1528 he joined Tindale at Marburg. After the
fall of Wolsey and the elevation of Cromwell, Henry
VIII. seems to have been anxious to detach him from
Tindale, and utilise his abilities in his own service.
Stephen Vaughan, the English envoy, saw Tindale on
several occasions, and did his best to induce Henry
VIII. to believe in the true patriotism and noble char
acter of the exile Tindale. It was through Vaughan
that Tindale sent the wonderful message, " If it would
stand with the King's most gracious pleasure to grant
only a bare text of Scripture to be put forth among
his people, like as is put forth among the subjects of
the Emperor in these parts, and of other Christian
princes, be it of the translation of what person soever
shall please His Majesty, I shall immediately make
faithful promise never to write more, nor abide two
days in these parts after the same ; but immediately
to repair into his realm, and there most humbly submit
myself at the feet of His Royal Majesty, offering my
William Tindale 47
body to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death His
Grace will, so that this be obtained'' Henry VIII.
turned a deaf ear to his envoy's pleadings, to the
touching appeal of Tindale ; and Frith refused to be
charmed by an offer of Royal favour involving unfaith
fulness to his spiritual father.
Frith in 1532 set out, for what reason is not known,
on a journey to England. He was arrested, kept in
prison for a time, condemned, and on 4th July 1533
died at the stake.
Tindale wrote him two letters, full of fatherly
affection and Christian encouragement. The second
closes with the statement, full of deep faith and tender
pathos : " Sir, your wife is well content with the will of
God, and would not, for her sake, have the glory of
God hindered."
But three years were to pass and then the master
himself was to tread the fiery path along which he was
thus exhorting his son in the faith with courage to tread.
There is an intensely tragic interest in the last
months of Tindale's life. In England events were
rapidly marching towards the consummation he so
ardently longed for — the Royal permission for printing
and publishing the Bible in English. The years of
exile seemed likely to end in a joyous return to his
native land. But at the very time that the clouds
were lifting over England they were becoming darker
over the Netherlands. And after becoming familiar
with Tindale's character and work one feels that the
sacrifice of his life for the cause to which he had
devoted it was the only fitting and appropriate end.
In 1534 Tindale returned to Antwerp. Of the
details of his residence there Foxe gives the only com
plete account that has come down to us, and we shall
tell the story very largely in his words.
48 Champions of the Truth
Tindale lived in the house of an English merchant
named Pointz, and while thus sheltered a plot against
his life seems to have been formed in England, and a
certain Henry Philips sent over to execute it. Tindale
occasionally went out to dinner or supper among the
English merchants, and Philips managed to make his
acquaintance and get on such terms with him that
Tindale invited him to Pointz's house. The latter
distrusted Philips, but Tindale, slow to think evil of
any man, defended him. Philips, having prospered so
far in his iniquity, visited Brussels and arranged for
the betrayal of Tindale into the hands of the Emperor's
officials. Pointz was compelled to leave Antwerp for
a few days on business, " and in the time of his absence
Henry Philips came again to Antwerp, to the house
of Pointz, and coming in spake with his wife, asking
her for Master Tindale, and whether he would dine
there with him ; saying, ' What good meat shall we
have ? ' She answered, ' Such as the market will give.'
Then went he forth again (as it is thought) to provide,
and set the officers whom he brought with him from
Brussels in the street and about the door. Then about
noon he came again and went to Master Tindale and
desired him to lend him forty shillings ; ' for,' said he, ' I
lost my purse this morning, coming over at the passage
between this and Mechlin.' So Tindale took him
forty shillings, which was easy to be had of him, if
he had it ; for in the wily subtleties of this world he
was simple and inexpert Then said Philips, ' Master
Tindale, you shall be my guest here this day.' * No/
said Tindale, ' I go forth this day to dinner, and you
shall go with me and be my guest, where you shall be
welcome.' So when it was dinner time Tindale went
forth with Philips, and at the going forth of Pointz's
house was a long narrow entry, so that two could not
William Tindale 49
go in afront. Master Tindale would have put Philips
before him, but Philips would in no wise, but put
Master Tindale before, for that he pretended to show
great humility. So, Master Tindale being a man of
no great stature, went before, and Philips, a tall comely
person, followed behind him ; who had set officers on
either side of the door upon two seats, who, being
there, might see who came in at the entry; and coming
through the same entry, Philips pointed with his finger
over Master Tindale's head down to him, that the
officers who sat at the door might see that it was he
whom they should take, as the officers that took Master
Tindale afterwards told Pointz, and said to Pointz,
when they had laid him in prison, that they pitied to
see his simplicity when they took him. Then they
took him and brought him to the Emperor's attorney,
or procuror-general, where he dined. Then came the
procurer-general to the house of Pointz, and sent away
all that was there of Master Tindale's, as well his books
as other things ; and from thence Tindale was had to
the castle of Filford (Vilvorde), eighteen English miles
from Antwerp, and there he remained until he was
put to death."
Tindale lingered in prison for over a year, and
during that time wrote the only letter that has come
down to us in his own handwriting. It is written in
Latin and addressed to the Governor of the Castle of
Vilvorde. We give Demaus's translation :
I believe, right worshipful, that you are not ignorant of what
has been determined concerning me (by the Council of Brabant) ;
therefore I entreat your Lordship and that by the Lord Jesus ;
that if I am to remain here (in Vilvorde) during the winter, you
will request the Procureur to be kind enough to send me, from
my goods which he has in his possession, a warmer cap, for I
suffer extremely from cold in the head, being afflicted with a
perpetual catarrh, which is considerably increased in the cell.
E
So Champions of the Truth
A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin : also a piece
of cloth to patch my leggings : my overcoat has been worn out ;
my shirts are also worn out. He has a woollen shirt of mine, if
he will be kind enough to send it. I have also with him leggings
of thicker cloth for putting on above ; he also has warmer caps
for wearing at night. I wish also his permission to have a candle
in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But
above all, I entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with
the Procureur that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew
Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may
spend my time with that study. And in return, may you obtain
your dearest wish, provided always it be consistent with the salva
tion of your soul. But if any other resolution has been come to
concerning me, that I must remain during the whole winter, I
shall be patient, abiding the will of God to the glory of the grace
of my Lord Jesus Christ, whose Spirit, I pray, may ever direct
your heart. Amen. — W. TINDALE.
Many efforts were made to save Tindale both in
Belgium and in England. But it was not to be. "At
last after much reasoning, where no reason would serve,
although he deserved no death, he was condemned by
virtue of the Emperor's decree, made in the assembly
at Augsburg, and, upon the same, brought forth to the
place of execution, was there tied to the stake, and
then strangled first by the hangman, and afterwards
with fire consumed in the morning, at the town of
Filford, A.D. 1536; crying thus at the stake with a
fervent zeal and loud voice, ' Lord ! open the King of
England's eyes ! ' "
Thus closed this life of faith, occupied up to the
last with that labour of love which has been ever since
its completion the source of countless blessings to the
English-speaking peoples, and through them to the
world. To a great extent Tindale's marvellous work
and incalculable influence have been scantily recognised
as his by his countrymen, But, like the highest lives,
his influence grows and grows as generation follows
William Tindale 51
generation. His greatness becomes more and more
clear as he is looked at more and more closely in his
work. He was simple in his childlikeness ; unceasing
in his labours ; Christlike in his compassionate efforts
to do good to all ; heroic in his death.
HUGH LATIMER
By (1485-1555)
Charles Marson, M*A*
HUGH LATIMER was born at Thurcaston, a little
village at the foot of the Charnwood hills, a few miles
from the town of Leicester. " My father," he told King
Edward VI., when preaching before him in 1549, "was
a yeoman, and had no lands of his own : only he had
a farm of three or four pounds by year ; and thereupon
he tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had
walk for a hundred sheep ; and my mother milked
thirty kine. He was able, and did find the King a
harness, with himself and his horse. . . . He kept me
to school, or else I had not been able to have preached
before the King's Majesty now. He married my sisters
with five pounds or twenty nobles apiece ; so that he
brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He
kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms
he gave to the poor."
" Wise Solon," says Thomas Fuller, " would surely
have pronounced the English yeomanry a ' fortunate
condition,' living in the temperate zone betwixt great
ness and want, an estate of people almost peculiar to
England." Certain it is that for centuries this class
have best represented the sturdy independence and
general character of the nation. In after days, too,
Latimer delighted to claim for men of his condition a
52
HUGH LATIMER.
Hugh Latimer 53
still higher praise. " By yeomen's sons," he told King
Edward VI., " the faith of Christ is and hath been
maintained chiefly. Is this realm taught by rich men's
sons ? No, no. Read the chronicles : ye shall find
sometimes noblemen's sons which have been unpreach-
ing bishops and prelates, but ye shall find none of
them learned men."
The good yeoman had a large family : six daughters
and some boys who all died in infancy. Hugh was
the sole surviving son, and probably the youngest.
There is some uncertainty as to the year of his birth,
but assuming 1484 or 1485 to be the most likely date,
little Hugh came into the world about the close of the
brief reign of Richard III.
Latimer seems to have been a sickly child, but gave
early promise of mental ability. " Even at the age of
four, or thereabout," says old Foxe, " he had such a
ready, prompt, and sharp wit, that his parents purposed
to train him up in erudition and knowledge of good
literature." Accordingly he was kept to school, instead
of early following his father to the fields. One part of
his son's education, indeed, the good man himself under
took. " My poor father," says he, " was as diligent to
teach me to shoot as to learn me any other thing ; and
so I think other men did their children. He taught
me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and
not to draw with strength of arms as other nations do,
but with strength of the body. I had my bows bought
me according to my age and strength ; as I increased
in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger :
for men shall never shoot well except they be brought
up in it ; it is a goodly art, a wholesome kind of
exercise, and much commended in physic."
One incident only of his early years is recorded, and
that by himself. His father was hastily summoned by
54 Champions of the Truth
King Henry VII. to aid in putting down the rebellion
of the Cornish men in 1497, and "I can remember,"
says he, " that I buckled his harness when he went into
Blackheath Field."
At the common schools of his county little Hugh
made such good progress that, at the age of fourteen,
his father resolved to send him to the University.
Accordingly, somewhere about the year 1506, he was
removed from home, and became a Cambridge student.
No record of his undergraduate days has come down to
us, except that in i 5 i o he was elected to a Fellowship
in Clare Hall, at an unusually early period, before he
had taken his B.A. degree — a sufficient testimony to his
learning and ability. He proceeded in due course to
the higher degree of M.A. in 1514, became what was
styled a Regent in the University, taking some share
in the education of the students, and after " some con
tinuance of exercises in other things," made choice of
the clerical profession and the study of Divinity, and
was ordained at Lincoln. In 1522 his ability as a
preacher seems already to have been recognised, for we
find him appointed by the University one of the twelve
Cambridge preachers licensed to officiate in any part
of England; and in 1524, at the ripe age of forty
years, he proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of
Divinity.
During the eighteen years of Latimer's University
life two great changes were at work in the world and
the Church : the revival of learning and the Reforma
tion of religion. The scholars of the day were devoting
themselves to the study of the great classical writers of
Greece and Rome, long neglected and forgotten ; while
among men of more earnest and spiritual natures there
was increasing a deep and heartfelt longing for truth
and reality in religion, and a thirst for the knowledge
Hugh Latimer 55
of Christ and His pure Gospel. Both these new move
ments of mind were felt in the English Universities,
and to Cambridge especially Erasmus, the great Greek
scholar, by his residence there, had imparted an im
pulse alike in favour of classical learning and of
Scriptural study. His edition of the New Testament
in Greek, with its Latin translation and notes, which
appeared in 1516, after his departure from England,
was hailed with delight by the new generation of
scholars and learned men ; but to the devout study of
it by one solitary member of the University, Thomas
Bilney, Fellow of Trinity Hall, the origin of the Refor
mation movement in Cambridge may be traced. " At
the first reading," says he, " as I well remember, I
chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul : ' It is a true
saying, and worthy of all men to be embraced, that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ; of
whom I am the chief and principal.'1 This one
sentence, through God's instruction and inward work
ing, which I did not then perceive, did so exhilarate
my heart, being before wounded with the guilt of my
sins, and almost in despair, that immediately I felt a
marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my
bruised bones leapt for joy."
It was a repetition of the experience of Luther, in
his monk's cell at Erfurt ; and Bilney, having found
peace and comfort to himself, desired to draw to the
same knowledge of God in Christ Jesus all who came
nigh him. Gradually the leaven of his teaching began
to work. A society of Scripture students was formed
in Cambridge, of which Bilney was the centre, and
when Luther's books began to be known and circulated
in England, copies were eagerly read by this little band.
One of Bilney's disciples, George Stafford, being made
1 i Timothy i. 15.
56 Champions of the Truth
Reader in Divinity, introduced a startling innovation.
Discarding the old scholastic text-books, he not only
read Lectures from St. Augustine, but expounded Holy
Scripture itself, both Old Testament and New, in the
original languages, to crowds of listening students.
The advocates of the old system of things — and
they were not a few in Cambridge — alarmed and
scandalised by these heretical novelties, at once set
themselves in opposition to them. Among the most
zealous and able of the alarmists was Hugh Latimer.
" All the days of his University life he had bestowed
his time in the labyrinth study of the School Doctors,
such as Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, and Hugo de
St. Victor," etc., and, as he afterwards confessed, " I
was as obstinate a Papist as any was in England."
For his gravity of life and undoubted orthodoxy he
had been chosen University Cross -bearer, and no
priest more scrupulously and conscientiously observed
all the regulations of the missal, or conformed more
devoutly to the rites of his Church, than he.
Stafford's lectures stirred him to the utmost
indignation. " Standing in the schools when Master
Stafford read," says Foxe, " he bade the scholars not to
hear him ; and, also, preaching against him, exhorted
the people not to believe him." Not content with
this, on occasion of receiving the degree of Bachelor
of Divinity, his whole oration before the University
"went against Philip Melanchthon " and the newly-
received Lutheran opinions. " But," says the old
chronicler, " such was the goodness and merciful
purpose of God, that when Latimer thought by that
his oration to have utterly defaced the professors of
the Gospel and true Church of Christ, he was himself,
by a member of the same, prettily, yet godly, catched
in the blessed net of God's Word. For Master Thomas
Hugh Latimer 57
Bilney, seeing Master Latimer to have a zeal in his
ways, although without knowledge, was stricken with a
brotherly pity, and bethought by what means he might
best win this his zealous yet ignorant brother to the
true knowledge of Christ."
The expedient he adopted may be best described
in Latimer's own words : " Pretending as though he
would be taught by me, he sought ways and means
to teach me. He came to me in my study, and desired
me for God's sake to hear his confession. I did so,
and to say the truth, by his confession I learned more
than before in many years. So from that time forward
I began to smell the Word of God and forsook the
School Doctors and such fooleries."
Whatever Latimer did, he did heartily. Slow and
even timid in embracing a new opinion, his mind once
made up, he never hesitated to act, and to act decidedly.
When convinced of his former errors he went again to
the Divinity School, and there, before the students,
humbly begged pardon of Mr. Stafford, the lecturer,
for " his former fierce and causeless fury against him."
He openly joined the little despised band of whom
Bilney was the leader, and soon became his ardent
friend and helper in all his labours of piety and charity.
Together they visited the sick and the lepers — and the
prisoners in Cambridge jail, "exhorting them," he says,
" as well as we were able to do : moving them to
patience and to acknowledge their faults." And so
well known was the friendship of these once widely
separated opponents in the University, that their place
of meeting, nigh to Cambridge, was known long after
as " the Heretics' Walk."
" After this his winning to Christ," says Foxe, " he
was not satisfied with his ow'n conversion only ; but,
like a true disciple of the blessed Samaritan, pitied the
58 Champions of the Truth
misery of others, and therefore he became both a public
preacher and also a private instructor to the rest of his
brethren within the University by the space of two
years, spending his time partly in the Latin tongue
amongst the learned, and partly amongst the simple
people in his natural and vulgar language."
We must not, however, suppose that at this period
Latimer's opinions were as Scriptural and Protestant
as they afterwards became. Bilney and his friends
were not separatists from the National Church, had no
new creed, no new form of worship. Latimer was still
as before a priest of Rome. On two points, however,
he saw clearly and spake out boldly : — (i) That Christ's
atonement for sin being all-sufficient, penances, invoca
tions of saints, and man's merits must not be suffered
to take the place of it. (2) That the current ideas of
holiness were thoroughly unscriptural and unsound,
and that "voluntary works," "creeping to the Cross
on Good Friday," decorating images, and offering
candles at shrines, pilgrimages, ceremonies, Pope's
indulgences, oblations, and monkish vows and devo
tions, were no substitutes whatsoever for doing justly,
loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.
His fame was soon very great in Cambridge as a
preacher. He was ardent, energetic, eloquent — above
all, downright and plain-spoken, — from the first "a
seditious fellow," as a noble lord called him in later
life — highly troublesome to evil-doers and unjust
persons in authority, specially to such as made a trade
of godliness. We have the testimony of a young
student of St. John's College, Thomas Becon, an eager
listener to Latimer's University Sermons, as to the
effects they produced in those days : " Oh ! how
vehement was he in rebuking all sins, idolatry, false
and idle swearing, covetousness ! How was he wont
Hugh Latimer 59
to rebuke the beneficed men for neglecting and not
teaching their flock, and for being absent from their
cures ! How free was his speech against buying
and selling of benefices, against promoting unlearned,
ignorant men to livings ; against Popish pardons, and
reposing our hope in our own works or other men's
merits ! None except the stiff-necked and uncircum-
cised ever went away from his preaching without being
affected with high detestation against sin, and moved
to all godliness and virtue."
As might be expected, Latimer soon raised up a
host of furious enemies. "Swarms of friars and doctors
flocked against Master Latimer on every side. Openly
in their unsavoury sermons, they resisted his godly
purpose," and loud complaints were made against him
of heretical doctrine to his Diocesan, Dr. West, the
Bishop of Ely. That prelate, curious to hear the
truth, determined with himself to come to the church,
" withouten any intelligence to be given to Latimer " ;
and so it came to pass, that on a time he " came
secretly and suddenly from Ely and entered into the
University Church, accompanied with certain men of
worship, Latimer being then well entered into his
sermon." Latimer, surprised but not disconcerted,
calmly waited till the Bishop and his train were
seated, then resumed his discourse, but adroitly changed
the subject. " A new auditory," he said, " being of
more honourable rank, requireth a new theme." Then
taking for his text the words, " Christ being come an
High Priest of good things to come," l etc., he drew
from them the picture of an ideal bishop, as a bishop
ought to be, the features of which, though he did not
say so, were strikingly unlike those of his hearer. The
Bishop, " never a whit amended by the sermon," spoke
1 Hebrews ix. n.
60 Champions of the Truth
civilly to Latimer, but ever after bare a secret grudge
against him. He soon forbade his preaching in the
University pulpit, and not long after complained to
Cardinal Wolsey (then in the height of his power)
against him, as one " infected with the new fantastical
doctrine of Luther, and doing much harm among the
youth and other light heads of the University by it."
Wolsey summoned Latimer before him, but with his
keen shrewd sense quickly perceived him to be very dif
ferent from " the light-headed fellow without learning "
whom his enemies had depicted.
After some talk, he inquired what it was that he
had preached before the Bishop to have given such
offence ; and Latimer, " plainly and simply (committing
his cause unto Almighty God) declared to the Cardinal
the whole effect of the sermon which the Bishop of
Ely had heard."
Wolsey, " nothing at all misliking the doctrine of
the Word of God thus preached," said unto him : " Did
you not preach any other doctrine than you have
rehearsed ? "
" No, surely," said Latimer. Then said the
Cardinal : " If the Bishop of Ely cannot abide such
doctrine as you have here repeated, you shall have my
licence and preach it to his beard, let him say what
he will."
Thus fortified, Latimer went on his way, careless of
the University authorities, and the next holiday after
entered into the pulpit and showed his licence to
preach throughout England, contrary to all men's
expectation.
On the disgrace of Wolsey, however, not long after,
Latimer would certainly have been silenced ; and had
he fallen into the hands of the King's new Chancellor,
Sir Thomas More, that heretic - hunter might have
Hugh Latimer 61
antedated his martyrdom by at least a quarter of a
century. But at this time the providence of God
raised him up unexpected friends in higher quarters.
Amongst the controversies every day waxing
louder and fiercer in the Universities and the whole
realm, there rose up one which, for a time, absorbed
every other, and divided all England into two hostile
camps. It was concerned with the question of the
lawfulness or unlawfulness of King Henry VIII/s
divorce from Catherine of Aragon. We need not
enter into the complications, beside the main question,
with which men's religious and political views entangled
this subject. Suffice it to say, that just at this par
ticular time the controversy had come to turn on this
one point : If the marriage with a brother's widow
be forbidden in Holy Scripture, has, or has not, the
Pope, notwithstanding, authority to permit it ? The
English Reformers answered at once : " The Pope
cannot allow what the Word of God forbids. The
King's marriage, therefore, with his brother Arthur's
widow, having been contracted contrary to the Divine
Law, though allowed by Papal dispensation, is ipso
facto null and void."
In 1530, by the advice of Dr. Cranmer, this
marriage question was referred for decision not to the
Court of Rome, but to the Universities of Christendom,
and amongst others to Cambridge. Twenty - seven
delegates, of whom Latimer was one, were chosen to
discuss the matter, and on I5th February it was
argued before the Commissioners. Sir William Butts,
the King's physician, who was present, struck by
Latimer's courage and ability, highly commended him
to the King on his return. Henry, of whom it was
said that he never was mistaken in a man — loving " a
man" when he could find him, with all his heart —
62 Champions of the Truth
invited Latimer to preach before him at Windsor on
the second Sunday in Lent, I3th March 1530. His
sermon was " greatly praised," and, as Latimer himself
tells us, " after it was done His Majesty did most
familiarly talk with me in a gallery." He was shortly
after put on the Royal Commission of twelve learned
men of Cambridge for examining printed books, and
a little later made one of the Royal Chaplains.
Latimer now left Cambridge and removed to
Windsor, but only to treat his Royal patron as freely
as he had treated the Cambridge friars and doctors
—not with an absence of respect, for he was most
respectful, but with that highest respect which dares
to speak unwelcome truth when the truth seems to be
forgotten. " You that be of the Court, and especially
ye sworn Chaplains," he said long afterwards, " beware
of a lesson that a great man taught me at my first
coming to Court. He told me for good - will ; he
thought it well. He said to me, ' You must beware,
howsoever ye do, that ye contrary not the King ; let
him have his sayings ; follow him ; go with him.'
Marry ! out upon such counsel ! Shall I say as he
says ? Say your conscience^ or else what a worm shall
ye feel gnawing ! What a remorse of conscience shall
ye have when ye remember how ye have slacked your
duty ! Yet a prince must be turned not violently ; he
must be won by a little and a little. He must have
his duty told him, but with humbleness, with request
of pardon, or else it were a dangerous thing."
As an example of Latimer's own practice in this
particular, the noble and dignified letter of remon
strance still remains which he felt it his duty to write
to King Henry on the Proclamation, December 1530,
against the having and reading of the English New
Testament. An address, says an eminent writer, " of
Hugh Latimer 63
almost unexampled grandeur," showing how a poor
clergyman, for conscience' sake, could brave the wrath
of that king which his highest counsellors never dared
to stir up by ill-timed faithfulness.
But though assured of the favour and respect of
his Sovereign, the atmosphere of a Court soon became
wearisome to a man like Latimer, and on the King
offering him, in the year 1531, the benefice of West
Kington, near Chippenham, and some fourteen miles
from Bristol, he gladly accepted it, and notwithstand
ing the remonstrances of his Court friends, " he would
needs depart and be resident at the same."
Whether or no Latimer came down to his little
country cure looking for rest and retirement, he cer
tainly did not find these blessings at West Kington.
He continued there four years, and they were years
of constant work, exciting controversy, and personal
danger.
The ordinary pastoral work of a country parish he
found to demand much time and pains ; and he often
wondered, when so " much was to be done in a small
cure," how men could "go quietly to bed who had
great cures and many, and yet peradventure were in
none of them at all." The gross ignorance and
superstition of the West Country folk deeply moved
him. Accordingly we find that in public preaching
and teaching he was instant in season and out of
season, both within his parish and without. Having
a special licence from the University to preach in any
diocese, with the King's express sanction, he freely
availed himself of it. There are traces of his labours
in Marshfield, Dereham, and the city of Bristol. In
the London Diocese also, and even so far away as
Kent, we are told of his preaching, " at the instant
request of certain curates." But it was in London,
64 Champions of the Truth
and subsequently in Bristol, that he had to encounter
his bitterest foes and his greatest dangers.
Stokesley, Bishop of London, a zealous Papist, of
whom even Bonner complained as " a vexer and
troubler of poor men," had long wished to get Latimer
into his clutches, and at last succeeded. For a sermon
preached in St. Mary Abchurch, City, " at the request
of a Company of merchants," he was summoned from
West Kington in January 1532, and compelled to
appear before the Bishop, who, with other prelates,
examined him at various times, offering for his
signature Articles on the points wherein his ortho
doxy was suspected. On his refusal to sign, he was
brought before Convocation, pronounced contumacious,
excommunicated, and imprisoned under charge of
Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The clergy felt that Latimer was the most
dangerous opponent they had in the kingdom, and
sought in every way to entangle him into com
promising confessions, which might lead him at last
to the stake. But the protecting care of God seems
to have been always round him, and he was as keen
and shrewd as he was brave and faithful. His enemies
were marvellously restrained from carrying their malice
to extremities, and he baffled his inquisitors with their
own weapons. At the last moment Latimer appealed
to the King. " Ye would have raked me in the coals,"
he afterwards told the Convocation, " because I would
not subscribe to certain Articles that took away the
supremacy of the King." To the theological proposi
tions submitted to him Latimer told the Archbishop
he was ready to subscribe, as lawful in themselves ;
but scrupled to do so, lest he should seem to sanction
the abuses which had arisen from them. Henry heard
his appeal, recommended him to submit generally to
Hugh Latimer 65
Convocation, and to promise to be more careful in his
preaching. He also intimated to Convocation that it
was his pleasure that the matter should proceed no
further. Latimer obeyed, and Convocation obeyed.
He subscribed the obnoxious Articles, made his
submission, was absolved from excommunication, and
went back to his country parish after a detention of
many months, " a brand " literally " snatched from the
burning."
Latimer's troubles in Bristol happened later, and
though not exposing him to such imminent danger as
in London, made considerable stir at the time, and
threatened to jeopardise the peace of the city. In
March 1533 he was invited to preach by several of
the parish clergy. The effect of these sermons was
such that all Bristol was in an uproar. Latimer had
as usual attacked the popular abuses of the Church's
doctrines which tended to superstition and immorality,
and as usual was denounced by such as had a vested
interest in those abuses as a heretic and almost an
atheist An inhibition was secretly procured by certain
of the clergy against any preacher without the Bishop's
licence, to hinder his ministry, and " not content there
with," he says, " they procured certain preachers to
blatter against me." These perverted Latimer's words
in the grossest manner, and not content with abusing
Latimer, their zeal for the Pope urged them upon the
dangerous ground of politics, and they assailed the
King's supremacy in such wise that the loyal citizens
of Bristol took great displeasure thereat. Disturbances
arose, which attracted the attention of Government. A
Commission was sent down to Bristol to investigate,
and several of the most disloyal of the offenders were
committed to prison. Latimer was permitted to
answer for himself, and was not only vindicated, but
F
66 Champions of the Truth
received the new Primate's licence to preach anywhere
in the province of Canterbury. Thus his adversaries
were ashamed and confounded.
Meanwhile events of the gravest importance for
England had been taking place : Queen Catherine's
divorce ; Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn ; Cran-
mer's elevation to the See of Canterbury, and Thomas
Cromwell's to the office of Secretary of State — and the
final rupture between the Crown and the Popedom.
The " old order " rapidly passing was giving place to
the " new " ; and the men of the " new learning " were
coming to the front, occupying spheres of wider activity
and responsibility. Chief among these was Latimer.
He was called from his retirement, and associated with
Cranmer and Cromwell in the work of the Reformation.
We find him on the Commission appointed to detect
the imposture of the Nun of Kent ; nominated preacher
before the King on the Wednesdays in Lent for 1534 ;
invested with authority by the Primate to administer
the Royal Injunctions on the supremacy to all licensed
preachers within the province of Canterbury ; and
finally consecrated Lord Bishop of Worcester, 26th
September 1535, at the age of fifty-one.
Never did diocese more urgently need the watch
ful care of an able, zealous, and godly bishop than
the Diocese of Worcester. Of great extent, including
the counties of Worcester, Warwick, Gloucester, and the
city of Bristol, it was the most neglected See in
England, even in those days of negligence. For the
past forty years it had been held by a succession of
Italian bishops, all non-resident, and its administration
committed to men who were either greedy to make the
most of its secular revenues, or blind, persecuting
advocates of the ancient superstitions.
No See abounded more in monks and monasteries,
Hugh Latimcr 67
and the ignorance of the clergy was deplorable, well-
nigh incredible. When Bishop Hooper,1 in 1551,
examined the dean, prebendaries, vicars, and curates of
Gloucestershire, he found that out of three hundred and
eleven clergy, one hundred and sixty-eight were unable
to repeat the Ten Commandments ; thirty-one of the
one hundred and sixy-eight could not state in what part
of Scripture they were to be found ; forty could not tell
where the Lord's Prayer was written ; and thirty-one
of the forty were ignorant who was the Author of it.
Such an Augean stable needed the arm of a
Hercules to sweep and purify it, and what one brave
and able man could do in such times doubtless
Latimer did. But he held his office only four years,
and in so brief a period vital and permanent changes
could hardly be looked for.
Notwithstanding the large revenue of his See, he
appropriated nothing to his own benefit, and at the
time he relinquished his office he was probably nearly
penniless, if not actually in debt. He kept open house
and a hospitable table ; but rather for the poor than
the rich. " I am more inclined," he writes, " to feed
many plainly and necessarily than a few deliciously and
voluptuously. As for plate and hangings, they have not
cost me twenty shillings. In plate my New Year's gifts
doth my need with glass and byrral ; and I delight
more to feed hungry bellies than to clothe dead walls." 2
During his short episcopate he had the satisfaction
of seeing the Bible printed in English, and allowed by
Royal Licence " to be sold or read of every person
without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance
heretofore granted to the contrary." He also witnessed
some of the more intolerable abuses and impostures
1 Bishop Hooper's "Visitation Books," Works (Parker Soc. ), vol. ii. p. 150.
2 Latimer to Lord Cromwell, Works (Parker Soc.), vol. ii. p. 412.
68 Champions of the Truth
detected, exposed, and swept away for ever. Famous
images and relics, by which a crafty priesthood had
deceived the ignorant and credulous people, he himself
was a main instrument in holding up to scorn and
devoting to destruction. The " holy rood of Bexley,"
" the sweet rood of Ramsbury," the famous " Sibyl," a
very sacred image of the Virgin in Worcester Cathedral,
" her old sister of Walsingham, her young sister of
Ipswich, with their other sisters of Doncaster and
Penrise, and the great Welsh idol ' Dderfel Gadern/
and others beside," met with ignominious ends ; and
the "great abomination of the blood of Hales," an
object of adoration of so many deluded country folk,
was " bolted and sifted " by the Bishop himself, and
proved to be " a few drops of yellowish gum-like bird
lime," probably " melted honey, coloured with saffron."
But Latimer not only attacked evil, he also fostered
and established the good. He succeeded in dividing
his work, by obtaining the aid of a suffragan Bishop of
Bristol ; he invited able preachers to visit " the blind
corners of his diocese " ; he had a hand in the composi
tion, with other prelates, of a work calculated to advance
the Reformation a step farther among the people, The
Institution of a Christian Man ; and, above all, he
himself preached constantly and indefatigably.
But his labours were not confined to the Diocese
of Worcester : his influence was felt throughout the
kingdom, and specially by his preaching in the Court,
before the clergy in Convocation, and in the London
churches to the citizens, the truths of the Gospel, as
understood by him at the time. His mind was not too
far in advance of his age, but just enough to secure the
sympathy and attention of his countrymen ; while the
outspoken practical tone of his discourses was best of
all adapted to the national character. His name was
Hugh Latimer 69
in every one's mouth, and his doctrines everywhere the
theme of discussion.
His boldness in rebuking even the King's Majesty
himself during these years for conscience' sake is shown
in a well-known anecdote. At the time of Henry's
neglect of Queen Anne Boleyn, and his undisguised
preference for Jane Seymour, the bishops brought,
according to custom, their New Year's gifts to Court.
" Some," says the old chronicler, " did gratify the King
with gold, some with silver, some with a purse full of
money, some one thing, some another. But Master
Latimer, being Bishop of Worcester, then among the
rest presented a New Testament for his gift, with a
napkin having this motto upon it, Fornicatores et
Adulteres judicabit Dominus" — "Whoremongers and
adulterers God will judge."
In 1539 Latimer's episcopate suddenly came to a
close. King Henry, in one of the reactionary states of
mind common with him in his later years, put forth
the celebrated " Act for abolishing diversity of opinions,"
better known now as " The Act of the Six Articles,"
enforcing, under cruel penalties — (i) Transubstantiation
and the Real Presence ; (2) Communion in one kind
only ; (3) Clerical celibacy ; (4) Vows of chastity ;
(5) Private masses ; (6) Auricular confession. Latimer
and others strenuously withstood both King and
Parliament during the debates upon this Act, but in
vain. Three days afterwards he and Bishop Shaxton
of Salisbury resigned their Sees, to the great displeasure
of the King. Foxe tells us that " at the time Latimer
put off his rochet in his chamber among his friends, he
gave a skip on the floor for joy, feeling his shoulder so
light, and being discharged, as he said, of such a heavy
burden. Howbeit, neither was he so lightened but that
troubles and labours followed him." His first trouble
70 Champions of the Truth
was his committal to the custody of Sampson, Bishop
of Chichester, in whose house he was detained for some
time a prisoner.
Of the next seven years of Latimer's life we have
very little account. From vague hints here and there
among the State Papers, we may gather that he was
from time to time in great danger, being " molested and
troubled of the Popish Bishops," and it is certain that
he was a prisoner in the Tower when King Henry died
and Edward VI. succeeded to the crown. After a
detention of nearly a twelvemonth in the Bishop of
Chichester's house, he seems to have been released in
the year 1540, but "forbidden to preach, or to come
within five miles of his old diocese, or of the two
Universities, or of the City of London." Thus reduced
to silence and obscurity, we may conjecture that he
spent his time in visiting among his friends in various
parts of the country.
What caused his committal to the Tower in 1546
was the support he gave to Dr. Crome, who boldly
attacked purgatory in the spring of that year, in the
Mercers' Chapel, London. He was brought before the
Council on 3ist May, and though he appealed to, and
was probably heard before, King Henry, his appeal
was of no avail. He was pronounced intractable, and
remanded as a prisoner. In the Tower he remained
till the death of Henry, within a twelvemonth after.
Thus closes all we know of Latimer during those dark
and troublous days. On the day of the coronation of
the boy-king, Edward VI., the prison doors were
opened ; he was at once released and treated with
every mark of respect.
The accession of the youthful Edward brought days
of hope and promise to the friends of the Truth in
England. The young King was wholly on their side.
Hugh Latimer 71
" Brought up with noble counsellors," says Latimer,
"and excellent and well -learned schoolmasters, was
there ever king so noble, so godly ? I will tell you
this, and I speak it even as I think, His Majesty hath
more godly wit and understanding, more learning and
knowledge at his age, than twenty of his progenitors
that I could name had at any time of their life."
On Latimer's release from prison his former bishopric
was offered him ; but he was now " above threescore
and seven years of age, and a sore-bruised man " ; he
felt himself all too weak for a burden that had well-
nigh crushed him in bygone years, and he refused to
accept it. Moreover, he wisely considered wherein his
true strength lay. God had specially gifted him for a
preacher of the Gospel, and as a preacher henceforth
he laboured.
" For nearly eight years silent," says Froude, " he
now entered upon the fiery course which earned him
the name of the ' Apostle of England.' He preached
in the Court, in the city, and in the country, and his
sermons shook the whole land." Wherever he went
crowded audiences hung upon his lips. " The character
of the man," says the Roman Catholic Dr. Lingard,
" the boldness of his invectives, his quaint but animated
eloquence, were observed to make a deep impression
on the minds of his hearers." When he preached
before the King it was found necessary to set up a
pulpit in the Royal gardens, in order to admit of
space for the multitude that thronged to hear him ; and
on one occasion when he preached at St. Margaret's,
Westminster, the crowd was so great that the pews
were broken in pieces.
During the earlier part of Edward VI. 's reign
he resided chiefly in London, under the hospitable roof
of his old friend Archbishop Cranmer, and few figures
72 Champions of the Truth
were more familiar or more welcome to the Londoners
than that of the stout-hearted old preacher, staff in
hand, his Bible in his girdle, " his spectacles hanging
by a string at his breast." We are told " that as he
passed along the streets, the very boys cheered him as
he went, while the citizens struggled for a touch of his
gown, and as he approached his pulpit, greeted him
with some hearty word of encouragement * to say on.' "
In the latter part of Edward's reign we find him mostly
in the Midland counties of England : Warwickshire,
Leicestershire, and specially in Lincolnshire, preaching
wherever his services seemed most required.
Some forty or more sermons of his have come
down to us ; and though it is as difficult to form an
idea from these imperfectly reported discourses what
they were when spoken as it is to gather from an old
dried and withered garland what the flowers must
have been in their fresh and fragrant brightness, still
the attentive reader will by degrees form a tolerable
estimate of the power of his words. In doctrine he
was thoroughly clear and Scriptural : ruin by the fall,
redemption by the precious blood of Christ, renewal by
the Holy Spirit, are constantly set forth. In seeking
for fruits he never forgets the root ; but he never
neglects to insist on fruit from all who profess to have
the root of the matter in them. " It is the duty of a
preacher," he says, " to exhort his hearers that they be
Christians after such a sort, that, suffering here together
with Christ, they may reign with Him in heaven ;
teaching them that to be otherwise a Christian is to be
no Christian at all. If dead faith makes a catholic,
the very devils belong to the Catholic Church ; for
they, according to St. James, ' believe and tremble.' "
As a practical preacher Latimer has never been sur
passed, and his boldness in rebuking the characteristic
Hugh Latimer 73
faults of his hearers few have ever even imitated.
Scarcely a sin of the day in any rank of society was
unnoticed and unreproved by this unsparing man of
God. Rapacious nobles, greedy church -despoiling
courtiers, bribing judges, non-resident landlords, de-
basers of the coinage, government officials who delay
the payment of their workmen, patrons of livings who
put a fool or an idler into a benefice, unpreaching
bishops, clergy who neglect the sick and poor, or make
a religion of " holy bells and holy water," " crossings
and setting up of candles and such fooleries," aldermen
keeping up the price of coal, rent-raisers, extortioners
and usurers who take forty per cent, rogues who make
false returns in taxing papers, graziers who " sell barren
cows, by putting another calf with her as if it were her
own," corn merchants who keep back corn for high
prices, wool -sellers who make wool heavier than it
really is by deceitful weights, cloth- makers who by
" flock powder and racking make a piece of seventeen
yards an extra yard longer," sly preachers who " some
times preach a good sermon and then slip in one little
piece of Popery like a blanched almond to powder their
matter with " ; and on the other hand the " carnal
gospellers " who bear the name but " grudge the deeds
of the true gospeller," " card gospellers," " dice gospellers,"
" pot gospellers," who " do what they can to buckle the
Gospel and the world together, to set God and the
Devil at one table" — all these hear of their deeds,
and are rebuked face to face. Even the women
" who rule their husbands " and " apparel themselves
gorgeously " in " vardingales " and (< roundabouts," and
" lay their hair in tussocks, tufts, and curls," to nourish
pride, are sharply condemned and bidden to obey their
husbands, keep at home, and look to their children.
Bishop Ridley might well say of Latimer and such
74 Champions of the Truth
as he : " England ! thou didst hear thy faults of all
degrees and sorts of men never more plainly told than
in King Edward's time ! "
But a fiery trial was at hand. King Edward died
on 6th July 1553. After a brief struggle, his elder
sister, Mary, succeeded to the throne of England.
Latimer was in Warwickshire when the news of the
young King's untimely death reached him, but, though
deeply grieved, he was not surprised. He had long
foreseen some such calamity impending. He had been
wont to affirm that the preaching of the Gospel would
cost him his life, and that Gardiner, Bishop of Win
chester, would be the means of bringing it about. He
quietly waited, therefore, for the summons which he
felt sure would not be long delayed, and on 4th Sep
tember, two months after Edward's death, it came. A
pursuivant was sent to require him to appear before
the Council at Westminster, and he at once obeyed.
As he passed through Smithfield, where so many had
suffered martyrdom before, he " merrily " remarked that
" the place had long groaned for him."
On the 1 3th September Latimer stood before the
Council, where his " demeanour " was what they were
pleased to call " seditious." His own account is : " I
had nothing but scornful jeers, with commandment to
the Tower." To the Tower he was committed accord
ingly, and there remained a close prisoner all through
the autumn and cold winter of 1553, till the spring
following. Ridley was already there, and Cranmer was
consigned to the same prison the day after Latimer.
At first the three distinguished Reformers were kept
separate, though permitted to communicate with each
other by writing ; but after Wyatt's insurrection, the
Tower becoming overcrowded with prisoners, Cranmer,
Ridley, and Latimer, " as men not to be accounted of,"
Hugh Latimer 75
were " put all together in one prison," and John Brad
ford, Latimer's convert and Ridley's friend, was soon
after added to their company. " God be thanked,"
says Latimer, " it was to our great joy and comfort."
For nearly two months, from the beginning of February
to the end of March 1554, they thus continued, and " we
did together read," says Latimer, " the New Testament
with great deliberation and painful study."
In March 1554, after a six months' imprisonment,
Latimer, Cranmer, and Ridley were brought down to
Oxford, to dispute before the Queen's Commissioners
on the following questions : —
ist. Whether the natural body of Christ was really
in the Sacrament?
2nd. Whether any other substance did remain after
the words of consecration than the body of Christ ?
3rd. Whether in the mass there was a propitiatory
sacrifice for the sins of quick and dead ?
The day fixed for the disputation to commence was
Monday, 1 6th April ; the place chosen the University
Church of St. Mary. On that day Cranmer disputed ;
on the Tuesday, Ridley ; on the Wednesday, Latimer
was summoned to answer for himself.
Upwards of seventy years old, weak with long
imprisonment and sickness, he declared he was as
" unfit to dispute as to be Captain of Calais," and
offered instead a statement of his opinions in writing.
This was refused with derision, and from eight till
eleven of the clock he was challenged, questioned,
contradicted, interrupted, pressed with syllogism on
syllogism, in order to his confutation. " Divers had
snatches at him, and gave him bitter taunts, and he
did not escape hissings and scornful laughings. He
was very faint, and desired that he might not long
tarry. He durst not drink for fear of vomiting."
7 6 Champions of the Truth
But, weak as he was, nothing shook his resolute
adherence to the Truth. " The Queen's grace is merci
ful," said the Prolocutor at last, " if ye will turn."
Latimer answered : " You shall have no hope in me to
turn. I pray for the Queen daily, even from the bottom
of my heart, that she may turn from this your religion."
The three prisoners were formally condemned for
heresy, and sent back into separate confinement ; but
for eighteen months longer the execution of Ridley
and Latimer was delayed. We catch a glimpse or two
of old Latimer and his behaviour during this weary
time of expectation, from the words of his faithful
servant Bernher : " I did note," he says, " that he most
of all did rejoice that God had given him grace to
apply his office of preaching, and assisted him without
fear or flattery to tell unto the wicked their faults.
The other thing I did notice was his earnestness and
diligence in prayer, wherein so long he continued kneel
ing that he was not able to rise without help, and
amongst other things he prayed for three principal
matters. The first, that God would help him to stand
to his doctrine until his death. The other thing was
that God would restore the Gospel of Christ unto this
realm once again. And these words, ' once again, once
again/ he did so inculcate and beat into the ears of the
Lord God, as though he had seen God before him, and
spake unto Him face to face. The third thing was
that God would make the Princess Elizabeth, whom he
was wont to mention by name, and even with tears, a
comfort to the comfortless realm of England."
At last, at the end of September 1555, the Pope
having issued a commission for a fresh trial of the two
heretics, three bishops, delegated by Cardinal Pole,
came down, either to accept the recantations of Ridley
and Latimer, or to confirm the former sentence and
Hugh Latimer 77
deliver them to death. This latter office they were
speedily called on to discharge, for the two prisoners
were not men to flinch from the flames. They were
condemned, degraded, and on Wednesday, 1 6th October,
led forth to die.
It was a sunny autumn morning when Ridley and
Latimer reached the place of execution on the north
side of Oxford, over against Balliol College. First
came Ridley in his black-furred gown and velvet cap,
walking between the Mayor and an alderman. After
him came Latimer, making what speed he could, " in
a poor Bristol frieze gown, all worn, with his buttoned
cap and a kerchief on his head all ready to the fire."
Below his gown, and reaching down to his feet, the old
man wore a long new shroud. Ridley ran to him and
embraced him, saying : " Be of good heart, brother, for
God will either assuage the fury of the flame or else
strengthen us to abide it." Then they kneeled down
both of them, and prayed very earnestly. After that
they arose, and the one talked with the other a little
while, till they which were appointed to see the execu
tion removed themselves out of the sun. " But what
they two said," adds Foxe, " I can learn of no man."
After listening to a brief and foolish sermon from a
Dr. Smith, an apostate from Protestantism, they were
commanded to make ready. Ridley gave away his
apparel, a new groat, some nutmegs, races of ginger,
his watch, and such things as he had about him, the
bystanders but too happy to get "any rag of him."
Latimer, who had left it to his keeper to strip him,
now stood in his shroud bolt upright, " and whereas in
his clothes he had seemed a withered and decrepit old
man, he now stood by the stake as comely a father as
one might lightly behold."
At last the fire was brought. Then prayed Ridley :
78 Champions of the Truth
" O Heavenly Father, I give unto Thee most humble
thanks, for that Thou hast called me to be a professor of
Thee even unto death. Have mercy, O Lord, on this
realm of England, and deliver the same from her enemies."
Latimer " lifted up his eyes with a most amiable
and comfortable countenance, and said : ' God is faithful
who sufifereth us not to be tempted above that we are
able.' " Then he added the memorable words : " Be of
good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man ; we
shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in
England, as I trust shall never be put out."
Latimer died first. He received the flame as it
were embracing it. After that he had stroked his face
with his hands, and, as it were, bathed them a little in
the fire, he soon died, as it appeared, with very little
pain or none. " And- thus," says Thomas Fuller
quaintly, " though he came after Ridley to the stake, he
got before him to heaven. His body, made tinder by
age, was no sooner touched by the fire but instantly this
old Simeon had his ' Nunc dimittis' and brought the
news to heaven that his brother was following after."
But Ridley lingered and suffered far more pain, the
fire about him being not well made. Yet in all his
torment he forgot not to call upon God, still having
in his mouth " Lord, have mercy upon me." His
brother-in-law, who meant it in mercy, heaped upon
him more fuel, which only kept down the fire. At
last, some one pulling off the wood from above, made
a way for the fire to escape. The red tongues of flame
shot up fiercely, Ridley wrested himself into the midst
of them, when the gunpowder with which he was
furnished did its work. He stirred no more, falling
down dead at Latimer's feet.
" And so we leave them going up to heaven, like
Elijah, in a chariot of fire."
JOHN HOOPER
By (M95-I555)
Charles Marson, M«A.
ON 1 6th May 1549, two years after the accession of
Edward VI. to the English throne, a tall grave English
gentleman, some fifty-four years old, not dressed as an
ecclesiastic, but with the appearance of one — accom
panied by his wife, a noble lady of Burgundy, and a
little daughter barely two years old — disembarked at
the port of London from Antwerp. He had left Zurich,
his happy home for the past two years, because he felt
it his bounden duty to give his aid to the work of the
Protestant Reformation in his own country, which was
slowly making its way in the face of immense difficulties,
and sorely needed such men as himself.
It was with no light heart he had abandoned his
peaceful life in the bright pleasant Swiss city, and the
loving Christian friends he had made there — Henry
Bullinger, Gualter, Gesner, Pellican, and many more.
He knew full well the trials that awaited him, and fore
boded how they were sure to end. Foxe tells us that
just before his departure from Zurich, when his friends
clustered round to say " Farewell," telling him he was
sure to rise to distinction in his native land, begging
for a letter now and then, he told them in reply that
had it not been for his conscience moving him for
religion's sake to leave them, he would gladly have
79
8o Champions of the Truth
continued all his life in Zurich, and that nothing should
ever induce him to forget such friends and benefactors ;
" and therefore," he added, " you shall be sure from time
to time to hear from me, and I will write unto you how
it goeth with me." Then taking the cathedral preacher,
Henry Bullinger, his dearest friend at Zurich, by the
hand, he uttered the following memorable words : " But
the last news of all, I shall not be able to write myself,
for there — where I take most pains — ye shall hear of me
to be burnt to ashes ! And that shall be the last news,
which I shall not be able myself to write unto you, but
you shall hear it of me."
In less than six years from the day these words were
spoken, John Hooper, soon to be Bishop of Gloucester
and Worcester — for he it was who uttered this pre
diction — was burnt to ashes at the stake, in the city of
Gloucester, over against his own cathedral close, for
the faith of Christ and the truth of His Gospel.
The early history of this great Reformer, " one of
the wisest and best," says Richard Baxter, " of all our
English bishops," is wrapped in much obscurity. That
he was a Somersetshire man is certain, and that he was
born in 1495, in the reign of Henry VII., some ten
years after Bishop Latimer ; but the place of his birth
is unknown, and not even a tradition has survived
about it. He was the only son and heir of a gentleman
possessing considerable wealth. At the age of nineteen,
in 1514, he was entered at Merton College, Oxford,
under the tuition of his uncle, then Fellow of the
College, and in 1518 he proceeded to the degree of
B.A., when three-and-twenty years old.
These were the days just before the outburst of the
Continental Reformation — days of great literary activity
and of a dawning spiritual life. At home, Wolsey and
Warham, Erasmus, Colet, and More were at work,
John Hooper 81
and men were talking of the Utopia, and the Praise
of Folly, and The Paraphrase of the New Testament.
Abroad, the monk Martin Luther was protesting against
Papal indulgences, and beginning the great war with
the Church and Court of Rome, which was soon to
shake the world. Both at Oxford and Cambridge
there were those who before long would come to the
front, but who were rather training for the conflict than
actually engaged in it. At Oxford, a certain William
Tindale of Magdalen Hall was " increasing more and
more in learning and proceeding in degrees of the
schools, reading also privily, with certain students and
Fellows, the Holy Scriptures." At Cambridge, Bilney
and Stafford were studying and lecturing on Scripture :
Thomas Cranmer, Fellow of Jesus College, beginning
the study of it ; Hugh Latimer, Fellow of Clare Hall,
violently opposing it.
Whether the mind of our young student at Merton
College was in any way influenced by the coming
changes we know not. All that has as yet been dis
covered about him is, that soon after taking his degree
in 1518 he became a monk, first of the Cistercian
Monastery of Old Clive (or Cleeve), near Watchet, in
his own county of Somerset, and afterwards (as some
think — though this is doubtful) of a monastery of
Black Friars, in the city of Gloucester.
For the next twenty-one years we are left almost
entirely in the dark about Hooper ; a few scattered
gleams of light, mostly from tradition, are all that at
present are afforded us. From these we gather that,
wearied and disgusted with a monastic life, he aban
doned his habit, and came up again to Oxford to pur
sue his studies; but when is uncertain — possibly about
1536, at the age of forty or forty-one. Here, "having
abundantly profited," says Foxe, " by the study of the
G
82 Champions of the Truth
sciences, through God's secret vocation he was stirred
with fervent desire to the love and knowledge of the
Scriptures. In the reading and searching whereof, as
there lacked in him no diligence joined with earnest
prayer, so neither wanted unto him the grace of the
Holy Ghost to satisfy his desire and to open unto him
the light of true Divinity."
Oxford was a very different place from what it had
been when Hooper left it in 1518. " The old order,"
during the intervening years, " had changed," indeed,
both abroad and at home. The Pope's jurisdiction
had been abolished in England and transferred to
King Henry VI II., who assumed the title of Supreme
Head on Earth of the Church of England, The
Scriptures were translated and circulated, the monas
teries dissolved, the universities visited by Commission
and reformed. " The learning of the wholesome doctrine
of Almighty God, and the three tongues, Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew, which be requisite for the understanding
of Scripture, were specially enjoined, while the old
scholastic text -books became waste paper and were
treated as such."
But it would be a mistake to suppose that such
improvements made any difference, for the time, in the
creed of the Church of England, or in the prospects
of real reform. Henry VIII. was trying to constitute
an English Church, differing from the former Roman
one on the point of the Supremacy, and on that
alone. To accomplish this, he bade defiance equally
to Lutherans, Protestants, and Papists. Heresy was a
crime against the King and the law, and Henry's views
on religion the only tolerated creed. After various
alternations and oscillations in the Royal mind, partly
religious but mainly political, in 1539 he caused the
famous "Bill of Six Articles" to be passed — "The
John Hooper 83
bloody statute," " The whip of six strings " (so called),
— which established Transubstantiation by law, forbade
Communion in both kinds, and the marriage of the
clergy ; made vows of celibacy obligatory, and upheld
private masses for souls in purgatory, and the expedi
ency and necessity of auricular confession. Burning,
hanging, and forfeiture of lands and goods were the
penalties for disobedience, and they speedily and widely
began to take effect throughout the country.
This was a heavy blow and sore discouragement to
the rising Protestant party, and for a time the results
were disastrous enough. " In a fortnight," says Mr.
Froude, " 500 persons were indicted in London alone."
There was not a man of note or reputation in the city
but was under suspicion or actual arrest, if he had but
spoken so much as a word against Rome. Latimer and
Shaxton were imprisoned and driven to resign their
bishoprics, and the University authorities were not spar
ing in detecting and denouncing offenders. Hooper,
at this time forty-five years old, and " showing," as
Foxe says, " some sparkles of his fervent spirit, fell
eftsoon into displeasure and hatred of certain Rabbins
at Oxford, who by and by began to stir the coals
against him. Whereby, and especially by the procure
ment of Dr. Richard Smith of Oriel, the Reader in
Divinity, he was compelled to void the University."
On leaving Oxford, Hooper became steward and
chaplain in the household of Sir Thomas Arundel, a
great man at the Court of King Henry. This must
have been the period referred to by himself afterwards,
where he says, " I was a courtier and living too much
of a Court life in the palace of the King." But here
the writings of the Swiss Reformers, Zwingli and
Henry Bullinger, came into his hands, and " perceiving
them," as he says, " seriously to affect the eternal
84 Champions of the Truth
salvation and happiness of my soul, I thought it well
worth my while, night and day, with earnest study and
an almost superstitious diligence, to devote my entire
attention to them. And being at length delivered from
idolatry and impious worship by the goodness of God,
for which I am solely indebted to Him and to your
selves, nothing now remains for me to the end of my
life but to worship God with a pure heart and know
my own defects while living in this body ; to serve my
godly brethren in Christ and the ungodly for Christ ;
for I think no Christian ought to live to himself, but
whatever he has or is, he ought to refer to God as the
Author, and regard all that he possesses as common to
all, according to the necessities and requirements of his
brethren. I am indeed ashamed beyond measure that
I have not done this heretofore, but it is better to be
wise late than not at all."
Such sentiments soon got Hooper into trouble.
Sir Thomas Arundel, a great friend of Bishop Gardiner
and subsequently a persecutor of the Reformers, liked
Hooper personally, but very much disliked his new
opinions. To cure him, as he thought, he sent him to
the Bishop with a private letter, requesting Gardiner
" by conference of learning to do some good upon him,
but in any case requiring him to send his chaplain
home to him again." The Bishop, after four or five
days' conference, " perceiving that he could neither do
Hooper that good which he thought to do to him, nor
that he would take any good at his hand, sent him
home, right well commending his learning and wit, but
yet bearing in his heart a grudging stomach against
Master Hooper still."
The connection between Hooper and Sir Thomas
Arundel did not last long after this. A secret warning
was sent him that his life was in danger, for mischief
John Hooper 85
was working against him. He accordingly, " borrowing
a horse of a certain friend (whose life he had saved a
little before from the gallows), took his journey to the
sea-side to go to France." After a short stay in Paris,
he returned to England, and was sheltered for a while
in the house of Sir William St. Loe, Captain of the
Guard and one of the Princess Elizabeth's gentlemen.
But being again " molested and laid for," he was com
pelled, under the pretence of being captain of a ship
going to Ireland, to take the seas, and so escaped (not
without extreme peril of drowning) again to France,
and thence to Germany. For at least nine years after
this he lived abroad, with the exception of occasional
secret visits to his own country as necessity compelled
him, incurring the greatest dangers. " I suffered," he
says, " many things by land : twice I suffered bonds
and imprisonment, whence being marvellously delivered
by the mercy of God, though with the heavy loss of
my fortune, I was wretchedly harassed by sea both by
enemies and storms." During this period, besides the
glimpses we get of him in Paris and other parts of
France, we hear of him at Strasburg, at Basel, and
finally at Zurich, where he remained two years. Not
withstanding these harassing circumstances, he appears
to have diligently pursued his studies, especially in
Hebrew. He also formed valuable and lasting friend
ships with the chief Continental Reformers — Bucer,
Martyr, Bullinger, and others — and above all, became
thoroughly established and settled in the true faith of
the Gospel of Christ.
In 1546, at the mature age of fifty, he married
Anna de Tserclas, " a godly and wise woman," whose
parents, of noble rank, lived not far from Antwerp.
By his marriage with her he had issue one daughter,
born at Zurich, and afterwards in England one son ;
86 Champions of the Truth
both of whom survived him. He took his wife with
him to Zurich, where from 1547 to 1549, the first two
years of Edward VI.'s reign, he lived, watching from
afar the tide of events in England, and publishing
such works as might help to further the cause of Pro
testantism : notably, An Answer to Bishop Gardiner's
Book upon the Eucharist^ and a work entitled The
Declaration of Christ and His Office , dedicated to the
Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector, whose wife was
half-sister to Sir Thomas Arundel.
Up to this time Hooper seems to have intended, as
he says, " to bid farewell to the honours, pleasures, and
friends of this world," and to abide all the rest of his
days with his Christian brethren at Zurich. But the
pressing need of help to the cause of Reformation in
England, by his presence and personal labours, out
weighed his first intention. Accordingly he left Zurich
24th March 1549, with his wife and little daughter
Rachel, and after a tedious journey and many deten
tions, arrived in London i6th May, and at once threw
himself heartily into the great work of preaching the
Gospel to his fellow-countrymen.
Never was such a man more greatly needed than
at this particular time for the cause of Jesus Christ.
The English Reformation, we must remember, was of
later growth than that of other countries, and was for
years kept back by the strong hand of King Henry
VIII. After his death, and at the beginning of the
short and glorious reign of young Edward VI., the
great reaction against Popery set in with resistless force ;
but, as in other countries, it took two forms : the one
irreligious, including all varieties of unbelief, down to
atheism ; the other religious and evangelical, equally
antagonistic to Romanism and infidelity. There was
a mere political and secular Protestantism, and an
John Hooper 87
evangelical and spiritual Protestantism, both to some
extent working together, but both (except in opposition
to Popery) wide asunder as to their end and the means
to obtain it.
It was the work of Hooper and men of his spirit not
merely to protest against and uproot superstition, but
to sow the seeds and cherish the growth of Scriptural
piety and holiness. Their main duty they rightly
judged to be the leavening of the minds of their
countrymen with the doctrine of the Gospel by the
bold, simple, and faithful preaching of the Word of
God. Hitherto the advance of the leaders of the great
movement, Cranmer and others, had, with few excep
tions, been slow, cautious, even timid. On the subject
of the mass, especially — that great stumbling-block in
the way of Scriptural truth — Archbishop Cranmer had,
till very lately, held Roman doctrine, then gradually
felt his way into Lutheranism, and only after some
years embraced the doctrine expressed in the articles
of the English Church. Edward's first Prayer Book,
published in i 549, the year of Hooper's arrival, indicated
the rate of present attainment. Acceptance of the
new Communion office with Eucharistic vestments was
possible even to believers in Transubstantiation ; the
minister was still uniformly styled a priest, the table
of the Lord an altar, and prayers for the dead were
retained in the Burial Service and in the prayer for the
Church militant. All this was very distasteful, defec
tive, and even " impious " to Hooper, accustomed to the
more advanced teaching of the Swiss Reformers, and
it is by comparing Edward's second Prayer Book of
1552 with this first one of 1549 that we can form a
just idea of the powerful influence of Hooper and his
friends on the religion of England during the three
years intervening.
88 Champions of the Truth
This influence Hooper speedily acquired in England
by his bold, sound, Scriptural preaching, his unwearied
labours, and the unmistakable consistency and holiness
of his life. The Protector Somerset very soon made
him his chaplain, and he employed to the utmost the
means of usefulness such a position gave him.
A man of this mould and stamp was rightly esteemed
the fittest for a bishop in Edward VI. 's days. Within
a year of his landing in England, the predictions of
his friends in Zurich were fulfilled. After preaching a
course of Lent Sermons before the King, on the Book
of Jonah, which deepened the impression already made
on the Court by former sermons, he was offered the
vacant bishopric of Gloucester.
This, however, Hooper at first refused to accept.
To use his own words in a letter to Bullinger : " On
many accounts I declined the office : both by reason
of the shameful and impious form of the oath by the
saints, which all who undertake the function of a bishop
are compelled to put up with, and also on account of
those Aaronic habits " (the vestments of the Popish
bishops) " which they still retain, and are used to wear,
not only at the administration of the sacraments but
also at public prayers. When my refusal came to the
King's ears, he wished to know the reason of my
declining to serve God in so pious and holy a calling,
and on Ascension Day last I was summoned before
the whole Council to state my reasons, that it might
be seen whether I could justly and lawfully refuse the
Royal favour. The matter was seriously agitated. At
last, for the glory of God, the discussion ended to the
satisfaction of myself and that of all godly persons, not
through my instrumentality alone, but by the grace of
God and the favourable inclinations of the Council and
their love for God and the purity and comeliness of the
John Hooper 89
rising Church. The result is such as to set me clear
from all defilement of superstition and from the imposi
tion of the oath. On these terms I took upon myself
the charge committed to me. Aid wretched me by
your prayers, that I may diligently and truly seek the
glory of God, lest that little flock should perish for
which Christ died."
The matter, however, was not so soon settled as
Hooper had supposed. The oath by the saints, indeed,
was speedily dispensed with, the young King with his
own hand indignantly erasing it ; but the question of
the vestments stirred a most unhappy controversy
among the leaders of the Protestant party, and delayed
Hooper's consecration for nearly a year. Cranmer and
Ridley urged that garments and ceremonies were
matters of indifference, and if required by the law,
should be used for order and obedience' sake. Hooper,
supported by John Alasco and others, maintained, on
the other hand, that these things recalled the priesthood
of Aaron and the Gentiles, and as inventions of the
Papal Antichrist should be eschewed with all his other
devices.
For months the contention between the two parties
lasted, neither Ridley, Bishop of London, the chief
disputant, nor Hooper yielding one jot or tittle of
their opinions. Ridley went so far at last as to
charge Hooper before the Council with insubordination,
" impugning his doctrine and loading him with the
greatest insults " ; while Hooper privately and publicly,
in " unseasonable and too bitter sermons," inveighed
against the vestments and their upholders as " ungodly
and impious and contrary to Holy Scripture."
At length the Council, weary of the whole dispute,
silenced Hooper's preaching and committed him to the
custody of Archbishop Cranmer, " to be either reformed
90 Champions of the Truth
or further punished, as the obstinacy of his case
required." The Archbishop, after a fortnight's attempt
at persuasion, finding, as he said, " Hooper coveting
rather to prescribe order to others than to obey,"
reported to the Council, who committed him to the
Fleet Prison, where he lay for nearly three weeks.
In the end a compromise was effected. Hooper
gave way on some points for peace' sake, for Christian
liberty, and the edification of the Church. He con
sented to wear the prescribed episcopal dress at his
consecration and when he preached before the King,
or in his cathedral, or on any great public occasion,
while left at other times to do as he pleased. His
submission made to the Council on these terms, he was
released from prison, to the great joy of his friends, and
so the dispute which had so seriously disturbed the
peace of the Church came to an end.
On 8th March I 5 5 I , shortly after his imprisonment,
he was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester, and preached
before the King, says quaint old Foxe, " in a long
scarlet chimere down to the foot, and under that a
white linen rochet that covered his shoulders. Upon
his head he had a geometrical, i.e. a four-squared, cap,
albeit that his head was round, the bystanders either
approving or condemning his dress just as they were
guided by their feelings. What cause of shame the
strangeness hereof was that day to that good preacher,
every man may easily judge."
That this unhappy difference was soon healed
between the two good men chiefly concerned in it,
and that Ridley even came to be afterwards of
Hooper's mind, may be judged from that most touch
ing letter of his to Hooper, when both prelates were
in prison four years afterwards, in Queen Mary's days.
Bishop Hooper lost no time after his consecration
John Hooper 91
in entering upon the duties of his office, but at once
went down to Gloucestershire and commenced the
arduous work of teaching and preaching throughout
the diocese, and setting in order the things that were
wanting.
So little did he spare himself that his poor wife
became seriously alarmed about his health, and in a
letter to Henry Bullinger, still extant, entreats him to
admonish her husband to be more moderate in his
labours. " He preaches four or at least three times
every day, and I fear lest these over-abundant exertions
should cause a premature decay." But nothing could
divert him from the work he had undertaken. " You
know," writes he, in one of his letters, " that we are
born for our country and not for ourselves. Were it
not so, I should not now be discharging the office of a
bishop." Of all the bishops of that day none seems to
have made such full proof of his episcopal ministry as
Hooper. We need not wonder, therefore, that the
Government in another year gave him the charge of
the diocese of Worcester as well as the diocese of
Gloucester.
The state of the Gloucestershire clergy was lament
able. Their ignorance, carelessness, immorality, and
superstition loudly called for reformation. " Of all
counties of England," says Fuller, " Gloucestershire was
most pestered with monks. Hence the wicked topical
proverb, deserving to be banished out of that county,
being the profane child of superstition : ' As sure as
God is in Gloucester/ as if so many religious houses
had certainly fastened His gracious presence to that
place." We need hardly say that the very reverse of
this old proverb was the actual truth.
What was the depth and extent of the clerical
ignorance of the diocese may be guessed by the
92 Champions of the Truth
answers made to Bishop Hooper's inquiries on his first
appointment. Out of three hundred and eleven clergy
of his diocese, one hundred and sixty-eight were unable
to repeat the Ten Commandments ; thirty-one of the
one hundred and sixty-eight could not state in what
part of the Scripture they were to be found ; forty
could not tell where the Lord's Prayer was written ;
and thirty-one of the forty were ignorant who was the
Author of it.
To remedy this, Hooper issued injunctions, and
appointed superintendents over small bodies of the
clergy, whose duty was to see the injunctions carried
out, and to report to him. Among these injunctions
one was, that every parson, vicar, or curate should learn
by heart a Book of the Bible and recite it either to him
or his superintendent in • Latin or English ; to wit, the
first quarter of the year, the Epistle to the Romans ;
the second quarter, the Book of Deuteronomy ; the
third, the Gospel of St. Matthew ; and the fourth, the
Book of Genesis. Another injunction required " such
curates or ministers as have so small and soft a breast
or voice that they cannot be heard in the lowest end of
the church, to come forth out of their chancels, belfries,
and rood-lofts into the body of the church, and there
reverently and plainly set forth the most holy treasure
of God's Word, that all the people may hear and
understand."
Of the laity Hooper seems to have had better hope,
though some of them gave him much trouble and
annoyance. One especially, Sir Anthony Kingston, a
man of rank in Gloucestershire, was cited to appear
before him on a charge of adultery. He refused to
appear at first, but at last came to the bishop's court,
and was gravely and severely rebuked. The knight so
far forgot himself as to give the bishop a blow on the
John Hooper 93
cheek before all the people, and loaded him with abuse.
Hooper was unmoved. He reported the whole case, as
in duty bound, to the Privy Council, with the result
that Sir Anthony was severely punished for his con
tumacy, fined £500, and handed over to the bishop to
do public penance.
His two cathedrals of Gloucester and Worcester
gave him a great deal of work in clearing them of the
relics of Papal superstition, while the cathedral digni
taries were a constant drag upon the chariot wheels of
Reformation. " Ah, Mr. Secretary/' he writes to Cecil,
" if there were but good men in our cathedral churches,
God should then have much more honour than He hath
now, the King's Majesty more obedience, and the poor
people more knowledge. But the realm wanteth light
in the very churches where of right it ought most to be."
Such were some of Bishop Hooper's trials and diffi
culties. How he carried himself under them and
executed his office is best described in the words of old
Foxe, who knew and loved him well : —
" So careful was Master Hooper in his cure, that he
left neither pains untaken nor ways unsought, how to
train up the flock of Christ in the true word of salvation,
continually labouring in the same. . . . No father in
his household, no gardener in his garden, nor husband
man in his vineyard, was more or better occupied than
he in his diocese amongst his flock, going about his
towns and villages in teaching and preaching to his
people there.
" What time he had to spare from preaching he
bestowed either in hearing public causes or else in
private study, prayer, and visiting of schools. With
his continual doctrine, he adjoined due and discreet
correction, not so much severe to any as to them which
for abundance of riches and wealthy state thought they
94 Champions of the Truth
might do what they listed. And doubtless he spared
no kind of people, but was indifferent to all men as well
rich as poor, to the great shame of no small number of
men nowadays. Whereof many we do see so addicted
to the pleasing of great and rich men, that in the
meantime they have no regard to the weaker sort of
poor people, whom Christ hath bought as dearly as
the other."
It is interesting to notice what a strong impression
Hooper's brief episcopate and martyrdom made upon
the minds of both clergy and laity throughout the
dioceses of Gloucester and Worcester. The seed
scattered far and wide was not lost. When, some ten
years after, Richard Cheney was appointed to these
sees, he, being, as was supposed, a Lutheran and certainly
a lover of ceremonial, found it impossible to reconcile
the sentiments of his clergy with his own. Fretted
by constant conflict, he became desirous to resign a
charge of which indeed he was eventually deprived by
the Archbishop, and to retire to a life of more privacy
and peace.
The 6th of July 1553 was a dark day for England,
when the young King Edward, having finished his short
but saintly course, his sixteenth year not yet completed,
commended his people to God in prayer, especially
beseeching Him to defend his realm from Papistry ;
and then, as he sank back in the arms of Sir Henry
Sidney, exclaimed, " I am faint ; Lord have mercy on
me, and receive my spirit ! " and so departed.
To Hooper the loss was heavy indeed, for in the
young King now dead he not only mourned " such a
Prince as for his age the world hath never seen," but
also one who had ever loved and honoured him as a
friend and minister of Christ. Too well he knew be
sides that from Queen Mary and her advisers he could
John Hooper
95
expect no mercy. The Queen would regard him as
"the greatest heretic in England," while Gardiner and
Bonner, with whom he had before come into collision,
and who personally hated him, would be certain to com
pass his ruin. Nevertheless, with his wonted loyalty
to the Crown, he warmly supported Mary's claim to the
vacant throne, against the supporters of Lady Jane
Grey, and, as he says, "when her cause was at the
worst, I rode myself from place to place (as is well
known), to win and stay the people for her party. And
to help her as much as I could, I sent horses out of
both Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, to serve her in
her great danger."
All this, however, went for nothing ; for Hooper was
a marked man. His bishopric of Worcester was at once
taken from him, and the Romanist Heath reinstated.
Not two months after Edward's death Hooper was
summoned to appear before the Lords of the Council
at Richmond. This was to meet a pretended charge
of being indebted to the Queen ; the real reason was to
keep him safe in ward till a law should be passed giving
power to bring him to the stake for heresy. His friends
warned him of the impending danger, and besought
him to flee the country ; but he calmly refused, saying,
" Once I did flee and take me to my feet. But now,
because I am called to this place and vocation, I am
thoroughly persuaded to tarry, and to live and die with
my sheep."
Accordingly he appeared at Richmond on 2Qth
August, and was received by Gardiner, as Foxe tells us,
" very opprobriously, who, railing and ranting of him,
accused him on the score of his religion." No answer,
of course, was of any avail. He was committed on the
1st September to the Fleet Prison, and there kept in
close confinement. On igth March 1554, some six
96 Champions of the Truth
months afterwards, he was taken before the Queen's
Commissioners to be deprived of his bishopric of
Gloucester. These were Bishops Gardiner of Win
chester, Bonner of London, Tunstal of Durham, Day
of Chichester, and Kitchin of Llandaff.
" So uncharitably was Master Hooper handled at
these men's hands," says an impartial witness, " and so
humbly and patiently did he use himself towards them,
that whereas I stood in a mammering and doubt which
of these two religions to have credited, their unreverend
behaviour doth make me rather to credit his doctrine
than that which they by railing and cruel words defended,
considering that Christ was so handled before." Hooper
refused to put away his wife, for which Bishop Day
called him " hypocrite," and Tunstal and others " beast,'
" with clamours and cries and long brutish talk." In
answer to Bishop Tunstal, he plainly said that " he
believed not the corporal presence in the Sacrament."
Whereupon with noise and tumult they bade the notaries
write that he was married and refused to give up his
wife, and that he believed not the corporal presence,
and was therefore worthy to be deprived of his bishopric,
and so committed him again to prison, where he lay
for eleven months longer — seventeen months in all —
till 9th February 1555. On that day at last death gave
him liberty, and the noble Protestant prisoner was free.
Of these long weary months we have occasional
glimpses from the letters he was now and then able
to send to friends at home and abroad. At an early
period of his imprisonment he managed to get his wife
and two children safely conveyed to Frankfort, where
she took up her abode with a female relative, anxiously
awaiting tidings of her husband's fate. He writes to
his old friend Henry Bullinger, commending to his pro
tection one and another of the fugitives from England
John Hooper 97
for conscience' sake. He expresses devout resignation
to the will of God, and exhorts his friends and fellow-
sufferers to constancy and stedfast resolution. " As
for myself," he writes in one of his letters, " in a short
time, unless the Lord shall restrain the tyranny of our
enemies, I shall go, in the blood of Christ, to heaven."
In one letter, written just at the close of his long
imprisonment, we have an interesting account of the
treatment he experienced in prison. At first, on pay
ment of very heavy fees to the warden, he had been
able to live in some degree of comfort, but after three
months or thereabouts Gardiner ordered him to be
confined in the common prisoners' wards, to be more
severely dealt with. " I had nothing now appointed
me," he says, " for my bed but a little pad of straw, a
rotten covering with a tick and a few feathers therein,
the chamber being vile and stinking, until by God's
means good people sent me bedding to lie on. On the
one side of this prison is the sink and filth of all the
house, and on the other side the town ditch, so that
the stench of the house hath infected me with sundry
diseases. During which time I have been sick, and the
doors, bars, hasps, and chains being made fast upon me,
I have mourned, called, and cried for help. But the
warden when he hath known me many times ready to
die, and when the poor men of the wards have called to
him to help me, hath commanded the doors be kept
fast and charged that none of his men should come at
me, saying, * Let him alone : it were a good riddance
of him.' Thus I have suffered imprisonment almost
eighteen months, my goods, living, friends, and comfort
taken from me : the Queen owing me by just account
fourscore pounds or more. She hath put me in prison
and giveth nothing to find me : neither is any one
suffered to come at me whereby I might have relief.
H
98 Champions of the Truth
. . . But I commit my just cause to God, whose will
be done whether it be by life or by death."
At last the end came. Hooper and Rogers, Pre
bendary of St. Paul's, were brought up together out of
their prison, on 24th January i 5 5 5, to St. Mary Overy's
Church, Southwark, and were there required by Gardiner,
Bonner, Tunstal, and three other prelates to make their
submission to the Pope, as head of the Catholic Church.
They attempted to argue, but were told that when
Parliament had determined a thing, private men were
not to call it in question : and they were allowed
twenty-four hours to make up their minds. As they
were leaving the church, Hooper was heard to say,
" Come, brother Rogers, must we two take this matter
first in hand and begin to fry these faggots ? " " Yes,
sir," said Master Rogers, " by God's grace." " Doubt
not," said Master Hooper, " that God will give strength."
They were remanded to prison, and the next morn
ing the " Queen's mercy " was offered them if they
would recant. They refused, were sentenced to die,
and were committed to Newgate to await the Queen's
pleasure.
On Monday, 4th February 1555, both prisoners were
taken to Newgate chapel and formally degraded from
their ministerial office by Bishop Bonner, and handed
over to the mercies of the secular power. They sup
posed that they were to suffer together, and Rogers
had assured Hooper " that there was never little fellow
better would stick to a man than he would stick to
him " ; but it was otherwise ordered. Rogers was led
out to Smithfield at once to be burnt alone, the first
to suffer of the noble army of Protestant Martyrs.
Hooper was kept in his cell till the evening, and was
then told, to his great joy, that he was to be sent to
Gloucester, to be publicly burned in his own cathedral
John Hooper 99
city, which had been infected with his pernicious
doctrines.
Early, then, in the dark February morning of the
next day, he began his last journey to Gloucester on
horseback, attended by six guards. He leaped cheer
fully on to his horse, without any help, having a hood
upon his head, under his hat, that he should not be
known. " And so he took his journey joyfully ; and
always by the way the guard learned of him where he
was accustomed to bait or lodge, and ever carried him
to another inn."
At Gloucester he was lodged not in the Northgate
prison, as the sheriffs wished, but in Robert Ingram's
house, opposite St. Nicholas' Church, through the
earnest intercession of his guard, who reported " how
quietly, mildly, and patiently he had behaved himself
in the way, and that any child might keep him well
enough." That night " he did eat his meat quietly,
and slept his first sleep soundly." After this sleep
he continued all the night in prayer until the morning ;
and then, as a day was allowed him for preparation,
he desired that he might go into the next chamber,
that there being solitary he might pray and talk with
God. So that all that day, saving a little at meals, or
when visitors came to him, he bestowed in prayer.
One of these visitors was Sir Anthony Kingston,
whom he had once offended by publicly rebuking his
sins. He entered unannounced and found him at his
prayers, and as soon as he saw Master Hooper, he
burst forth in tears. Hooper at the first blush knew
him not, but when he said, " My lord, do you not know
me — an old friend of yours, Anthony Kingston ? " at
once recognised him. Then Kingston said, " I am
sorry to see you in this case, for, as I understand, you
be come hither to die. Oh, consider ! Life is sweet,
ioo Champions of the Truth
and death is bitter. Therefore, seeing life may be had,
desire to live, for life hereafter may do good."
Hooper answered, " I thank you for your counsel,
but it is not so friendly as I could have wished. True
it is, Master Kingston, that death is bitter, and life is
sweet ; but consider that the death to come is more
bitter, and the life to come is more sweet. Therefore
have I settled myself, through the strength of God's
Holy Spirit, patiently to pass through this fire prepared
for me, desiring you and others to commend me to
God's mercy in your prayers."
" Well, my lord," said Kingston, " then there is no
remedy, and I will take my leave ; and I thank God
that ever I knew you, for God did appoint you to call
me, being a lost child. I was both an adulterer and
a fornicator, but God, by your ministry, hath brought
me to the detesting and forsaking of the same." They
parted, the tears on both their faces.
In the evening came the Mayor and aldermen, with
the sheriffs, to shake hands with him. To them he
spoke cheerfully enough. " It was a sign of their good
will," he said, " to take a condemned man and prisoner
by the hand, and a proof that they had not forgotten
the things he used to teach them as their bishop and
pastor." He begged the sheriffs that there might be
a quick fire, to make an end shortly, and for himself,
he would be as obedient as they could wish. "If you
think I do amiss in anything," said he, " hold up your
fingers, and I am done ; for I am not come hither as one
enforced or compelled to die (for it is well known I might
have had my life with worldly gain), but as one willing to
offer and give my life for the faith rather than consent
to the wicked Papistical religion of the Bishop of Rome,
and I trust by God's grace to-morrow to die a faithful
servant of God, and a true obedient subject to the Queen."
John Hooper 101
He retired to rest that night very early, saying that
he had many things to remember. He slept one sleep
soundly, and bestowed the rest of the night in prayer.
After he had risen in the morning, he desired that no
man should be suffered to come into the chamber, that
he might be solitary till the hour of execution.
About nine o'clock on the Saturday morning, 9th
February 1555, Hooper was told to prepare to be led
forth, as the time was at hand, and he came down
from his chamber, accompanied by the two sheriffs.
The day was gloomy, wet, and windy. The place of
the execution was an open space outside the college
precincts, near a large elm-tree, under which he had
been wont to preach, near the west end of the cathedral.
Several thousands of people were collected to see him
suffer ; some had climbed the tree and were seated
among the leafless branches, in the storm and rain. A
company of priests were in a room over the college
gate.
" Alas ! " said Hooper, " why be these people
assembled and come together? Peradventure they
think to hear something of me now, as in times past ;
but speech is prohibited me." He had suffered much
in prison from sciatica, and was lame, but he limped
cheerfully alone with his staff in his hand, and smiled
at such as he knew among the people.
Arrived at the stake, he kneeled him down to pray ;
but ere he was entered into his prayer, a box was
brought and placed on a stool before his eyes, which
he was told contained his pardon if he would recant.
But Hooper cried out, " If you love my soul, away with
it ! If you love my soul, away with it ! "
The box being taken away, Lord Chandos said,
" Despatch him then, seeing there is no remedy." Yet
he was suffered to pray a while longer, and certain of
102 Champions of the Truth
them who were standing nigh heard how he confessed
his faith ; acknowledged his sinfulness ; asserted his
innocence ; and in these words implored the Divine
help to bear his cross : " Well seest Thou, my Lord
and God, what terrible pains and cruel torments be
prepared for Thy creature ; such, Lord, as without Thy
strength none is able to bear or patiently to pass. But
all things that are impossible with man are possible
with Thee. Therefore strengthen me of Thy goodness,
that in the fire I break not the rules of patience, or else
assuage the terror of the pains, as shall seem most to
Thy glory."
Prayer being done, he prepared himself for the fire,
stripping off his garments to his shirt, and was bound
round the waist with a hoop of iron to the stake. A
pound of gunpowder was tied between his legs, and as
much more under either arm. When the faggots and
reeds were brought, he received two bundles of them
in his own hands, embraced them, kissed them, put
under either arm one of them, and showed with his
hand how the rest should be disposed, pointing to the
place where any did lack.
The man that was appointed to make the fire
here approached and begged his forgiveness for it.
" Therein," said Master Hooper, " thou dost nothing
offend me. God forgive thee thy sins, and do thine
office, I pray thee."
Thus being ready, he looked upon the people, of
whom he might well be seen (for he was both tall and
stood upon a high stool), and round about him, and in
every corner there was nothing to be seen but weep
ing and sorrowful faces. Then lifting up his eyes to
heaven, he prayed in silence. The fire was then
brought, but the wood was green. The dry rushes
only kindled, and burning for a few moments were
John Hooper 103
blown away by the wind, so that he was not more than
touched by the fire.
Within a space after, a few dry faggots were
brought, and a new fire kindled with the faggots (for
there were no more reeds), and this burned at his
nether parts, but had small power above, because of
the wind, saving that it did burn his hair and scorch
his skin a little. In the time of which fire he prayed,
saying mildly : " O Jesus, the Son of David, have
mercy upon me, and receive my soul." After the
second fire was spent, he did wipe both his eyes, and
beholding the people, he said with an indifferent loud
voice, " For God's love, good people, let me have more
fire."
A third fire was kindled within a while after, which
was more extreme than the other two ; and then the
bladders of gunpowder exploded, but did him small
good : they were so ill placed, and the wind had such
power. In the which fire he prayed with somewhat a
loud voice, " Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me ! Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit ! " These were his last words.
" Thus was he three-quarters of an hour or more in
the fire, and quietly and patiently died ; and he now
reigneth, I doubt not, as a blessed martyr in the joys
of heaven prepared for the faithful in Christ before
the foundations of the world, for whose constancy all
Christians are bound to praise God."
JOHN KNOX
By (1505-1572)
A. Taylor Innes, M*A.
JOHN KNOX, whom his contemporaries called the
Apostle of the Scots, was born near Haddington, in
East Lothian, in 1505. Like so many Scotch youths
since his day, he learned Latin at the grammar school
of his county town, and in his sixteenth year went
to college. Edinburgh was near, but its college was
not yet founded, and Knox's father, though apparently
a man in humble life, was related to the lairds of
Knock, in Renfrewshire. So the lad went westwards to
Glasgow University, beside what were then the green
banks of the Clyde.
There he found himself along with George Buchanan
and other youths of genius, in the class of John Major,
and in contact with the great questions of the age.
For Major had in his early years been Professor in the
University of Paris, and that university had been long
the chief representative of liberal principles in Europe.
So while the young Scotchmen ranged through scholastic
theology and philosophy, under the lights of Aristotle
and Aquinas, their " regent " also told them how those
principles had been applied in the continental struggle
of the last two centuries against absolute power. He
taught that the Church was greater than its Pope, and
104
JOHN KNOX.
John Knox 105
the people greater than their king ; and that both
potentates, when they oppressed the Christian people,
could be controlled, and if need be deposed. But
Major, like his contemporaries, made no attempt to
escape from the accumulation of sacerdotal doctrines
which popes and kings and universities alike upheld.
Knox perhaps became himself a regent or university
teacher, and is said to have been famous as a trainer in
logic, first in Glasgow and then in St. Andrews.
But by this time a greater wave of thought and
feeling had passed over Europe, and was beating on
the Northern shores. The Scottish Parliament in 1525
found it necessary to prohibit the introduction of the
works of Luther into a country hitherto "clean of all
such filth and vice." The Scottish clergy, a body
worldly as well as wealthy and powerful, ( watched
against every symptom of change. It was in vain. A
cousin of King James, named Hamilton, went himself
to Wittenberg, and on his return confessed everywhere
that he had found the long -buried truth of God.
Cardinal Beatoun had him seized and burned before
the old college of St. Andrews. But "the smoke of
Patrick Hamilton infected all on whom it blew," and
the blood of martyr after martyr in every county
of Scotland became the seed of the unborn Scottish
Church.
In the very midst of such scenes the young priest
(for Knox had received orders from the existing
hierarchy) slowly made up his mind. Less and less he
taught the forms of logic ; more and more the substance
of theology. Jerome and Augustine led him back to
apostles and evangelists, and in the Gospel of John and
the Epistle to the Ephesians, as he said long after on
his death-bed, he "cast his first anchor."
When Knox cast anchor in the " Evangel," a storm
io6 Champions of the Truth
was raging around. For the last twelve years of
James V.'s reign, from 1530 to 1542, all who professed
to want nothing more than the ancient Gospel and
God's promise in it were on that account alone counted
heretics. Many were condemned ; some were burned
alive. The Bible in the vulgar tongue was proscribed.
Still, the number of those who read it in secret grew
and increased ; and James was importuned to stamp
out the plague by a proscription of the readers. His
unexpected death prevented the massacre, and for a
brief season the Regent Arran favoured the rising faith.
Even the Scots Parliament passed an Act making it
lawful to read the English Scriptures. Light spread
rapidly through the land ; but it was presently over
clouded. The Regent fell under the influence of
Cardinal Beatoun. The child-queen, Mary of Scots,
was married to the Dauphin of France. The per
secuting laws were again set in operation. They
had already driven Knox from the University of St.
Andrews, and he was now in his native and rural East
Lothian as tutor to a gentleman's two sons.
Hither came one of the most charming figures of
that time of danger and hope — the learned, pious, and
kindly preacher, George Wishart. Knox seems to
have followed him much in various parts of Scotland.
But now when Wishart, in danger not only of arrest
but of assassination, came to Knox's own county, Knox
attached himself closely to him, and constantly carried
a sword before the preacher.
At last the day came when Wishart was to be
arrested. Knox insisted on accompanying him to the
neighbouring Ormiston. Wishart refused, and ordered
the sword to be taken from the young enthusiast.
" Go back to your bairns," he said ; " one is sufficient
for a sacrifice." That night Wishart was laid in bonds,
John Knox 107
and soon, where the ruins of the grim castle of St.
Andrews still frown over the sea, he perished in the
flames, the cardinal looking on. Such acts of tyranny
weakened the belief — never very strong in Scotland —
in priestly immunity from punishment or revenge.
When, soon after, a band of the younger gentlemen
of Fifeshire, encouraged by England, stormed into his
castle and slew the great archbishop within his own
walls, Knox and many others openly rejoiced in it as
an act of Divine retribution. But it was not by the
sword that Scotland was to be reformed. On the
contrary, the " slaughter of the cardinal " brought the
cause of the new faith to its lowest ebb.
In a short time the fortress of St. Andrews was
almost the only spot upon the soil where those who
professed the Evangel were safe. At Easter 1547
Knox and his two pupils fled there for safety ; and
within the strong walls they found a remarkable con
gregation of distinguished men, many of whom (like
Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, the sage and sarcastic
poet so vividly described in Scott's Marmion} had
nothing to do with the conspiracy against Beatoun.
It was here that the second crisis in Knox's personal
history, scarcely less important than the " casting of his
first anchor," occurred. It was his call to public life.
For this man, now above forty years of age, had shrunk
with extraordinary sensitiveness from putting himself
forward in the Church, and even in this extremity of
the little St. Andrews flock, refused to usurp the great
pastoral office. They, however, had also laid their
plans. John Rough, the preacher to the garrison,
ascended the pulpit on Sunday, and turning to Knox,
as the spokesman of the whole Christian congregation
charged him in God's name to take upon him the
public office of preaching the ancient Gospel, now
io8 Champions of the Truth
again delivered to the world. " Was not this your
charge to me ? " he asked the audience. " And do ye
not approve this vocation ? " " It was ! We do ! " rang
out from all sides of the assembly.
Knox stood up and attempted to speak, but the
pent-up feelings of the strong man were too much for
him. He burst into tears, and rushing out of the
church, shut himself up in his chamber. There for
days he wrestled with the question, whether this was
indeed a call from God's Church in Scotland. For if
so, the Gospel was no longer to be merely trusted in
by him as a private man for his own salvation. It was
to be preached by him to his countrymen at the hazard
of his life, and maintained on behalf of the people of Scot
land as God's great gift to them also for their salvation.
So it was with reluctant tears, and a deep feeling
of unworthiness, that the most indomitable of the
Reformers accepted, under constraint of conscience, the
call to be a minister of God's Church. But Knox had
only preached a few months in St. Andrews when the
castle capitulated to the foreign fleet, and he and his
companions were flung into the French galleys. There
for nineteen weary months he toiled at the oar under
the lash ; and through the cold of two winters and
the heat of the intervening summer had leisure to
count the cost of the choice so recently made. His
own choice alone would not have sustained him.
But Knox now believed that he had the call, and
therefore the promise, of God for his public work as
well as for his private life ; and henceforth he never
wavered. When the master of the galley Notre Dame
insisted that the chained prisoner should kiss a carved
image of the Virgin, whose name the vessel bore, he
flung the intrusive " idol " into the Loire. " She is
light enough, let her learn to swim ! "
John Knox 109
Again he bent to the oar, and after long days found
himself, emaciated and enfeebled, off the coast of
Fife. His fellow-captive, James Balfour, pointed out
to him, in the dim distance, the steeple of St. Andrews,
rising from the church in which, a fortnight after that
scene of speechless emotion, he had risen to preach his
first sermon. " Yes/' Knox said, " I know it well ; and
I am fully persuaded, how weak soever I now appear,
that I shall not depart this life till that my tongue
shall glorify His godly Name in the same place."
But years were to pass before that could be fulfilled —
years of exile and of labour.
On being set free from his French bondage, he
took refuge in England under Edward VI., and for
two years preached in Berwick. Some of his most
famous sermons, however, were delivered in St. Nicholas'
Church in Newcastle, now the cathedral of the modern
diocese. In 1551 the King made him one of his
chaplains in ordinary. Next year the Scotch divine,
now preaching in London, was offered the bishopric of
Rochester. All preferment of this kind, however, he
refused, having already made up his mind that bishops
were not needed in the Christian commonwealth ; and
the chief thing he gained in England was — a wife.
Marjory Bowes, the daughter of a gentleman of
Northumberland, became betrothed to the Scotch
preacher ; but the marriage did not take place without
her father's persistent opposition.
In 1554 he took his wife with him to Dieppe, and
from thence went on to Geneva and visited Calvin.
Later still he became pastor of the English Protestants
in Frankfort-on-the-Main.
But in 1555 news came that the persecution in
Scotland was slackening, and Knox first crossed to
his wife's friends at Berwick, and then went on to
1 1 o Champions of the Truth
Edinburgh. From Edinburgh he went to Angus in
the east and Ayrshire in the west of Scotland, and
found men of all ranks, up to the highest, eager to
hear. " The trumpet blew the old sound three days
together. Oh, sweet were the death that should follow
such forty days in Edinburgh as here I have had
three!"
The time was not, however, ripe. Knox, at the
suggestion of the Earls Marischall and Glencairn, had
addressed Mary of Guise, then Queen-Regent, in be
half of the " Evangel," but she handed his pamphlet to
the Archbishop of Glasgow with the words : " Please
you, my Lord, to read a pasquil ! "
He returned again abroad, and while he was tried
and burned in effigy in Edinburgh, he took charge of
the English congregation, first at Geneva and then
at Dieppe. Here he issued his extravagant Blast
against the " monstrous regiment (i.e. government) of
women." Written during Mary's " regiment," it was
published inopportunely just before the accession of
Elizabeth, and deprived him for ever of the favour
of that very feminine but very great ruler. A more
important book was his Appellation to the Scottish
nobility, some of the most powerful of whom were now
putting themselves at the head of " the Congregation,"
then the usual word in Scotland for the Church or
ecclesia. When great barons like Glencairn, Marischall,
and Argyll partook the " fervent thirst " of a religious
revival, in which thousands could be described as
" night and day sobbing and groaning " for the water
of life, the end was not far off. It was hastened rather
than hindered by the burning, in I 5 5 8, of a blameless
priest of the age of eighty -two. In January 1559
Knox left Geneva, and in May he landed for the last
time on the shores of Scotland, whose hills from north
John Knox
in
to south were now everywhere tinged with the flush of
the coming dawn.
It was dawn around ; but a cloud hung overhead.
On the day on which Knox landed in Edinburgh he
found the preachers of the Kirk were to be tried for
their lives the next week in Stirling. He had himself
been condemned years before, and he was again pro
claimed a rebel the moment he appeared.
But he did not hesitate for a moment. Joining his
brethren, he offered to appear with them in Stirling,
and the Queen-Regent, alarmed at the concourse of
their adherents, promised that the trial should be put
off. Acting, however, on her declared principle (trans
mitted afterwards to so many of her unfortunate house),
that " it became not subjects to burden their princes
with promises, further than they pleased to keep them,"
she broke her pledge and outlawed the accused.
The " Lords of the Congregation " of Scotland were
not the men to abandon their friends in this extremity,
and Knox, who was actually in the pulpit on the day
when the news came to them at Perth, thundered ten
fold against the image-worship so treacherously main
tained. The same afternoon, and in the same church,
a foolhardy priest commenced to say mass. The boys
protested ; the people shouted ; the mob gathered and
grew. In ten minutes the church was stripped of
images and all other ornaments of ritual. But then
the *' rascal multitude/' as Knox called them, fell with
fire upon the monasteries of the town, including the
splendid Charter House, and laid them in ruins. This
violence soon raised the question whether this preach
ing of the Word was everywhere to be repressed with
fire and sword. The Queen-Regent moved with her
army against the Protestant Lords. They gathered
their retainers, and having forced a truce, united them-
1 1 2 Champions of the Truth
selves in what was called a " Godly Band," as the
earliest Covenanters of Scotland.
Hitherto their worship had been private, and hidden
from the law. Now, in June 1559, they resolved that
the time had come to go farther. Knox, as usual, was
their chosen mouthpiece, and St. Andrews was the spot
chosen to begin the final struggle. To St. Andrews
they gathered ; but, when the day came, their hearts
failed them. Armed forces lay all around, and the
Archbishop wrote them that if their preacher dared to
enter the pulpit, his hackbuts would open fire upon
him. All quailed except the one man threatened.
This was the goal to which for so many years he had
looked forward, and having reached it, he was not
now to turn aside. On I4th June he went once
more into that pulpit and addressed the people of St.
Andrews, and through them the people of Scotland,
on their duty to profess the Gospel, notwithstanding all
hindrance of idolatrous authority. The town instantly
and enthusiastically responded, provost and bailies
leading their fellow -burgesses. The flame spread.
Town after town, burgh after burgh, city after city of
Scotland became fastnesses of " The Religion." Knox
was called as minister to Edinburgh ; but he preached
everywhere throughout Scotland. " The long thirst of
my wretched heart," he confessed, " is satisfied in
abundance."
The French auxiliary force, wielded by the Queen-
Regent, endeavoured to suppress the new flame of
national life. To meet this, Knox and the Congrega
tion applied for aid to England ; and Elizabeth, after
infinite vacillation, consented. The Scottish Lords and
Commons, however, were determined not to lose the
government of their own country. Knox told the
Congregation that, according to God's Word, a people
John Knox 113
might for just cause restrain their rulers ; and the
nobles, barons, and burgesses assembled in Edinburgh
at once pronounced the suspension of the authority of
the Queen- Regent until the calling of a free Parliament.
Politically, the step seemed premature. The Regent
pressed them with all her forces, and drove them
defeated into Stirling. But there, in the extreme
dejection and gloom of the Protestant Lords, a sermon
from the indomitable preacher kindled hope once more.
And at last the tide turned. The English forces
drove out the French. Mary of Guise, the kindly and
queenly representative of the great Catholic power, died
in Edinburgh Castle. Scotland, left to itself, was free.
On 1 9th June 1560 "the Congregation" assembled
in St. Giles's Church to return thanks for the peace,
and on 1st August the free Parliament already
anticipated — by far the most important Parliament
which has ever sat in Scotland — met in the city of
Edinburgh.
There, on i/th August 1560, was transacted a
memorable scene. The barons and ministers " pro
fessing the Lord Jesus within the realm " had been
desired to draw up, and present to the Parliament, a
creed or confession of their Faith. It was the work to
which earnest men all over Europe were now giving
themselves. At any moment an individual or a com
munity was summoned to declare, on the shortest notice,
and at the deadliest risk, what they believed. Hitherto
in Scotland the Reformers had been willing to say, in
the words of their " gude and godly ballad," that " The
New Testament is our Faith." Now for the first time
they were called upon by public authority to utter that
Faith in the form of their personal Credo.
" In four days," says Knox, who was undoubtedly
its chief draftsman, they presented to Parliament the
I
1 1 4 Champions of the Truth
" Scottish Confession," the creed of their nation for a
century to come. It was " a great assembly," consist
ing chiefly of the lesser barons, but including men of
all ranks and of all views in religion ; and on grave
faces from Highlands and Lowlands there rested the
light of the greatest crisis which Scottish history has
seen. Before this long-desired tribunal of his country
men Knox and his colleagues now stood forth, and
read aloud " the sum of that doctrine which we profess,
and for the which we have sustained infamy and danger."
These Scottish Articles of Religion, much fuller in
detail than the English, were also more ardent and
personal in their form ; and as the words " we believe
and confess " rang out again and again under the
different heads — the Being of God, the revelation of
His promise to fallen man, the Mediator and His death
and passion for those chosen in Him to life, their faith
and good works, and the Church, that " company and
multitude of men chosen of God, who rightly worship
and embrace him by faith in Christ Jesus " — the effect
upon the audience was extraordinary.
Two men have preserved to us the record. Knox
himself, in his most graphic History, tells how, " as
our confession was publicly read," its authors " were
present, standing upon their feet, ready to have
answered," but the Romish bishops refused discussion,
and the three temporal Lords who voted against it
only gave as reason, " We will believe as our fathers
believed."
Randolph, Queen Elizabeth's envoy, stood by, and
tells how the other barons " concluded all in one that
that was the Faith in which they ought to live and die."
" Indeed," he writes two days later to Cecil, " I never
heard matters of so great importance neither sooner
despatched nor with better will agreed unto." The
John Knox 1 1 5
Scots Lords spoke " with as glad a will as ever I heard
men speak." " Divers, with protestation of their con
science and faith, desired rather presently to end their
lives than ever to think contrary unto that allowed
there. Many also offered to shed their blood in defence
of the same." " The old Lord of Lindsay, as grave
and goodly a man as ever I saw, said : ' I have lived
many years ; I am the oldest in this company of my
sort ; now that it hath pleased God to let me see this
day, where so many nobles and others have allowed so
worthy a work, I will say, with Simeon, Nunc dimittis! "
And in this spirit the Parliament accepted and adopted
the Confession, and published it to the world.
It was the birthday of a nation. For not in that
assembly alone, and within the dim walls of the old
Parliament House of Edinburgh, was that Faith con
fessed and those vows made. Everywhere throughout
Scotland the Scottish peasant and the Scottish burgess
felt himself called to deal, individually and immedi
ately, with God in Christ ; and the contact, which for
some was salvation, was for all ennobling and solemnis
ing. The Scottish " common man " believed and con
fessed his belief, and " the vague, shoreless universe
had become for him a firm city and dwelling which he
knew. Such virtue was in belief; in these words well
spoken : / believe"
So much had Knox since his fortieth year been
already privileged to do for his country. He was now
fifty-four years old, and a further great work was before
him. But he was henceforth to be permanently a
citizen and minister of Edinburgh, and we may pause
at this point to look at the man and his surroundings.
In person Knox was small and frail — "a corpuscle" of
a man, his earliest biographer tells us. The only por
trait of him which has any pretensions to be historical,
1 1 6 Champions of the Truth
sent in 1580 by his contemporary Beza from Geneva,
suggests little of the " churlish nature " of which he
sometimes accuses himself; and the sympathy and
tenderness which abound in his letters are less reflected
in it than his constancy and heroism.
His old house in the Nether Bow remains, with its
quaint gables, peaks, and casements, very much as it
was in 1560, when to it John Knox brought his first
wife, Marjory Bowes, and her two sons. Before the
end of that year she died, leaving no record except
Calvin's epithet of suavissima. Three years passed,
and he was seen riding home with a second wife,
" not like ane prophet or auld decrepit priest as he
was," says his Catholic adversaries, " but like as he
had been one of the blood royal, with his bands of
taffettie fastened with golden rings."
The lady for whom he put on this state was
Margaret Stewart, the daughter of his friend Lord
Ochiltree, and the same critics assure us, " by sorcery
and witchcraft he did so allure that poor gentlewoman,
that she could not live without him." In this house at
least her three daughters were born, and from it at
length his body was carried to the churchyard of St.
Giles, to the grave over which Earl Morton, the newly-
elected Regent, uttered the well-known sentence :
" Here lieth a man who in his life never feared the
face of man."
His want of fear was not because of the absence of
danger. Only a year before a musket-ball, aimed at
Knox's usual seat in this house, passed through his
window and lodged in the roof. Yet this was but one
late incident in the long struggle which he to the last
shared with Scotland, and to trace which we must now
return to A.D. i 560.
Ever since that year 1560 the Gospel, as the
John Knox n;
religion of the individual, has been free in Scotland.
But the religion of the individual in that northern
land leads up to and creates the religion of the com
munity, and this great work yet remained. Hitherto
this had only been done congregationally " in our
towns and places reformed." Now for the first time
the Reformers contemplated a " universal kirk " of
Scotland. For his country, in Knox's view, was a
free commonwealth, and entitled to organise its own
religion. In order to procure this, they went at once
to Parliament and the civil power. Scotland was
yet strongly feudal, and Knox held that it was
the magistrates' duty to maintain and purify religion.
The legislature had already sanctioned the Reformed
creed as true. He demanded now that it should
sanction the organising of the Church, and make
provision not only for it, but for education and the
poor.
To this end a book of " Discipline," or organisation,
memorable for its statesmanlike sagacity, was presented
by the Church to the Council. Every householder
was to instruct his own family, or to make sure that
they were instructed, in the principles of the Christian
religion. No one was to be allowed to remain in
ignorance. To this end readers were appointed, by
whom the whole Scriptures were to be publicly read
through in the churches. The preaching of the Word,
by ministers chosen by the congregation itself, or
failing them, by the Church generally, was made the
centre of the whole system. A day was to be
appointed every week in the great towns for Prophesy
ing or Interpretation, by which was probably meant
such a congregational discussion of questions relating
to the doctrine of Scripture as has become common
in Wales, while it has fallen out of use in Scotland.
1 1 8 Champions of the Truth
In addition to the ministers having a fixed cure, ten
or more superintendents were to be appointed, whose
duty it was to travel from place to place in order to
plant and erect churches and appoint ministers, where
in the meantime they were not to be found. In all
the churches to be thus brought into existence not
only the Word and Sacraments, but also the discipline
of the Church was to be carefully observed — i.e. those
openly immoral and those who remained scandalously
ignorant or heretical were to be excluded from its
communion.
The patrimony of the Church was to be applied to
maintain three classes, " to wit, the ministers of the
Word, the poor, and the teachers of the youth." In
the support of the ministry was included a provision
for their wives and families. The poor were to be
supported, as in the early days of Christianity, by the
exertions of the deacons in each congregation. For
education careful provision was made. Each church
was to have its own school, and " grammar and the
Latin tongue " were to be taught in every town. In
every notable town there was to be a college, in which
the arts " should be studied ; and in three towns of
Scotland " the great schools called Universities " were
to be maintained according to a constitution carefully
laid down.
It was the rough draft of a great deal which has
already been realised in Scotland, and of much which
still remains to be attained, through the double agency
of church and school. But in the meantime it was
proposed to the Council of the nobility. How their
acceptance of the great scheme was for seven years
refused or postponed need not be stated in detail.
The great obstacle was the struggle with the Queen,
to be presently noticed. But there were others besides.
John Knox 1 1 9
Cautious politicians scoffed at the whole proposal as
a "devout imagination." Selfish nobles refused to
" bear the barrow to build the House of God," and so
perhaps impoverish their own.
But the organisation which nobles and politicians
and the civil legislature refused to sanction, the Church,
being free, instantly took up as its own work. In
December 1560 the first General Assembly sat, and
down to 1567 it met twice a year "by the authority
of the Church itself, and year by year laid the deep
foundations of the social and religious future of
Scotland." It was the work of organising a rude
nation into a self-governing Church. Of this vast
national burden it must ever be remembered that the
chief weight lay on the shoulders of Knox, a mere
pastor in Edinburgh. And during the same seven
years this indomitable man was sustaining another
doubtful conflict, in which the issues, not for Scotland
only, but for Europe, were so momentous, that in order
to trace it even the labour of organisation must be
allowed in the meantime to fall into the background.
Mary Queen of Scots landed in her native king
dom on i Qth August 1561. She became at once
the star of all eyes, not only in Scotland, but through
out Europe. The widow of the heir of the throne of
France, the reigning sovereign of Scotland, and the
heiress presumptive of England, the young princess
was already a personage whose destiny must decide
the wavering balance of Christendom. England,
nominally Protestant, was still largely, perhaps pre
dominantly, Romanist ; Scottish Protestantism was
only a year old ; and the Guises were confident that
their brilliant daughter would ere long bring back the
people of both to the faith. And with Scotland and
England united under a Roman Catholic queen the
120 Champions of the Truth
whole north would easily be restored to the See of
Rome.
Mary understood her high part and accepted it
with alacrity. Fascinating and beautiful, keen-witted
and strong-willed, she would have found herself at
home in this great game of politics even if it had not
for her one element of intense personal interest. For
all men knew that the turning-point in the question
would be her marriage, and that the chief prize of the
game was the hand of Mary Stuart.
Knox, on his side, understood the situation equally
well. Very shortly after her arrival he preached in
the metropolitan church of St. Giles, and " inveighed
against idolatry." Scarcely had the voice of the
preacher died away when the Queen sent for him to
Holyrood. Then ensued the first of those famous
dialogues between Mary and Knox recorded for us
by the Reformer's strong pen. He easily satisfied her
as to his theoretical Blast against women.
" But yet," said she, " ye have taught the people to
receive another religion than their princes can allow.
And how can that doctrine be of God, seeing that God
commands subjects to obey their princes ? "
" Madam," said he, " as right religion took neither
original, strength, nor authority from worldly princes,
but from the eternal God alone, so are not subjects
bound to frame their religion according to the appetites
of their princes."
This, of course, led on to the doctrine of non-
resistance.
"Think ye," quoth she, "that subjects, having
power, may resist their princes ? "
"If their princes exceed their bounds," quoth he, "and
do against that wherefore they should be obeyed, it is
no doubt but they may be resisted, even by power."
John Knox 121
The Queen's logic, even as reported by her ad
versary, was almost faultless, and she never failed to
come up to the next point of the argument. So she
now raised the question what a prince's religion should
be—
" Ye interpret the Scriptures," she said later on, " in
one manner, and others interpret in another. Whom
shall I believe ? and who shall be judge ? "
"Ye shall believe," said he, "God, that plainly
speaketh in His Word ; and farther than the Word
teacheth you, ye neither shall believe the one nor the
other. The Word of God is plain in itself; and if
there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy
Ghost, which is never contrarious unto Himself, explains
the same more clearly in other places."
Both parties to the argument sustained it with
fairness as well as ability ; but Knox seems to have
conceived none of the hopes which others entertained
as to his Royal pupil. He was right. Mary had no
intention of considering the questions so zealously put
before her. Next year, however, she went so far as
to invite him to come and tell her privately when he
thought anything was wrong in the Court, rather than
preach on it. Knox absolutely declined, and invited
her instead to come to the public preaching of God's
Word. The resentful Queen turned her back on him ;
and as he went away, " with a reasonable merry
countenance," he caught the whisper of one of the
attendants, " He is not afraid ! " He turned upon the
whisperer. " Why should the pleasing face of a
gentlewoman affray me? I have looked in the face of
many angry men, and yet have not been affrayed above
measure."
Another year passed, and though Mary's fascinations
had shaken the firmness of some of the Protestant
122 Champions of the Truth
lords, the mass of the people remained constant. But
a crisis was approaching. Each of the great Catholic
states, France, Austria, and Spain, had projects for
intermarriage with the Queen of Scotland, and Philip
had now consented to press the claim of his eldest son,
Don Carlos. It was when " in imagination Queen of
Scotland, England, Ireland, Spain, Flanders, Naples,
and the Indies/5 that Mary Stuart, in 1563, bent all
her skill to induce her native kingdom at least to
tolerate Catholicism, and so furnish the needful basis
for the edifice which she and a Catholic husband might
go on to build.
She began with Knox. Sending for him to Loch-
leven, she for two hours urged him not to let her
people take her sword into their own hands, especially
in matters of religion.
" The sword of justice is God's," said Knox, and
now, as before, he firmly maintained the right of the
commonwealth, when its prince failed to execute justice,
to do so from its own resources.
Mary recognised that this one man she could bend
neither by threat nor argument, and henceforward she
did not attempt it. But she took another course.
Next morning the Queen sent for Knox as she was
going out hawking. She had apparently forgotten all
the keen dispute of the evening before ; and her
manner was caressing and confidential. What did Mr.
Knox think of Lord Ruthven's offering her a ring?
" I cannot love him," she added, " for I know him to
use enchantment." Was Mr. Knox not going to
Dumfries, to make the Bishop of Athens the superin
tendent of the Kirk in that county? He was, Knox
answered ; the proposed superintendent being a man
in whom he had confidence. " If you knew him," said
Mary, " as well as I do, ye would never promote him
John Knox 123
to that office, nor yet to any other within the Kirk."
In yet another matter, and one more private and
delicate, she required his help. Her half-sister, Lady
Argyll, and the Earl, her husband, were, she was
afraid, not on good terms. Knox had once reconciled
them before, but, " do this much for my sake^ as once
again to put them at unity." And so she dismissed
him with promises to enforce the laws against the
Mass.
Knox for once fell under the spell. He seems to
have believed that this most charming of women was
at last leaning to the side of faith and freedom. And
so he sat down and wrote a long letter to Argyll on
his conjugal duty. He went to Dumfries, and on
making inquiry he found that the Queen was right in
her shrewd estimate of the proposed superintendent,
and took means to prevent the election.
All this time he fully expected that the Parliament
about to sit would enforce as well as ratify the yet
unratified laws of 1560. But when it met, Mary's
resistless influence had been so used upon others that
this — the first Parliament that met during her
unfortunate reign — declined to occupy itself with the
matter of the Protestant creed at all.
Knox knew that the hour was critical ; and going
into St. Giles's, he " poured forth the sorrows of his
heart " before the assembled nobles and commonalty.
" From the beginning of God's mighty working within
this realm," he said, " I have been with you in your
most desperate trials. In your most extreme dangers
I have been with you : St. Johnstown, Cupar Moor,
and the Craigs of Edinburgh are yet recent in my
heart ; yea, that dark and dolorous night wherein all
ye, my Lords, with shame and fear, left this town is
yet in my mind ; and God forbid that ever I forget it ! "
124 Champions of the Truth
But from all those dangers they had been delivered,
and was this the time to recede from the faith of Jesus
Christ? How critical the time was, few but Knox
himself and a few other statesmen knew. But his very
next words hit the centre of the political complication.
" Now, my Lords, to put an end to all, I hear of
the Queen's marriage. . . . Whensoever the nobility of
Scotland professing the Lord Jesus consent that an
infidel (and all Papists are infidels) shall be head to
your Sovereign, you do so far as in you lieth to banish
Christ Jesus from this realm."
Mary as well as Knox knew that this was the hinge
of the whole question, and the preacher was instantly
sent for to the palace. On his appearance the Queen
burst into a passion of tears. Never had prince been
handled as she was : she had borne with him, had
listened to him, and had sought his favour — " and yet
I cannot be quit of you. I vow to God, I shall be
once revenged ! " Knox stood unmoved, and then
calmly reasoned that in the pulpit, and as preacher, he
was not his own master, and was bound to instruct his
hearers in their duty.
" But what have you to do with my marriage ? "
said Mary. Knox began to point out the importance
of her marriage to the commonwealth ; but the Queen
impatiently repeated the question, and added, " What
are you in this commonwealth ? "
" Madam," answered Knox, " a subject born within
the same. And albeit I be neither earl, lord, nor
baron in it, yet has God made me (how abject that
ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the
same." And thereupon he repeated to her the same
very practical doctrine which he had given in the pulpit
two hours before.
Mary again had recourse to tears, and her indigna-
John Knox 125
tion that the Reformer remained unmoved under them
was not diminished by his quaint protest that he was
really a tender-hearted man, and could scarcely bear to
see his own children weep when corrected for their
faults.
In December of the same year the Queen, who had
now completely broken with him, summoned him to
answer for treason in having " convoked her lieges " on
the occasion of the trial of two men for a Protestant
riot.
Again Knox appeared at the bar, and on this
occasion no man stood by him. The Queen was sure
of her victory. " That man," she said, looking round,
" made me weep and shed never a tear himself ; I will
see if I can make him weep." This rash exultation
was checked by the constant bearing of the accused,
who through a long examination maintained his right
to caution his countrymen against " the pestilent
Papists, who have inflamed Your Grace against those
poor men."
" You forget yourself," said the Chancellor ; " you
are not now in the pulpit."
" I am in the place," he answered, " where I am
demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and there
fore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list."
The Lords of the Council, who at first frowned
upon Knox, before the day closed pronounced him
innocent by a majority. The Queen came back into
the room, and the vote was taken in her presence over
again ; but with the same result. " That night was
neither dancing nor fiddling in the Court " ; and the
firmness of Knox maintained the freedom of the
Protestant cause all through the next year, 1564.
But in the meantime the greatest danger had passed
away. The Prince of Spain, the chief of the candidates
126 Champions of the Truth
for the Queen's hand, was no longer in the field.
The incessant diplomatic struggle between Mary and
Elizabeth was ended by the sudden departure from the
Court of the latter of "yonder long lad," as she described
Lord Darnley, to woo the Scottish Queen. Mary's
rather weak fancy for her handsome young countryman
made no change in her political intentions. It was
about this time that she signed the Catholic League
for extermination of Protestantism, and her marriage
with Darnley was made part of a scheme which had
the approval of Philip. Knox understood the state
of matters, and one of his first sermons after the
marriage gave such umbrage to the Royal pair that
he was forbidden to preach. The General Assembly
appointed a Fast in view of the deadly purposes of the
League, and the Queen on her side banished her half-
brother, afterwards the Regent Murray, from the realm.
In a few months her now inconstant mind had
completely turned from her neglected husband, and
first the Italian Rizzio, and then one of her own
nobles, the Earl Bothwell, became her confidant.
Rizzio's ambition united the jealous Darnley with a
number of the nobles in a blood -bond, and the
result was that, on gth March 1566, the favourite
was dragged from the Queen's presence and stabbed
to death on the stairs of Holyrood. Knox thought
him an enemy both to Scotland and to Protestantism,
and rejoiced over his overthrow, ruffianly though the
manner of it was. Consequently, when the young
Queen, springing to arms, united her adherents and
drove out the conspirators, the petition of his Edinburgh
congregation for Knox's recall was steadily refused,
and he made a last visit to England, bearing with
him a letter of recommendation from the General
Assembly of his own Church.
John Knox 127
Week by week the infatuation of Mary for Lord
Bothwell, and her dislike of her husband, increased so
as to attract the notice of all around. But in February
1567 there was a sudden reconciliation between her
and Darnley. She brought him to a house in Kirk
o' Field, in Edinburgh, and at midnight it was blown
up with gunpowder by the servants of Bothwell.
Then Bothwell waylaid and carried off the Queen,
and proceeded to divorce his own wife. On I5th
May, a day or two after that divorce, and only three
months after the death of her second husband, the
ill-fated Queen publicly married his murderer; and
the strong shudder of disgust that passed throughout
Scotland shook her throne to the ground. First the
commons and then the nobles melted away from her ;
and in a short time her formal abdication anticipated
that rejection by the people which Knox and Buchanan
had always held to be among the rights of a free
commonwealth.
The long struggle was over. Knox had no part
in the unexpected ending. But he had been the
head and heart of the battle while it was most doubtful
and deadly ; and now that it was past he was foremost
in the arrangements of the new order of things. The
Assembly of the Church and the Parliament of the
realm both met; and the old enactments of 1560, in
favour of the Religion, were ratified, with the addition
of others acknowledging those who professed it to be
the true Kirk of Christ within Scotland.
On 29th July 1567, in Stirling, the town which
has always been the central clasp in the girdle of Scot
land, the infant James, who was afterwards to ascend
the English throne, was crowned King. And on this
occasion also the Gospel, which his coronation oath recog
nised, was preached once more by the lips of John Knox.
128 Champions of the Truth
And now his work — his twofold work — was done.
From 1560 the Gospel had, no doubt, been free in
Scotland. But from 1567 Scotland was free to work
out the Gospel in its own way as a State and a Church.
And the new light shone like the rising of the sun.
Hitherto this had been a rude and bare country, " a
country as yet without a soul." But now, as Carlyle
puts it again, a fire " is kindled under the ribs of this
outward material death. A cause, the noblest of
causes, kindles itself, like a beacon set on high ; high
as heaven, yet attainable from earth, whereby the
meanest man becomes not a citizen only, but a member
of Christ's visible Church ; a veritable hero, if he prove
a true man."
And so all over Scotland was seen what Knox
called " the building of the house " — the rearing of an
unseen temple and house not made with hands. In
this visible republic, with its invisible King, there was
self-government, local and central. The elders and
deacons of each town or parish met weekly with the
pastor for the charge of the congregation. And these
" particular Kirks " met yearly in Assembly to represent
the " Universal Kirk," and to urge throughout Scotland
not only the service of God, but the support and
maintenance of the poor, and the interests of education
in universities and schools. There were difficulties
and dangers in plenty, some of them unforeseen.
The nobles were rapacious, the people were divided, a
broad belt of unreformed population stretched between
the Highlands and Lowlands, Scottish Churchmen were
already beginning to show the national tendency to
dogmatism, and Scottish statesmen their less national
tendency to Erastian absolutism — an absolutism which
the Stuarts, transplanted to the English throne, were
afterwards to push to extremes. There were a hundred
John Knox 129
difficulties like these, but they were all accepted as in
the long day's work, For in Scotland the day-spring
was now risen upon men !
But he who had broken open so great a door was
now to leave the work to others. True, five years of
honoured life remained to him, but to the world-wearied
man they were years of labour and sorrow. Early in
1570 his friend, the good Regent Murray, was assas
sinated, and Knox preached his funeral sermon from
the text " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord!"
Later on in that year Knox himself had a fit of
apoplexy. Civil war broke out, and drove him to St.
Andrews. There a graphic observer tells us how he used
to see him in his last winter so weak that he had to be
lifted by two men into the pulpit ; but before the sermon
was done he was like to " ding the pulpit in blads " (smite
it into pieces) with his aged energy. Nor was his power
over the spirit less than before. When he came to the
application of his discourse, " he made me so to grue (i.e.
thrill) and tremble, that I could not hold a pen to write."
In the inevitable anti- climax of failing life Knox
found his compensations not in the world, nor even in
the Church. " All worldly strength, yea, even in things
spiritual," he writes to his colleague, " decays, and yet
never shall the work of God decay. . . . Visit me, that
we may confer together on heavenly things ; for in
earth there is no stability, except the Kirk of Jesus
Christ, ever fighting under the cross." In those
darkening days, even when he has merely to write his
subscription, it is " John Knox, with my dead hand,
but glad heart." In the beginning of September 1572
he lamented in the pulpit the massacre of St. Bartholo
mew. On Qth November he preached at the instal
lation of his colleague, and henceforth never left his
own house.
K
1 30 Champions of the Truth
The day after he sickened he gave one of his
servants twenty shillings above his fee, with the words,
" Thou wilt never receive more from me in this life."
Two days after, his mind wandered, and he wished to
go to church " to preach on the resurrection of Christ."
On Monday the 1 7th he asked the elders and deacons
of his church, with the ministers of Edinburgh and
Leith, to meet with him. " The day approaches," he
said to them, " and is now before the door, for which I
have frequently and vehemently thirsted, when I shall
be released from my great labours and innumerable
sorrows, and shall be with Christ. And now God is
my witness, whom I have served in the spirit in the
Gospel of His Son, that I have taught nothing but the
true and solid doctrine of the Gospel of the Son of
God, and have had it for my only object to instruct the
ignorant, to confirm the faithful, to comfort the weak,
the fearful, and the distressed, by the promises of grace,
and to fight against the proud and rebellious by the
Divine threatenings."
The Edinburgh burghers around him dissolved into
tears as they took their last look of the worn and
wearied face ; but when they left he asked his two
colleagues to remain. He wished to charge them with
a warning message to Kirkcaldy of Grange, then hold
ing the castle for the Queen. " That man's soul is
dear to me, and I would not have it perish, if I could
save it. Go to the castle and tell him, John Knox
remains the same man now, when he is about to die,
that ever he knew him when able in body."
One after another the nobles in Edinburgh, Lords
Boyd, Drumlanrig, Lindsay, Ruthven, Glencairn, and
Morton (then about to be elected Regent), had inter
views with him. Gradually they all left, except his
true friend Fairley of Braid. Knox turned to him :
John Knox
"Everyone bids me good -night; but when will you
do it ? I shall never be able to recompense you ; but
I commit you to One that is able to do it — to the
Eternal God."
During the days that followed, his weakness reduced
him to ejaculatory sentences of prayer. " Come, Lord
Jesus. Sweet Jesus, into Thy hands I commend my
spirit." But Scotland was still on his heart ; and as
Napoleon in his last hours was heard to mutter tete
d'armte, so Knox's attendants caught the words, " Be
merciful, O Lord, to Thy Church, which Thou hast re
deemed. Give peace to this afflicted commonwealth.
Raise up faithful pastors who will take charge of Thy
Church. Grant us, Lord, the perfect hatred of sin, both
by the evidences of Thy wrath and mercy." Sometimes
he was conscious of those around, and seemed to address
them. " O serve the Lord in fear, and death shall not
be terrible to you. Nay, blessed shall death be to
those who have felt the power of the death of the only
begotten Son of God."
On his last Sabbath a more remarkable scene
occurred. He had been lying quiet during the after
noon, and suddenly exclaimed, "If any be present let
them come and see the work of God." His friend
Elphinstone was sent for to the adjacent church, and
on his arrival Knox burst out, " I have been these two
last nights in meditation on the troubled state of the
Church of God, the spouse of Jesus Christ, despised of
the world, but precious in the sight of God. I have
called to God for her, and have committed her to her
head, Jesus Christ. I have fought against spiritual
wickedness in heavenly things, and have prevailed. I
have been in heaven and have possession. I have
tasted of the heavenly joys where presently I am."
Next day, Monday, 24th November 1572, was his
132 Champions of the Truth
last on earth. His three most intimate friends sat by
his bedside. Campbell of Kinyeancleugh asked him if
he had any pain. " It is no painful pain," he said ;
" but such a pain as shall soon, I trust, put an end to
the battle." To this friend he left in charge his wife,
whom later in the day he asked to read him the
fifteenth chapter to the Corinthians. When it was
finished, " Now for the last time," he said, " I commend
my soul, spirit, and body " (and as he spoke he touched
three of his fingers) " into Thy hands, O Lord." Later
in the day he called his wife again, " Go read where I
cast my first anchor ! " She turned to the seventeenth
chapter of John, and followed it up with part of a
sermon of Calvin on the Epistle to the Ephesians.
Soon after Knox seemed to fall into a slumber, troubled
with heavy moaning. All watched around him.
Suddenly he woke, and being asked why he sighed,
said that he had been sustaining a last assault of Satan.
Often before had he tempted him to despair. Now he
had sought to make him feel as if he had merited
heaven by his faithful ministry. " But what have I that
I have not received ? Wherefore I give thanks to my
God, through Jesus Christ, who hath been pleased to
give me the victory ; and I am persuaded that the
tempter shall not again attack me, but within a short
time I shall, without any great pain of body or anguish
of mind, exchange this mortal and miserable life for a
blessed immortality through Jesus Christ."
During the hours which followed he lay quite still,
and they delayed reading the evening prayer till ten
o'clock, thinking he was asleep. When it was finished,
the doctor asked him if he had heard the prayers.
" Would to God," he answered, " that you and all men
had heard them as I have heard them ; I praise God
for that heavenly sound." As eleven o'clock drew on
John Knox 133
he gave a deep sigh and said, " Now it is come." His
servant, Richard Bannatyne, drew near and called upon
him to think upon the comfortable promises of Christ
which he had so often declared to others. Knox was
already speechless, but his servant pleaded for one sign
that he heard them and that he died in peace. As if
collecting his whole strength he lifted up his right hand
heavenwards, and sighing twice, peacefully expired.
It was fit that such a life should have such a close.
Knox had never been a man of " a private spirit," and
he had long since become the champion of his cause in
the eyes of Europe. But the true roots of that public
work were in the personal and private faith, which he
held to be founded on the Word of God. His work
was the outgrowth of that individual faith, which he
felt to be true, as found in a heroic and aggressive soul.
The fire had been originally kindled in this man's own
spirit. So when Scotland needed a beacon, he became
himself its burning and shining light. And now that
the fuel of external opportunity was in age withdrawn,
the flame within did not flicker out along with it. The
faith which had so long borne for others the strain of
such a life was found at last able to bear for itself the
strain of death.
JOHN FOXE
By (1516-1587)
S. G* Green, D.D,
THE life of John Foxe, the distinguished annalist of
Christian martyrdom, was passed amid great and
stirring events. The year of his birth was that in
which Luther affixed his Theses to the door of the
cathedral in Wittenberg ; the year of his death wit
nessed the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. In
the crowd of distinguished personages who made the
Reformation era famous, Foxe held not the least
illustrious place. We find him at one period of his
life a correspondent of Calvin and an associate of
Knox. In later days he enjoyed the friendship of Sir
Francis Drake, Sir Thomas Gresham, and Cecil, Lord
Burleigh, while to Queen Elizabeth he was " Father
Foxe." Among ecclesiastics he was on intimate terms
with Archbishop Grindal, Bishops Aylmer, Parkhurst,
and Pilkington ; Bale, Bishop of Ossory, and Nowell,
the eloquent Dean of St. Paul's. Though living for
the most part a retired literary life, he had no small in
fluence in matters of state, while his popularity among
all classes of the community was almost unbounded.
The book by which he is known to succeeding genera
tions became from the time of its publication, and has
remained for over three hundred years, one of the house
hold treasures of Protestant England ; while to this day,
134
JOHN FOXE.
John Foxe 135
in country churches scattered through our land, may be
found black-letter copies of the Book of Martyrs, which
were chained to the reading-desk in the days when
readers were few, and which taught to multitudes of old
and young the great lessons of fidelity to conscience
and attachment to the verities of an uncorrupted
Gospel.
John Foxe was born in the year 1516, in Boston,
Lincolnshire, where, according to his son and biographer,
"his father and mother were of the commonalty of the
town, well reported of and of good estate." The elder
Foxe died while John was young, and the widow
married again ; the stepfather being, as it would appear,
at first kindly disposed to a lad whose genius and
earnestness were far beyond the good man's under
standing. Of Foxe's early life we know but little,
save that he was sent to the University of Oxford at
the age of sixteen, entering at Brasenose College.
Here he became friend and " chamber -fellow " of
Alexander Nowell, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, a
strong adherent of the Reformed faith. In 1539
Foxe was elected a Fellow of Magdalen College — a
distinction which sufficiently proves the high reputation
for scholarship which he had already gained.
The nine or ten years between Foxe's matricula
tion and his election to the Fellowship were among the
most eventful in the history of the Reformation. In
1534 the Parliament of England renounced the Papal
Supremacy. In the year following the first complete
English Bible was published by Miles Coverdale,
followed two years later by the revised, or " Great
Bible," the use of which was enjoined in all English
churches. Meantime, persecution was not idle. The
" Act of the Six Articles," passed in 1539, made the
denial of Transubstantiation an offence punishable by
136 Champions of the Truth
death at the stake. To affirm the Papal supremacy
was treason ; to deny the Papal doctrines was heresy
— a cruel dilemma ! These things, and the contro
versies thence arising, could not but awaken deep re
flection in the mind of the youthful and earnest Oxford
student. A deep seriousness already formed the ground
work of his character, and he had found the secret of
peace with God through Christ. At first he accepted
the tenets of the religious community in which he had
been educated ; but in these he could not long rest.
" I have often heard Master Foxe affirm," writes his
biographer, " that the first matter which occasioned his
search into the Popish doctrine was that he saw divers
things in their own natures most repugnant to one
another, thrust upon men at one time to be both
believed : as that the same man might in matters of
faith be superior and yet in life and manners be inferior
to all the world besides. Upon this beginning, his
resolution and intended obedience to that Church were
somewhat shaken ; and by little and little followed some
dislike to the rest. His first care was to look into
both the ancient and modern history of the Church, to
learn what beginning it had, what growth and increase ;
by what arts it flourished, and by what errors it began
to decline ; to consider the causes of all those con
troversies which in the mean space had sprung up, and
to weigh diligently of what moment they were, and
what on either side was produced, sound or infirm.
This he performed with such heat of study, and in so
short a time, that before the thirtieth year of his age
he had read over all that either the Greek or Latin
Fathers had left in their writings, the Schoolmen in
their disputations, the Councils in their acts, or the
Consistory in their decrees, and acquired no small skill
in the Hebrew language."
John Foxe 137
These studies for a time engrossed the days and
nights of the future martyrologist. In a dark grove
near Magdalen College he would spend long evenings
pacing to and fro, with prayers and cries pouring out
his soul to God. His companions marvelled at a
passionate earnestness which they could not under
stand. They were scandalised by the infrequency with
which he now attended the services of the Church, and
he was at length called to account by the authorities
of the college for his altered demeanour. He confessed
that in many things he was not of one mind with them ;
and although they forbore to proceed to the worst
extremities against one who had already achieved dis
tinction as a scholar, Foxe resigned his fellowship in
I545-
On leaving Oxford, Foxe became tutor to the
children of Sir Thomas Lucy, at Charlecote, Warwick
shire. His eldest pupil would no doubt be the Thomas
Lucy whom Shakespeare (who was born nineteen years
after Foxe entered Charlecote) has depicted for the
laughter of all time as Mr. Justice Shallow. The fact
is that this worthy country knight was a sturdy, inflex
ible Puritan, with little mercy on the poet's youthful
escapades ; and Shakespeare revenged himself by the
caricature. Something in the stern Protestantism of
the Warwickshire squire may have been traceable to
the influence of his old tutor. But Foxe remained
here scarcely a year, having however wooed and won
beneath this roof the daughter of a Coventry citizen,
who seems to have come hither on a visit. Soon after
their marriage the wedded pair went to Coventry, to
the bride's father. Hence he wrote to his stepfather,
proposing to return to Boston for a while. The answer
was a grudging permission. It was hard, said the
cautious burgher, that he should be asked to receive
138 Champions of the Truth
one whom he knew to be " condemned for a capital
offence ; neither was he ignorant what hazard he should
undergo in so doing ; nevertheless he would show him
self a kinsman, and for that cause neglect his own
danger." Should Foxe alter his opinions, he might
come and stay as long as he pleased ; but if he persisted
in his present views he must be contented with " a
shorter tarriance, and not bring him and his mother
into hazard of their lives and fortunes, who were ready
to do anything for his sake." On this slight encourage
ment Foxe returned to Boston for a while, the more
especially because, as his son puts it, " he was under
hand advised by his mother to come." " Do not be
afraid," was the good woman's message to her son.
" My husband is obliged for appearance' sake to write
as he has done ; but give him the opportunity, and his
kind entertainment will make amends for his harsh
words."
The visit was a short one. It was impossible for a
person so marked as Foxe had become to remain un
noticed in a country town. London was safest ; and
some new dissensions between Foxe and his stepfather
appear to have hastened the youthful scholar's resolution
to go thither. He went, accordingly, to the metropolis,
a stranger ; and for a time he wandered there almost
hopelessly in search of employment. But one day a
wonderful thing occurred to him, which he always re
garded as a special interposition of Divine Providence,
and which proved the turning-point of his career.
He was sitting disconsolately in St. Paul's Cathedral.
His resources were entirely exhausted, and he had come
even to want bread. The cathedral was then a great
thoroughfare, and passers-by shrank from the ghastly
face and poverty-stricken garb of the solitary stranger.
Suddenly an unknown person took a seat by his side,
John Foxe 139
courteously saluted him, and bidding him to be of good
cheer, thrust a purse of gold into his hand and dis
appeared. Greatly wondering, Foxe returned to his
poor lodging. Who his benefactor was he never learned.
But, three days after the interview Foxe was sent
for by the Duchess of Richmond, and requested to
undertake the tuition of three children to whom, as
their aunt, she was guardian. Their father, the Earl
of Surrey, was in prison in the Tower, with his father
the old Duke of Norfolk, and was soon after beheaded
on a charge of high treason, the Duke being detained in
captivity for some years longer. The young Howards
entrusted to Foxe's charge were Thomas, afterwards,
in succession to his grandfather, Duke of Norfolk ;
Henry, who became Earl of Northampton ; and Jane,
afterwards Countess of Westmoreland.
King Henry died in January I 547, and the accession
of the youthful Edward VI. gave new hope to Protestants.
Foxe was now safe, and with his young wife dwelt peace
fully in the pretty Surrey village of Reigate, instructing
his young pupils and rejoicing in their proficiency : the
Lady Jane especially, like her friend and companion
the Lady Jane Grey, being " not unworthy of comparison
with the most learned men of that time for the praise
of elegancy in learning." While at Reigate Foxe was
ordained deacon (by Ridley, Bishop of London, 23rd
June 1550)? and began forthwith to preach, " zealously,"
his successor, Richard Day, relates, " removing also from
the village the idolatrous symbols of Rome." Nor was
his pen idle. He wrote in Latin some treatises on
Church discipline, and in particular prepared an Address
to Parliament at a time when, through the intrigues of
Stephen Gardiner, a Popish reaction was threatened.
" Not only a rumour," he said, " but a most positive
assertion has gone abroad, that those sanguinary laws
140 Champions of the Truth
known by the title of the Six Articles, once laid to
sleep, are about to be, as it were, recalled from Hades
to earth. If this be true," he adds, " I well know how
deadly and ominous it will prove to the kingdom."
But the fear, happily, proved groundless ; and the six
years of King Edward's reign passed peacefully away.
The old Duke of Norfolk was released from prison on
Mary's accession, and being a strong Romanist, promptly
dismissed Foxe from the tutorship of his grandson.
But in 1554 the youth succeeded to the dukedom, and
in gratitude for the services of his tutor granted him
for a time a small pension. Gardiner, now Bishop of
Winchester and one of the Queen's chief advisers, was,
however, intimate with the young Duke, and it became
necessary for the Reigate pastor to seek another refuge.
The departure of Foxe was hastened by a circum
stance which proved to him how narrowly he was
watched. Gardiner, who had previously made many
inquiries about him, was paying a visit to the Duke,
when Foxe happened to come into the room, and,
seeing who was there, hurriedly withdrew. " Who
was that ? " the Bishop keenly asked. The Duke, in
confusion, evasively replied, " It is my physician ;
but he is fresh from college, and his manners are
somewhat uncourtly." " Ha ! " said Gardiner, " I like
his countenance and aspect very well, and on occasion
I will send for him." The words portended mischief,
and Foxe was conveyed secretly to a farmhouse on
the Duke's estate, the Duke making hurried arrange
ments for despatching him to the Continent. In a few
days all was ready, and Foxe, accompanied by his wife,
crossed the country to " Ipswich-haven," whence he
immediately set sail. The vessel encountered a storm,
and was obliged to put back. But while Foxe was
tossing about in the German Ocean, a messenger from
John Foxe
Bishop Gardiner had arrived at the farmhouse, with a
warrant to^apprehend him and convey him to Win
chester forf trial. Finding that he had departed, the
messenger chased him to the coast, arriving only a few
hours after the ship had set sail. Foxe, on landing
again at Ipswich, learned how narrow had been his
escape, and at once re-embarked, reaching Nieuport
with his wife after a long and stormy passage.
John Foxe was now an exile, with few or no
possessions save some precious manuscripts, to publish
which was his first anxiety. From Nieuport he pro
ceeded to Antwerp, and thence to Strassburg, whither
Edmund Grindal had preceded him. The two friends
instantly set the press to work, and before the close of
the year Foxe's volume appeared, in Latin, an octavo
of about four hundred pages, entitled : Commentaries on
the Affairs of the Church, and an Account of the Chief
Persecutions in all Europe from the days of Wyclif to the
present time. First Book, by John Foxe, Englishman.
Such was the germ and first outline of the Acts and
Monuments.
Soon after the publication of this book, we find
Foxe at Frankfort, where a company of refugees from
Great Britain had already gathered, including John
Knox, William Whittingham, brother-in-law to Calvin,
and afterwards Dean of Durham ; with William Kethe,
to whom English Christians are under lasting obliga
tion for his version of the Hundredth Psalm :
All people that on earth do dwell,
and many more. Here they formed a little Protestant
English congregation, and worshipped harmoniously to
gether, until strange and unexpected troubles arose. A
certain number of the exiles were bent upon introdu
cing the English liturgy. This was strenuously resisted
142 Champions of the Truth
by Knox and the exiles who had first arrived ; and a
long acrimonious discussion ensued, Calvin declaring
it to be shame that " brethren banished and driven out
of the country for their common faith should fall into
dissension over such details." But methods of con
ciliation were attempted in vain. On one particular
Sunday (in March 1555) the dispute came to a crisis ;
the Litany with responses being read in the morning,
and Knox in the afternoon with fiery eloquence pro
testing on behalf of the Genevan form. The consequent
dispute ran so high, that in a few days Knox was
compelled to leave the city, a charge of treasonable
utterances against the Emperor being improvised
against him. Foxe adhered to the Geneva model,
while in a truly large-hearted way he deplored the un
natural strife ; writing to his friend and associate Peter
Martyr : " This controversy has rendered almost all
the winter sterile and profitless. For though I would
fain have held aloof from the business, I could not be
an altogether uninterested spectator." " Mere striplings,"
he adds, " and even children enter with zeal into the
dispute. Yet it is the more astonishing that even gray-
headed theologians, who ought to employ their authority
for the promotion of concord, fling their brands upon
the flame." " I could never have believed," continues
Foxe, " that there could be so much rancour in men
whose constant dealing with the Holy Scriptures ought
to have disposed them to all gentleness and loving-
kindness ! " He still hoped that by conference and
mutual concession some form of liturgy might be agreed
upon, to which both sides could assent. To his broad
and liberal mind the obligations of charity were far
greater than those of any ecclesiastical forms. But
his efforts to allay the dispute were unavailing. The
intervention of the magistrates was sought ; and these
John Foxe U3
pronounced at length for the Anglican order. Knox,
who had meantime sought refuge in France, went to
Geneva with some of his companions, and was elected
pastor of the English church in that city. Foxe and
others went to Basel.
At Basel Foxe found employment with a famous
printer, Oporinus, as corrector of the press and general
editor of his publications. By this occupation Foxe
earned a scanty livelihood for himself, his wife, and an
infant son who had been born at Frankfort ; occupy
ing, however, the greatest part of the time in the
preparation of his great work. Herein he laboured,
says a contemporary, (( with a most distracted kind of
diligence," employing no amanuensis, but transcribing
every document with his own hands. In the accumu
lation of material he was greatly assisted by Grindal,
then at Strassburg, as well as by John Aylmer, who had
been tutor to Lady Jane Grey, and who in later years,
when Bishop of London, became a bitter enemy of the
Puritans. Meantime, at the press of Oporinus, Foxe
printed some of the sketches and biographical notices
which were to be incorporated in his larger work. He
published also a religious drama, under the title of
Christus Triumphans — " Christ Triumphant, an Apoca
lyptic Drama. ' The Spirit and the Bride say Come.' "
He wrote also, but was unable to publish, a Latin
translation of Cranmer's reply to Gardiner on the
Eucharistic controversy, being much hindered in his
task by want of opportunity to consult original docu
ments. His complaint on this score throws an
interesting light on his habit of historic accuracy.
" You know," Foxe says, " how it is not handsome to
bring in doctors speaking otherwise than in their own
words." Foxe, as a narrator, was as faithful as he was
painstaking.
144 Champions of the Truth
The years of Foxe's residence at Basel were those
in which the persecution under Mary raged with its
utmost seventy. We can well imagine the eagerness
of interest, the agonies of sorrow, the transports of holy
indignation, with which the exiles would receive the
tidings which continually came from England. Many
a simple and pathetic narrative, the testimony of eye
witnesses, crossed the seas during those anxious
months, reaching Grindal at Strassburg, and forwarded
by him to Basel, where Foxe, with Aylmer and
Pilkington at his side, turned the homely English into
his own rugged and vigorous Latin, working day and
night at his Commentaries, until his attenuated frame
bore witness at once to the severity of his toil and the
terrible intenseness of his sympathy.
At length the change came in the affairs of Eng
land. It was stedfastly asserted by many, and by
Aylmer among the rest, that on a day in November
1558, when Foxe was preaching to the English exiles,
he suddenly bade them be of good cheer, " for now was
the time come for their return into England, and that he
brought them that news by the commandment of God."
The " graver divines then present " sharply reproved
the preacher ; but their rebukes were silenced when
they found that Queen Mary had died on the day
before the sermon was preached.
On the accession of Queen Elizabeth many of the
exiles hastened to return. Foxe was delayed partly
by want of means — he had now two children, a boy
and a girl, to support — partly from the necessity of
seeing his book through the press ; but he celebrated
the occasion by a courtly address to Her Majesty in
the name of the German people, in which, after speak
ing of the refuge which had been afforded by them
to the exiles for conscience' sake, he gives valuable
John Foxe 145
counsel to the Queen, to her advisers, and to the
preachers of the Gospel. " Father Foxe " was by this
time so well known that he could venture to offer frank
advice. For nearly a year longer he remained at Basel,
until in 1559 his Commentaries, again in Latin, issued
from the press of Oporinus. The narrative was in six
parts, and in the preface to the third Foxe gave the
interesting information that " the first to suggest to him
that he should write a history of the martyrs was Lady
Jane Grey." In a touching and noble dedication Foxe
inscribed the work to his friend and former pupil, the
Duke of Norfolk.
The first intimation that we can find of Foxe's
return to England is in a letter addressed by him to
his old pupil, 1559. The letter speaks with manly
and affecting simplicity of the writer's indigent circum
stances, and suggests that a renewal of the assistance
which he had formerly received from the Duke would
be very acceptable. At the same time Foxe, with
characteristic faithfulness, presses home upon his noble
patron the claims of the Gospel and the obligations to
personal godliness. " You will do wisely," he says, " if
you employ that time in the reading of the Scriptures
which others bestow on pomps and pastimes of the
Court." The Duke frankly responded, intimating that
he had already made arrangements for Foxe's comfort,
and inviting him to his London mansion in Aldgate.
Here Foxe seems to have lived for some time, with
intervals spent in other parts of England. We find
him at Norwich in 1560 with Parkhurst, one of his
fellow -exiles, now bishop of that diocese. Some
preferment appears to have been here proposed to
Foxe, but for some reason the plan fell through. In
all probability the Church as restored under Elizabeth
still retained too much of the former ritual to be
L
146 Champions of the Truth
acceptable to the sturdy Puritan. Foxe, however,
accepted in 1564 a small prebend in the diocese of
Salisbury, where he was left at liberty to carry out
his convictions. In the general unsettlement of that
transition-period, the conditions of clerical life in one
diocese differed much from those in another. For a
short time he appears to have been vicar of St. Giles',
Cripplegate ; but this charge he resigned from con
scientious difficulty in subscribing to the canons.
" John Foxe," writes Fuller in his Church History of
Great Britain, " was summoned by Archbishop Parker
to subscribe, that the general reputation of his piety
might give the greater countenance to conformity.
The old man produced the New Testament in Greek.
' To this/ said he, ( I will subscribe.' But when a sub
scription to the canons was required of him, he refused
it, saying, ' I have nothing in the Church save a pre
bend at Salisbury ; and much good may it do you if
you will take it away from me ! " He was, however,
left unmolested in this preferment, which he retained
till his death. But his work lay rather in the direction
of authorship, and we have authentic records of very
few of his sermons. The most noteworthy of these
was preached at Paul's Cross, on Good Friday 1570,
after the publication of the Papal bull excommuni
cating the Queen. The ordeal was one to which the
diffident literary recluse looked forward with the
greatest apprehension. Bishop Grindal, his old com
rade, had urged him to the task, and would take no
denial. " Our friends," writes Foxe, " urge, press, solicit
me by every means, by entreaties, threats, upbraid-
ings." "Who could have instigated you," he asks of
Grindal, "thus to think of crucifying me at Paul's
Cross ? There never was ass or mule so weighed
down by burdens as I have long been by literary
John Foxe 147
labours. I am almost worn out by their toils, and by
my ill-health. Yet I am summoned to that celebrated
pulpit, where, like an ape among cardinals, I shall be
received with derision or driven away by the hisses of
the auditory ! " Grindal, in reply, simply counselled
Foxe to forget self and to preach Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. This encouraged his shrinking spirit,
and when the day came, he was enabled to discourse
with great freedom and power.1 " Now then are we
messengers in the room of Christ " — so reads the
text from 2 Corinthians v. 20, in the days before
the Authorised Version — " Even as though God
did beseech you through us, so pray we you in
Christ's stead that ye be reconciled unto God." The
sermon is outspoken against Papal corruptions of the
Gospel, and abounds in fervent evangelical appeals to
the souls of men.
As soon as Foxe had settled in England he addressed
himself to what was to prove the work of his life — the
preparation of an English edition of his Commentaries,
greatly enlarged. This work he carried on for a while
in the mansion of the Duke of Norfolk, in Aldgate,
and the printing of the book seemed soon to have
begun. John Day, the printer, was a man altogether
like-minded with Foxe. His printing-offices were in
Aldersgate, partly upon the city wall ; and he had
shops besides for the sale of his books in other parts
of the city, particularly " near the west door of St.
Paul's Cathedral." We may picture Foxe every
Monday, as his manner was, wending his way over
the Corn Hill, past the open space where workmen
were preparing the foundations of Gresham's new
Exchange ; then beneath the overhanging gables of
1 The sermon was republished, with a recommendatory Preface by George
Whitefield, 1759.
148 Champions of the Truth
Cheapside, — a man noted by many, greeting few or
none, of abstracted air, with emaciated form, sunken
cheeks, neglected garb, — until he reached the house of
his trusty friend, with whom, in the snug chamber
" over Aldersgate," he read his copy prepared during
the previous week, examined and corrected proofs, and
conferred respecting the progress of the work. That
progress was indeed amazing, since in 1563 the first
edition, in one folio black-letter volume, was com
pleted. At some stage, we cannot accurately tell
which, in the progress of the work, Foxe found it
necessary to leave the ducal mansion. His first
lodgings were with Mr. Day himself; afterwards in
Grub Street, near Cripplegate, long a favourite abode
of authors. Here he toiled unremittingly, preparing
another edition of his great work, much enlarged,
which was published in 1570. Other editions followed
in 1576 and 1583.
The Book of Martyrs, as it was already called, was
received by the people with the most eager interest.
It had all the fascination of a contemporary history ;
many of the actors in the scenes it portrayed were
still living, and there were multitudes who had
numbered them among their own kindred and friends.
Most of them to us are but names ; yet our own souls
are moved by the thrilling narrative. What must
have been the feelings of those who well remembered
standing by while the grim processions moved onward
to the stake !
By order of Queen Elizabeth, issued after the
appearance of the second edition, copies of the work
were to be placed in the parish churches, also in the
halls of hospitals, colleges, schools, and other public
'institutions. Some of these massive volumes still
remain, black with age, and bearing on their solid
John Foxe 149
leathern bindings traces of the ring to which was
attached the chain securing the precious volume to
the reading-desk. Many a group would gather to
listen, absorbed in the more than heroic tale, while
from the lips of the best reader in the village they
learned how their own friends and kindred had borne
brave witness to Christ, and laid down their lives
amid fiery torments rather than surrender an iota of
His truth.
It was but natural that such a book should awaken
fierce opposition. The Papists called it " Master Foxe's
Golden Legend," and denounced it as a mass of inven
tions. So bold were they in their assertions that the
imputation has gained general currency among those
unacquainted with the facts of the case ; and it is too
frequent in modern times to speak of Foxe as a one
sided, inaccurate historian. A few errors in names
and dates have given colour to the charge. Some of
his information, again, was necessarily from hearsay,
and may have been accepted without adequate sifting.
Occasionally, too, the glowing indignation, without
which the narrator of such facts would surely be less
than man, will gain the upper hand. " He writes," says
one, " with somewhat more fervency than circumspec
tion " ; and so becomes " intemperate," forsooth ! as he
tells how brave men and tender women, and mere
boys, were done to death amid fiery torments for not
accepting what they believed to be a lie ! The wonder
is that the recorder of such infernal deeds could ever
have been calm ! Dr. Jeremy Collier, the nonjuror
bishop in the days of William III., and others of an
earlier day, made the most of these deviations from
judicial coolness, as well as of the lapses into inaccuracy
to which the chronicler of so great a multitude of facts
was liable ; while in our own time Professor Brewer,
150 Champions of the Truth
followed by Dean Hook,1 has brought unproved accusa
tions against the martyrologist's fidelity ; but on the
whole, every one who will impartially examine into
the matter may well stand amazed not only at the
fulness and variety of the narrative, but at its generally
sober temper and solicitous regard to historic truth.
For one thing, Foxe is uniformly careful, whenever
possible, to give official documents, being mostly those
of his own day, taken from the Bishops' Registers, and
open to the most jealous scrutiny. The testimony of
Bishop Burnet is very valuable : " In some private
passages which were brought to him upon flying
reports, Foxe made a few mistakes, being too
credulous ; but in the account he gives from records
or papers he is a most exact and faithful writer ; so
that I could never find him in any prevarication or so
much as a designed concealment. He tells the good
and the bad, the weakness and the passion, as well as
the constancy and patience, of those good men who
sealed their faith with their blood." '*
To the same effect writes the famous Bishop of
Lincoln, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth. " I am not
ignorant of what has been said " (by Dr. Milner and
other Romanist writers), " but neither his writings nor
theirs have proved, and it never will be proved, that
John Foxe is not one of the most faithful and authentic
of all historians. All the many researches and dis
coveries of later times in regard to historical documents
have only contributed to place the general fidelity and
truth of Foxe's narrative on a rock which cannot be
shaken."
1 See Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. vi. p. 148. Full and
detailed vindications of Foxe's trustworthiness will be found in the editions of
his Acts and Monuments, by Canon Townshend, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, and
Dr. Stoughton (R.T.S. ). See especially the latter, vol. i. ch. ii. pp. 73-81.
'2 Burnet, Hist. Ref. part ii. book ii. vol. ii. p. 492. Oxford, 1865.
John Foxe 151
Mr. Foxe gradually became a very notable person
in the City of London. Men and women of all classes
frequented his humble home in Grub Street to ask his
counsel or to receive his instructions. The Duke of
Norfolk continued to be his friend, and Foxe in turn
was a faithful friend to him. The commission given
by Queen Elizabeth to this Duke to receive Mary
Queen of Scots, when she sought refuge in this country
in 1568, and to examine into the charges against her,
seems to have turned the head of the young nobleman.
Either he was smitten with love for the beautiful and
hapless captive, or else the possibilities of success in
the intrigues of which she was the centre awakened
strange ambitions in his breast. Certain it is that at
one time he was bent upon marrying her, and a letter of
Foxe is extant strongly dissuading him from this step.
By degrees the Duke became more and more involved
in the conspiracies of Mary's adherents, in England,
France, and Spain. He was at length committed to
the Tower, tried and condemned for high treason ;
and in July 1572 John Foxe had the mournful task
of attending his former pupil to the scaffold. Dean
Nowell also was by his side ; and such comfort as was
possible was derived from the fact that the Duke died
penitent and in the Protestant faith. The Duke's
small pension to Foxe was continued by bequest ; and
there is reason to believe that the successful author
was now at least beyond the reach of want.
Another event of deep and sad significance well
brought out the nobler features of this good man's
character. A congregation of Anabaptists from Holland
had established a conventicle at Aldgate. Twenty-seven
of the number had been seized, charged with holding
heretical and blasphemous doctrines concerning the
Divine nature. Four of these were made to recant
152 Champions of the Truth
these doctrines publicly at Paul's Cross. Ten were
banished ; most of the others were left in disregarded
obscurity ; but one of those who had recanted soon
reaffirmed his obnoxious opinions, another refused
altogether to retract his avowal of belief, and, after
long debate with their judges, these two were condemned
as obstinate heretics. The old Act de haeretico com-
burendo> under which the Marian martyrs had suffered,
was put into force after seventeen years of desuetude,
and these men were sentenced to death at the stake.
Now was the time to test the breadth of Foxe's prin
ciples. Would it prove that, like some others who had
bravely borne the brunt of persecution, he was ready
to persecute in turn those whose beliefs he thought
heretical ? Not so. He intervened on behalf of these
Anabaptists with passionate protest, denouncing their
opinions, but appealing to the Queen against the
punishment decreed. The long Latin letter addressed
to Her Majesty on the subject has been preserved.1
"To burn to death," he says, "those who err rather
from blindness of judgment than from the impulse of
their will appears to be more after the example of
Rome than according to the principles of the Gospel."
Foxe does not argue against another mode of punish
ment. " Only," he says, " I do plead earnestly that
Your Majesty will not allow those fires of Smithfield,
which under your most auspicious rule have long been
extinguished, now to be rekindled." But Elizabeth
was inflexible : all that could be gained was a month's
respite, to induce the condemned persons to recant.
This proved ineffectual ; the advisers of Elizabeth
argued that " if after punishing traitors she now spared
blasphemers, the world would condemn her as being
more earnest in asserting her own safety than God's
1 See Fuller's Church History of Great Britain, book ix. sec. iii. 13.
John Foxc 153
honour." To the lasting disgrace of her reign, the
two Anabaptists were burned in Smithfield, 22nd July
1575.
Nor was it only in the case of sufferers for their
religious belief that Foxe threw his influence into the
scale of mercy. It can scarcely be doubted that
Edmund Campian and Robert Parsons, the Jesuits,
with their coadjutors in the transactions of 1580, were
but the agents of a deep-laid plot against the Queen
and kingdom. In no sense did they die for their re
ligion, unless indeed the denial of the Royal supremacy
within the realm of England be regarded as an article
of faith. Yet none the less did Foxe counsel modera
tion and lenity in dealing with them. " I could produce
letters of his," writes his son, " wherein he persuadeth
the lords and others who then held the place of chiefest
authority not to suffer Edmund Campian and his
fellow-conspirators to be put to death, nor to let that
custom continue longer in the kingdom that death
rather than some other punishment should be inflicted
on the Papist offenders. He endeavoured to prove by
many reasons how much it was to the weakening of
the cause to follow the example of their adversaries."
The great martyrologist was, in truth, a man before
his times, and for a while his counsels fell upon heedless
ears ; yet it is much to know that he who had written
so sternly and passionately on the cruel deeds of
Romish persecutors could stedfastly resist the tempta
tion to retaliate in kind, and not allow either the perils
of the State and the Queen or the excited demands of
the people to silence his pleading for justice and mercy.
We know but little of Foxe's domestic relations.
After his return to England nothing appears in the
records concerning his mother and his stepfather, or
his father-in-law ; nor does he seem to have visited
i54 Champions of the Truth
either Coventry or Boston. These relatives probably
were no longer living. His wife was a homely, loving
matron, as appears from an affectionate ill -spelled
letter to one of her sons, Samuel, to whom the anony
mous biography of Foxe has been attributed, but doubt
fully. This Samuel appears to have given the good
old man some anxiety ; not so much, however, from
anything actually vicious, as from a tendency to
ostentation which must have been peculiarly abhorrent
to the father. While a fellow of Magdalen College,
Oxford, the youth went for a journey abroad without
the permission of the college authorities. He returned
in garments of a fashionable cut, and presented himself
for his father's blessing. " Why," said Foxe, " what
fine gentleman have we here ? " " Do you not know
me ? " was the reply ; " I am Samuel, your son."
"Ah," rejoined< the father, "what enemy of thine hath
taught thee so much vanity?" The College treated the
youth more severely, and expelled him, on the charge of
Romish proclivities. But Foxe would not submit to
this, and wrote a long letter to the authorities,1 in
which he strongly took his son's part, and attributed
the young man's expulsion to internal dissensions in
the college. The old martyrologist does not disguise
his fears that the Puritan party will now themselves
prove intolerant. " I perceive," he says, " a certain race
of men rising up, who, if they should increase and
gather strength in this kingdom, I am sorry to say
what disturbance I foresee must follow it." Samuel
Foxe was restored by Royal mandate, and we hear no
more of his tendencies to Popery.
Although he was so much of a recluse, the company
and counsel of Foxe were continually sought. " There
1 Fuller gives the letter in its original Latin (Church History of Great
Britain, book ix. sec. iii. 14).
John Foxe 155
repaired unto him both citizens and strangers, noblemen
and common people of all degrees, and almost all for
the same cause, to seek some salve for a wounded
conscience." Many of his letters of spiritual counsel
have been preserved — some of them dealing with very
personal matters. Thus among his correspondence
preserved in the British Museum there is a letter to
him " from one under temptation to blaspheme, request
ing counsel." Several letters are to persons in concern
about their spiritual state, whom with loving counsel
he exhorts to seek their rest in Christ. One of the
longest and most interesting of the communications is
to a young lady, to whom he earnestly and argumenta-
tively recommends a youth as husband. What effect
was produced by the epistle we do not know.
He had a kindly humour, and occasionally a caustic
tongue. " Going abroad by chance, he met a woman
that he knew, who, pulling a book from under her
arm and saying, ' See you not that I am going to a
sermon ? ' Master Foxe replied : ' But if you will be
ruled by me, go home rather, for to-day you will
do but little good- at church.' And when she asked,
' At what time therefore he would counsel her to
go ? ' then answered he, ' When you tell nobody
beforehand.'
" When a young man, a little too forward, had said,
in presence of many, ' that he could conceive no reason
in the reading of the old authors why men should so
greatly admire them,' ' No marvel indeed,' quoth Master
Foxe ; ' for if you could conceive the reason, you
would admire them yourself.' "
The currency of anecdotes like these shows that
Foxe had no small social influence. That he employed
it wisely and well is certain. Some indeed there were
who were so impressed by the charm of his words,
1 5 6 Champions of the Truth
enforced as these were by his almost ghostly aspect,
that they were ready to attribute to him powers to
which he had no claim. " Some who were sick in
body would needs be carried to him. But this practice,
to stop rumours, he would not suffer. For, because
they were brought thither, they were by some reported
to be cured." It is to a tendency of this kind
that the epithet thaumaturgus, inscribed upon his
tomb in St. Giles', Cripplegate, has been attributed.
And yet the epitaph, a translation of which we give
below, obviously bears another meaning ; as it explains
the " wonder-working " power of Foxe to be shown in
his recalling the martyrs as alive from the dead.
At last, worn out by old age and incessant labour,
the great martyrologist died at the age of seventy.
The year of his decease was one of dread in England,
owing to the preparations that were made by Spain
for the onslaught of the great Armada. Amid the
overhanging cloud the stedfast voice of Foxe was
heard predicting the failure of the attempt. He was
no prophet, but he read the signs of the times : he
trusted in God and had faith in the destinies of
England.
" Upon the report of his death -the whole city
lamented, honouring the small funeral which was made
for him with the concourse of a great multitude of
people, and in no other fashion of mourning than as
if among so many each man had buried his own father
or his own brother." His monument in St. Giles'
Church, Cripplegate, bears an inscription in Latin,
written by his son Samuel :
" To John Foxe, most faithful martyrologist of the
English Church, most sagacious explorer of historical
antiquity, most valiant defender of evangelical truth :
an admirable thaumaturge, who has brought again as
John Foxe i57
living from their ashes, like Phoenixes, the Marian
martyrs : Samuel Foxe his first-born has, with dutiful
affection and tears, erected this monument. He died
April 1 8, A.D. 1587, at the age of seventy. Life's
duration is mortal, its hope immortal?
RICHARD HOOKER
By (i553-i6oo)
T. H* L* Leary, D.CX.
RICHARD HOOKER was born at Heavitree, near Exeter,
in the year 1553. His parents were poor, but godly
and industrious, and spared no pains to give their
children the advantage of a good education. As a
schoolboy Richard was remarkable for gentleness and
modesty, no less than for the extraordinary intellectual
gifts, which earned him the by-name of " The Little
Wonder."
When his parents were about to apprentice their
gifted son to a trade, his schoolmaster persuaded them
(to use the words of his early biographer, Izaak Walton)
" to continue him at school, till he could find out some
means, by persuading his rich uncle or some other
charitable person, to ease them of a part of their care
and charge ; assuring them that their son was so
enriched with the blessings of nature and grace, that
God seemed to single him out as a special instrument
of His glory. And the good man told them also that
he would double his diligence in instructing him, and
would neither expect nor receive any other reward
than the content of so hopeful and happy an employ
ment. This was not unwelcome news, and especially
to his mother, to whom he was a dutiful and dear
child ; and all parties were so pleased with this pro-
158
RICHARD HOOKER.
Richard Hooker i59
posal that it was resolved so it should be. And in
the meantime his parents and master laid a foundation
for his future happiness, by instilling into his soul the
seeds of piety."
The kindly offices of the good schoolmaster did not
rest here. He brought his pupil's great abilities
and godly principles before the notice of Hooker's
uncle, John Hooker, chamberlain of the city of Exeter,
and a personal friend of the learned Reformer, Dr.
Jewel, also a Devonshire man, whom Queen Elizabeth
had appointed Bishop of Salisbury. The uncle be
sought the good Bishop, so well known to be a liberal
patron of poor scholars, to look favourably upon his
poor nephew, " whom nature had fitted for a scholar,
but the estate of his parents was so narrow that
they were unable to give him the advantage of learn
ing ; and that the Bishop would therefore become his
patron, and so prevent him from being a tradesman,
for he was a boy of remarkable hopes."
The result of this application was an interview of
the Bishop with Richard Hooker and his schoolmaster.
The Bishop was so charmed with the boy's sweetness
of manner and his intellectual force that he forthwith
became his patron, and provided at once for his future
education by a pension. At the same time the Bishop
liberally rewarded the schoolmaster who had evinced
so persistent and kindly an interest in his pupil.
By the Bishop's appointment Hooker entered Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, of which Dr. Cole was then
President, in his fifteenth year, as a Bible Clerk — an
office which, with his patron's liberal pension, gave him
a comfortable maintenance.
At Oxford Dr. John Reynolds, one of the most
distinguished scholars in the University, was tutor to
Hooker, whose unremitting attention to his studies,
160 Champions of the Truth
and natural amiability of disposition, modesty, and
earnest devotion, won him the esteem and affection of
all who knew him in his academical career. In his
eighteenth year this most diligent and devout of
students fell, from sheer overwork, into a dangerous
illness that lasted more than two months. During
the whole of this critical period the prayers of his pious
mother went up almost hourly to God for her son s
recovery. The mother's prayers were heard, and her
grateful son " would often mention this with much joy
and gratitude, and as often pray that he might never
live to occasion any sorrow to so good a mother ; of
whom he would often say, he loved her so dearly that
he would endeavour to be good, even as much for hers
as for his own sake."
As soon as Hooker was perfectly recovered from
his sickness, he went on foot with an Oxford com
panion and friend to visit his good mother at Exeter.
He took Salisbury on his way, purposely to pay his
respects to his kind patron, the Bishop, who made
Hooker and his companion dine with him at his own
table. At parting, the Bishop gave his protege kind
counsel and his benediction.
Scarcely, however, was Hooker gone when the
Bishop called to mind his own negligence in not
inquiring into Hooker's pecuniary wants. A servant
accordingly was at once despatched, who brought
Hooker back to the Bishop, who " said to him,
' Richard, I sent for you back to lend you a horse
which hath carried me many a mile, and I thank God,
with much ease ' ; and presently delivered into his
hand a walking-staff, with which he professed he had
travelled through many parts of Germany. And he
said, ' Richard, I do not give, but lend you my horse ;
be sure you be honest, and bring my horse back to me
Richard Hooker 161
at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now
give you ten groats to bear your charges to Exeter,
and here are ten groats more, which I charge you to
deliver to your mother, and tell her I send her a
Bishop's benediction with it, and beg the continuance
of her prayers for me. And if you bring my horse
back to me, I will give you ten groats more, to carry
you on foot to the college ; and so God bless you."
Very soon after this, on 2ist September 1571,
Bishop Jewel passed to his eternal rest, deplored by
none more deeply than Hooker, who was not long
left without a portion and a provision, by the blessing
of God. Dr. Cole told him to go on cheerfully with
his studies, assuring him that he should want neither
food nor raiment.
It so happened that Bishop Jewel some months
before his decease had strongly recommended Hooker
to the favourable notice of his friend, Dr. Sandys,
Bishop of London, and afterwards Archbishop of York,
as a youth of extraordinary gifts and of the most ex
emplary religious and moral character. This induced
Bishop Sandys to select Hooker as a tutor for his own
son Edwin, whom he was sending to Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, where Hooker himself was a student.
" I will have a tutor," wrote the Bishop, " for my son
that shall teach him learning by instruction, and virtue
by example ; and my greatest care shall be of the last ;
and, God willing, this Richard Hooker shall be the
man unto whom I will commit my Edwin." This con
fidence on the part of the Bishop in Hooker is all the
more remarkable on account of the fact that Hooker
and the Bishop's son were both very young and of
about the same age.
Hooker's University career was one of remarkable
distinction. He was now nineteen years of age, and
M
1 62 Champions of the Truth
had spent five years in the University, and by his un
wearied diligence and his transcendent talents had won
a name for " perfection in all the learned languages,"
and for a most surprising amount of theological learn
ing. Nor was he less remarkable for the purity and
beauty of his character as a Christian. This " divine
charm," as Walton tells us, " begot an early reverence
for his person, even from those that at other times and
in other companies took a liberty to cast off that strict
ness of behaviour and discourse required in a collegiate
life. And when he took any liberty to be pleasant, his
wit was never blemished with scoffing, or the utterance
of any conceit that bordered upon or might beget a
thought of looseness in his hearers. Thus mild, thus
innocent and exemplary, was his behaviour in his
college ; and thus this good man continued till his
death, still increasing in learning, in patience and
piety."
In addition to Edwin Sandys as a pupil, Hooker
had George Cranmer, nephew of the great Protestant
martyr, Archbishop Cranmer. Between the tutor and
the two pupils there existed the closest and the most
endearing friendship, founded upon the religious
principles they held in common, and upon a similarity
of taste. This friendship is well described by Walton
as beginning " in youth and in a university, free from
self-ends, which the friendships of age usually are not ;
and in this sweet, this blessed, this spiritual amity they
went on for many years ; and, as the holy prophet
saith, so ' they took sweet counsel together, and walked
in the house of God as friends.' "
In 1576, 23rd February, Hooker took his degree
as Inceptor of Arts at Oxford, which corresponds to the
more modern Bachelor of Arts, and in the next year
he proceeded to his Master's degree. He was soon
Richard Hooker 163
afterwards chosen a Fellow of his college. In 1579,
when the Regius Professor of Hebrew was seized with
a distemper of the brain, and rendered incapable of
discharging his public duties as a lecturer in Hebrew
to the University, the authorities of Oxford turned at
once to Hooker, notwithstanding his youthfulness, as
by far the most competent Hebrew scholar to supply
the place of the Regius Professor during this emergency.
Scarcely was Hooker ordained when he was selected by
Dr. John Elmer, or Aylmer, then Bishop of London,
to preach at St. Paul's Cross.
Hooker's preachership at St. Paul's Cross (1582)
was a turning-point in his domestic life, for it was on
this occasion he met his future wife. On arriving in
London from Oxford, to preach his sermon at St.
Paul's Cross, he was lodged, according to the custom
on all such occasions, at " The Shunamite's House "
(as it was called), where provision was made for the
preacher two days before and one day after the sermon.
To this house, then kept by Mrs. Churchman, wife of a
draper in Watling Street, came Hooker, " wet, weary,
and weather-beaten," suffering so severely from a cold
that he was very much afraid he would not be able
to preach his sermon on the day required. But, as
Walton tells us, " a warm bed, and rest, and drink
proper for a cold, given him by Mrs. Churchman, and
her diligent attendance added unto it, enabled him to
perform the office of the day."
So grateful was Hooker to Mrs. Churchman for her
tender and assiduous care of him in his illness, that,
according to Walton, " he thought himself bound in
conscience to believe all that she said, so that the good
man came to be persuaded by her that 'he was a
man of a tender constitution ' ; and that ' it was best
for him to have a wife, that might prove a nurse to
1 64 Champions of the Truth
him ; such an one as might both prolong his life and
make it more comfortable ; and such an one she could
and would provide for him, if he thought fit to marry.'
And he, not considering that 'the children of this
world are wiser in their generation than the children of
light/ but, like a true Nathanael, fearing no guile,
because he meant none, did give her such a power as
Eleazar was trusted wit^ (you may read it in the Book
of Genesis) when he was sent to choose a wife for Isaac ;
for even so he trusted her to choose for him, promising
upon a fair summons to return to London and accept
her choice ; and he did so in that or about the year
following. Now the wife provided for him was her
daughter Joan, who brought him neither beauty nor.
portion ; and for her conditions, they were too like
that wife's which is by Solomon compared to ' a drip
ping house ' ; so that he had no reason to * rejoice in the
wife of his youth,' but too just cause to say with the
holy prophet, * Woe is me, that I am constrained to
have my habitation in the tents of Kedar ! ' "
After his marriage Hooker was presented, gth
December 1584, to the Rectory of Drayton Beauchamp
in Buckinghamshire. The change does not appear to
have been a very happy one, removed as he was, in
the words of his quaint biographer, " from a garden of
piety, of pleasure, and of peace, and a sweet conversa
tion, into the thorny wilderness of a busy world, where
he behaved himself so as to give no occasion of evil,
but (as St. Paul adviseth a minister of God) ' in much
patience, in afflictions, in anguishes, in necessities, in
poverty,' and no doubt in * long-suffering,' yet troubling
no man with his own discontents and wants." In the
following year Mr. Edwin Sandys and Mr. George
Cranmer, his old pupils, undertook a special pilgrimage
of love to Drayton, to see their former much-respected
Richard Hooker 165
tutor, whom they found in a field reading the Odes of
Horace, one of his favourite classical authors, and
tending sheep during the absence of a farm-servant who
had gone home to dine and to assist his wife in some
necessary household work.
When the servant returned and released Hooker, he
proceeded with his beloved pupils to the Parsonage,
where he was at once " commanded by his wife to rock
the cradle," which he did with evident pleasure. This
picture of Hooker's domestic life reminds us of a
similar scene in the life of another gentle saint and
scholar, Melanchthon, who was seen by one of his
friends with one hand rocking the cradle of his child
and with the other holding a book.
When his old pupils parted from Hooker they by
no means disguised the profound pity they felt for his
deplorable circumstances. Mr. George Cranmer even
went so far as to say, " Good tutor, I am sorry your
lot is fallen in no better ground as to your parsonage,
and more sorry that your wife proves not a more com
fortable companion after you have wearied yourself in
your restless studies." To whom the good man replied,
" My dear George, if saints have usually a double share
in the miseries of this life, I, that am none, ought not
to repine at what my wise Creator hath appointed for
me ; but labour (as indeed I do daily) to submit mine
to His will, and possess my soul in patience and
peace."
When Edwin Sandys returned to London, he made
his father, who was then Archbishop of York, fully
acquainted with his old tutor's sad condition, and
urgently pleaded for his removal to some benefice that
might secure him a quieter and more comfortable sub
sistence. This the Archbishop, who cherished an
affectionate regard for Hooker, most willingly promised
1 66 Champions of the Truth
to do. Not long after his promise, the Archbishop
obtained for Hooker the Mastership of the Temple.
Though this secured him a complete emancipation
from a host of cares and anxieties, and brought with
it the advantage of better and more congenial society,
as well as more liberal stipend, Hooker was very
unwilling to leave his country parish, where he had
won many hearts, and where his example of a holy,
gentle, Christian life was not without its appropriate
fruits. It was accordingly with difficulty that Hooker
was persuaded by Archbishop Sandys to accept the
Mastership.
In this new and responsible position, on which he
entered 1 7th March I 5 8 5, in the thirty-fourth year of his
age, Hooker fully justified the great expectations occa
sioned by his appointment, as well as the appointment
itself. In all his removes, he was (to use Walton's
quaint language) " like the ark, which left a blessing
upon the place where it rested, and in all his employ
ment was like Jehoiada, that did good unto Israel." The
unfailing sweetness and gentleness of Hooker's character
never showed to greater advantage than in his contro
versial sermons at the Temple, in defence of the rites
and ceremonies of the Church of England, against the
attacks of the afternoon preacher, Rev. Walter Travers,
his Presbyterian colleague. As the witty Fuller
quaintly puts it, " The pulpit (at the Temple) spake
pure Canterbury in the morning and pure Geneva in
the afternoon." Travers was a divine who to con
siderable learning and a holy life added the courage
of his convictions. These controversial sermons were
conspicuous for the absence of all personality and
all bitterness, each preacher being anxious only to
demonstrate the truth of his own particular views.
Nothing was dearer to the heart of Hooker than
Richard Hooker 167
the desirability of peace and unity between " Puritans "
and " Prelatists," and the whole tone and spirit in
which he conducted his ever-memorable controversy
in defence of the Established Church is in keeping
with his words, " for more comfort it were for us (so
small is the joy we take in these strifes) to be joined
with you in bonds of indissoluble love and amity, to
live as if our persons being many, our souls were but
one, rather than in such dismembered sort to spend
our few and wretched days in a tedious persecuting
of wearisome contentions." The very purpose and
aim of Hooker's masterpiece, the Ecclesiastical Polity,
was, as he declared, "an earnest, longing desire to see
things brought to a peaceful end," and every page
of this great work reflects more or less the kindly,
gentle, brotherly feeling he invariably entertained
towards those who dissented from his ecclesiastical
views.
Hooker's sermons at the Temple were very popular,
full as they were of thought and learning, and written
in a stately and majestic style which gained the
admiration of the most fastidious scholars. Not only
the young students of the Temple, but the gravest
Benchers, such as Sir Edward Coke, and the most
distinguished men of the day, eagerly attended
Hooker's discourses, and were in the habit of taking
down notes of his wise and weighty words. The
burden of controversy, however, that was thrown upon
him was more than he could bear, and accordingly
he appealed most piteously to the Archbishop of
Canterbury to remove him from the Temple to some
quieter sphere of duty, in a letter which has a special
interest as being not merely the pledge and promise of
his great work on Ecclesiastical Polity^ but as an evi
dence of his constitutional hatred of all controversy, and of
1 68 Champions of the Truth
his genuine love and charity towards all denominations
in the Christian Church.
Hooker's appeal to the Archbishop was not with
out the desired effect, for very soon afterwards His
Grace of Canterbury presented him to the Rectory of
Boscombe, in the Diocese of Sarum. In the same
year, 1591, Hooker was made sub-dean of Salisbury
Cathedral. It was in his quiet parsonage at Boscombe
that he completed four of his eight proposed books on
The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Three years after
wards the Queen showed her regard for Hooker by
presenting him to the valuable Rectory of Bourne,
or Bishopsbourne, in Kent, three miles from Canter
bury, as the successor of Dr. Radman, who was
appointed to the Bishopric of Norwich. Here Hooker
continued to discharge his pastoral duties until his
death wrung all hearts ; living a holy and gentle life
among his parishioners, and devoting his spare hours
to the completion of his great work.
The Bourne parsonage was often visited by pilgrims
and scholars from all parts of England, who went to
see the man whose first instalment of the Ecclesiastical
Polity had won the admiration of the most learned
men of Europe, and whose holy and devoted life as
a pastor was a living lesson and a rebuke to some
of the clergy, and a wonder to all. Walton adds
some details of a personal character, which are
well worth quoting. " His books, and the innocency
and sanctity of his life, became so remarkable, that
many turned out of the road, and others (scholars
especially) went purposely to see the man whose life
and learning were so much admired ; and, alas ! as
our Saviour said of St. John Baptist, ' What went
they out to see ? A man clothed in purple and fine
linen ? ' No, indeed, but an obscure, harmless man ;
Richard Hooker 169
a man in poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a
coarse gown, or canonical coat, of a mean stature,
and stooping, and yet more lowly in the thoughts
of his soul ; his body worn out not with age, but
study and holy mortifications ; his face full of
heat-pimples, begot by his inactivity and sedentary
life."
" And," continues Walton, " to this true character
of his person let me add this of his disposition and
behaviour : God and nature blest him with so blessed
a bashfulness, that as in his younger days his pupils
might easily look him out of countenance, so neither
then nor in his age did he ever willingly look any
man in the face ; and was of so mild and humble a
nature, that his poor parish-clerk and he did never
talk but with both their hats on, or both off, at the
same time, and to this may be added, that though he
was not purblind, yet he was short- or weak-sighted,
and where he fixed his eyes at the beginning of his
sermon, there they continued till it was ended ; and
the reader has the liberty to believe that his modesty
and dim sight were some of the reasons why he trusted
Mrs. Churchman to choose his wife."
Hooker's custom at Bishopsbourne was to preach
every Sunday, and to catechise in the afternoons, his
main object being, in preaching and catechising, to
ground his people in the fundamental doctrines and
duties of the Christian faith. His sermons were short,
pointed, and pithy, and uttered with a grave zeal and
humble voice. His style was extremely simple, full of
apt illustrations, avoiding all hard words and needless
distinctions and sub-distinctions, and intended to be on
a level with the capacities and condition of his flock.
" He may be said as a preacher," writes Fuller, " to
have made good music with his fiddle, and stood alone
170 Champions of the Truth
without any rosin, having neither pronunciation nor
gesture to grace his matter."
The sick and the poor were special objects of
Hooker's solicitude and ministration. He made in
quiries to find out who were suffering and who were
in trouble of any kind. He often visited them, and
liberally ministered to their special necessities, and
prayed with them and for them. His kindly and
constant interventions as a peacemaker were especially
blessed, and most successful in their results. He set
his heart to heal every family quarrel, and to prevent
every threatened lawsuit. He urged his parishioners
to forget and to forgive wrongs and injuries, to bear one
another's burdens and infirmities, to live in love, because,
as St. John says, " He that liveth in love liveth in God ;
for God is love."
But Hooker's holiness of life and devotion to duty
did not protect him against the malice of unprincipled
detractors, who sought to injure his reputation by a
false accusation. The precise nature of the charge and
the particular source of it are not fully brought out by
any of Hooker's biographers. It is, however, beyond
all doubt that a grave charge was made, and that
Hooker suffered the keenest of anguish while he lay
under it, and that his entire innocence was established
by the persistent and kind intervention of his old pupils,
Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer, who had the
matter carefully investigated and brought home the
slander to its true source. Hooker's words, on hearing
the result of the investigation, were thoroughly char
acteristic. " The Lord forgive them," he said ; " and the
Lord bless you for this comfortable news. Now I have
a just occasion to say with Solomon, ' Friends are born
for the days of adversity,' and such you have proved
to me."
Richard Hooker 171
When Hooker's slanderers were condemned to
penalties for their malicious accusations, he exerted
himself to the utmost to secure the remission of their
punishment. His best friends considered that he was
defeating the highest ends of public justice in thus
delivering his slanderers from the consequences of their
own crimes ; but he vindicated his action on the ground
that it was his duty as a follower of Christ to do good
to them that had persecuted him.
At the comparatively early age of forty-six Hooker
succumbed to an attack of sickness, occasioned by a
cold taken on his passage by water between London
and Gravesend. During his long illness he was visited
daily by his good friend Dr. Saravia, who was " a great
comfort to him." The Rev. Hadrian Saravia, one of
the prebends of Canterbury, was a foreigner, who had
been a pastor in Holland. Hooker told his friend that
" he did not beg a long life from God for any other
reason than to live to finish his three remaining Books
of Polity^ and then, Lord, let Thy servant depart in
peace." Walton asserts that Hooker " hastened his
own death by hastening to give life to his books."
During the fatal illness his parsonage was robbed, and
when he heard of it, his only question was, " Are my
books and written papers safe ? " and when he came to
learn that they were all safe, he replied, " Then it matters
not, for no other loss can trouble me."
The day before his death the Lord's Supper was
administered to Hooker by his friend Dr. Saravia.
Early next morning Dr. Saravia found his dying friend
very weak, and deep in contemplation. This led him
to inquire into the thoughts that were occupying the
mind of the dying saint, who replied, " That he was
meditating the number and nature of angels, and their
blessed obedience and order, without which peace could
172 Champions of the Truth
not be in heaven ; and oh, that it might be so on
earth ! " After which words he said, " I have lived to
see this world is made up of perturbations, and have
been long preparing to leave it, and gathering comfort
for the dreadful hour of making my account with God,
which I now apprehend to be near ; and though I have
by His grace loved Him in my youth, and feared Him
in mine age, and laboured to have a conscience void of
offence to Him, and to all men, yet if Thou, O Lord, be
extreme to mark what I have done amiss, who can
abide it? And therefore where I have failed, Lord,
show mercy to me, for I plead not my righteousness,
but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness, for His
merits who died to purchase pardon for penitent
sinners ; and since I owe Thee a death, Lord, let it not
be terrible, and then take Thine own time, I submit to
it. Let not mine, O Lord, but let Thy will be done ! "
With which expression he fell into a dangerous
slumber — dangerous as to his recovery ; yet recover he
did, but it was only to speak these few words : " Good
Doctor, God hath heard my daily petitions, for I am at
peace with all men, and He is at peace with me ; and
from that blessed assurance I feel that inward joy
which this world can neither give nor take from me :
my conscience beareth me this witness, and this witness
makes the thoughts of death joyful. I could wish to
do the Church more service, but cannot hope it, for my
days are past, as a shadow that returns not." More
he would have spoken, but his spirits failed him ; and
after a short conflict betwixt nature and death, a quiet
sigh put a period to his breath. He died in November
1600.
The mortal remains of the saintly Hooker rest in
the graveyard of his own beloved church at Bourne.
His monument was erected by his friend Sir William
Richard Hooker 173
Cowper, in Bourne Church, with a suitable inscription
in Latin.
Hooker is called by Hallam " the finest as well
as the most philosophical writer of the Elizabethan
period." All his writings, but more especially his
masterpiece, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, are more
the works of a Christian philosopher than of a dogmatic
theologian. This great work is professedly a vindica
tion of the government of the Church of England as
established, against objectors, whether on the Puritan
or the Popish side. The author devotes his first two
books to a preliminary discussion of the fundamental
principles involved, and sets forth a philosophical
account of law in general, in its relations to the Deity
and His operations, to the material and spiritual
universe, to civil and ecclesiastical societies, and to the
ways in which law can be made known to man.
Hooker's own estimate of law is well worth repro
duction. He tells us, " Of law, there can be no less
acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God,
her voice the harmony of the world. All things in
heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feel
ing her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her
power. Both angels and men and creatures of what
condition soever, though each in different sort and
manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as
the mother of their peace and joy."
According to Hooker, the laws of created beings,
and of man conspicuously, imply that, as capable of
progress, he is impelled by desire, directed by reason.
The sentences which reason giveth are some more,
some less general. The knowledge of what man is in
himself, and in relation to other beings, is the mother
of the principles of the law of nature for human actions.
The laws of the commonwealth are orders agreed on,
174 Champions of the Truth
touching living in society. All civil government arises
from agreement between men. Nature requires some
kind of government, but leaves the choice open as to
which kind each shall be. Laws not only teach what
is good, but exert a constraining force. The authority
of the ruler comes either from a commission derived
directly from God, or from the consent of the governed.
This consent is explicit or implied. Positive are two
fold : those which establish some duty to which men
are bound by the law of reason ; or else those which
make that a duty which was not so before, i.e. they are
mixed or human. The third description of laws is
that which holds between bodies politic, i.e. laws of
nations.
Hooker further tells us that the good of man is
threefold : sensual, intellectual, and spiritual or divine.
The last comes in the way of reward to perfect
obedience. Man having failed of this by the way of
nature, God has provided a way that is supernatural,
on condition of faith, which includes hope and chanty.
On this point let us hear the very words of Hooker in
his Discourse of Justification : —
" Our salvation is by Christ alone ; therefore, how
soever or whatsoever we add unto Christ in the matter
of salvation, we overthrow Christ. ... It is a childish
cavil wherewith, in the matter of justification, our ad
versaries exclaim that we tread all Christian virtues
under our feet, and require nothing in Christians but
faith, because we teach that ' faith alone justifies.'
Whereas by this speech we never meant to exclude
either Hope or Charity from being always joined as
inseparable mates with Faith in the man that is
justified ; or Works from being added as necessary
duties, required at the hands of every justified man ;
but to show that Faith is the only hand which putteth
Richard Hooker 175
on Christ unto justification ; and Christ the only
garment which, being so put on, covereth the shame
of our defiled natures, hideth the imperfection of our
works, preserveth us blameless in the sight of God,
before whom otherwise the weakness of our faith were
cause sufficient to make us culpable, yea, to shut us
from the kingdom of heaven, where nothing that is not
absolute can enter."
And again, concerning the teaching that salvation
is by Christ alone through faith, Hooker, in the same
Discourse, says : " This importeth that we have re
demption, remission of sins through His blood, health
by His stripes, justice by Him ; that He doth sanctify
His Church, and make it glorious to Himself; that
entrance into joy shall be given us by Him ; yea, all
things by Him alone. Howbeit, not so by Him alone
as if in us to our vocation the hearing of the Gospel, to
our justification Faith, to our sanctification the fruits of
the Spirit, to our entrance into rest, perseverance in
hope, in faith, in holiness, were not necessary."
The doctrinal errors of the Church of Rome are
exposed by Hooker with force of argument, learning,
and clearness, but without any violence or bitterness.
Pope Clement VIII., on reading that portion of
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity which discussed the
nature and application of God's material and spiritual
laws, is said to have exclaimed, " There is no learning,
that the man hath not searched into, nothing too hard
for his understanding ; the man indeed deserves the
name of an author, his works will get reverence by age,
for there is in them such seeds of eternity, that if the
rest should be like this, they shall last till the last fire
shall consume all human learning."
Hooker, along with the greatest divines of the
Church of England, regarded the Papacy as the Anti-
1 76 Champions of the Truth
christ of New Testament prophecy. He compared
Popery with the system of Jeroboam, " the son of
Nebat, who made Israel to sin." "Christ hath said
in the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, to
Simon, the son of Jonas, ' I say to thee, Thou art
Peter.' Hence an opinion is held in the world, that
the Pope is universal head of all churches. Yet Jesus
said not, The Pope is universal head of all churches ;
but Tu es Petrus, ' Thou art Peter.' Howbeit, as
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon,
rose up and rebelled against his lord, and there
were gathered unto him vain men and wicked, which
made themselves strong against Rehoboam, the son
of Solomon, because Rehoboam was but a child and
tender-hearted, and could not resist them, so the son
of perdition and man of sin (being not able to brook
the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which
forbade His disciples to be like princes of nations :
* They bear rule that are called gracious, it shall not
be so with you ') hath risen up and rebelled against his
Lord." l
On the Romish doctrine of penance and priestly
absolution, Hooker speaks in no ambiguous terms.
" It is not 2 to be marvelled that so great a difference
appeareth between the doctrine of Rome and ours,
when we teach repentance. They imply in the name
of repentance much more than we do. We stand
chiefly upon the true inward conversion of the heart ;
they more upon works of external show. We teach,
above all things, that repentance which is one and the
same, from the beginning to the world's end ; they a
sacramental penance, of their own devising and shaping.
We labour to instruct men in such sort, that every soul
1 Sermon I. on St. Jude, § 15.
2 Ecclesiastical Polity, book vi. c. vi.
Richard Hooker 177
which is wounded with sin may learn the way how to
cure itself; they clean contrary, would make all sores
seem incurable, unless the priest have a hand in them."
The Popish doctrine of meritorious good works is
met by Hooker by the following argument against its
defence by Sir Thomas More : — " Their doctrine, as he
(Sir Thomas More) thought, maketh the works of man
rewardable in the world to come through the goodness
of God, whom it pleaseth to set so high a price upon
so poor a thing ; and ours, that a man doth receive
that eternal and high reward, not for his own works',
but for his faith's sake, by which he worketh ; whereas
in truth our doctrine is no other than that which we
have learned at the feet of Christ, namely, that God
doth justify the believing man, yet not for the worthi
ness of his belief, but for His worthiness which is
believed." l
Hooker, preaching on prayer, deals thus with the
Romish doctrine of invocation of saints and angels.
" Against invocation of any other than God alone,
if all arguments else should fail, the number whereof
is both great and forcible, yet this very bar and single
challenge might suffice, that whereas God hath in
Scripture delivered us so many patterns for imitation
when we pray, yea, framed ready to our hands in a
manner all, for suits and supplications which our con
dition of life on earth may at any time need, there
is not one, no not one, to be found directed unto
angels, saints, or any, saving God alone. So that,
if in such cases as this we hold it safest to be led
by the best examples that have gone before, when we
see what Noah, what Abraham, what Moses, what
David, what Daniel and the rest did, what form of
prayer Christ Himself likewise taught His Church,
1 Discourse of Justification, § 33.
N
i;8 Champions of the Truth
and what His blessed apostles did practise, who can
doubt but the way for us to pray so as we may un
doubtedly be accepted, is by conforming our prayers to
theirs, whose supplications we know were acceptable ? " 1
The Protestant doctrine of the sufficiency of Holy
Scripture as a rule of faith against the Romish doctrine
of the twofold rule of faith in Scripture and tradition
is thus maintained by Hooker 2 — " Now forasmuch as
there hath been reason alleged sufficient to conclude
that all things necessary unto salvation must be made
known, and that God Himself hath therefore revealed
His will, because otherwise men could not have known
so much as is necessary ; His surceasing to speak to
the world, since the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and the delivery of the same in writing, is unto
us a manifest token that the way of salvation is now
sufficiently opened, and that we need no other means
for our full instruction than God hath already furnished
us withal." " There is in Scripture, therefore, no defect
but that any man, what place or dwelling soever he
hold in the Church of God, may have thereby the
light of his natural understanding so perfected, that
the one being relieved by the other, there can want
no part of needful instruction unto any good work
which God Himself requireth, be it natural or super
natural, belonging simply unto men as men, or unto
men as they are united in whatsoever kind of society.
It sufficeth, therefore, that nature and Scripture do
serve in such full sort, that they both jointly, and
not severally either of them, be so complete, that unto
everlasting felicity we need not the knowledge of
anything more than these two may easily furnish our
minds with on all sides ; and therefore they which
1 Sermon on St, Matthew, § 3.
- Ecclesiastical Polity, book i. § 14.
Richard Hooker 179
add traditions, as a part of supernatural necessary
truth, have not the truth, but are in error."
Hooker was the contemporary of, and to some
extent of kindred genius with, the greatest writers on
English literature, of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Bacon.
The age that produced these writers, which have much
in common, attained a literary glory which has never
since been equalled, much less surpassed. This golden
age of English literature was the direct and natural out
come of the Reformation, that awakened the national
intellect as well as the national conscience from the
long, death-like slumber of ages. The sphere of human
interest was widened as it has never been widened
before or since, not merely by an open Bible, but by
the discovery of a new world. The impulse directly
springing from the Reformation suddenly changed the
whole aspect of England, and carried its literary genius
at a bound to the highest perfection in prose and
poetry.
For ages Popery had fettered in the chains of
superstition the genius of man, and had by depriving
men of the right of private judgment virtually deprived
them of their intellectual vision, dealing with men's
minds as the Philistines of old had dealt with Samson
when they made him the blinded instrument of their
will and the vassal of their supreme power. When
the Reformation made men the masters of their own
minds, a new motive was given to develop the powers
and resources of their intellect, a new interest was
supplied for the study of human character and human
destiny — the life that is and the life that is to be.
Then there dawned upon the world " the beginning
of a new and a truer, because a more inductive philo
sophy of human nature and human history," to quote
the words of Green the historian, who goes on to speak
i8o Champions of the Truth
of the "impulse which sprang from national triumph,
from the victory over the Armada, the deliverance
from Spain, the rolling away of the Catholic terror
which had hung like a cloud over the hopes of the
new people. With its new sense of security, its new
sense of national energy and national power, the
whole aspect of England suddenly changed. As yet
the interest of Elizabeth's reign had been political
and material ; the stage had been crowded with states
men and warriors — with Cecils and Walsinghams and
Drakes. Literature had hardly found a place in the
glories of the time. But from the moment when the
Armada drifted back broken to Ferrol, the figures of
warriors and statesmen were dwarfed by the grander
figures of poets and philosophers. Amidst the throng
in Elizabeth's antechamber, the noblest form is that of
the singer who lays the Faerie Queene at her feet ; or
of the young lawyer who muses amid the splendours
of the presence over the problems of the Novum
Organon. The triumph at Cadiz, the conquest of
Ireland, pass unheeded as we watch Hooker building
up his Ecclesiastical Polity among the sheepfolds, or
the genius of Shakespeare rising year by year into
supremer grandeur." l
Like his contemporary, Bacon, Hooker asserted
the just claims of human reason and the right of
" private judgment." The Ecclesiastical Polity from
end to end is an embodiment of this great Reforma
tion principle, for he shows that a divine order exists,
not in written revelation only, but in the moral relations
of mankind, as well as the social and political institu
tions of man ; and he claims for human reason the
office of ascertaining this order ; of distinguishing
between what is changeable and what is unchangeable,
1 History of the English People, vol. ii. pp. 460, 461.
Richard Hooker 181
and between what is essential and what is only
expedient. Matters of ecclesiastical arrangement he
included among the latter. " The Church," he says,
" hath authority to establish that for an order at one
time which at another time it may abolish, and in
that do well. Articles touching matters of order
are changeable articles ; concerning doctrine not so."
Hooker's fundamental conception of Church govern
ment was like Bacon's, that the good of the nation
should be the basis upon which such indifferent matters
should be decided. The question with both is not
what is best in itself, but what is best for England.
Even if foreign Reformed Churches were superior to
the Church of England in their constitution, Bacon,
like Hooker, condemns " the partial affectation and
imitation of foreign Churches. Our Church is not
now to plant. It is settled and established. It may
be, in civil states a republic is a better policy than
a kingdom ; yet God forbid our lawful kingdom should
be tied to innovations and rude alterations " ; and
in 1603 Bacon adopts still more pointedly Hooker's
fundamental views : " I could never find but that
God hath left the like liberty to the Church govern
ment as He hath done to the civil government, to
be varied according to time and place and accidents,
which nevertheless His high and divine providence
doth order and dispose."
A large part of Hooker's great work, the Ecclesi
astical Polity, is occupied with questions philosophical
and controversial. The controversies as to Church order
he was unwillingly led into, for he was a man of devout
spirit and a lover of peace. We must not conclude
this brief memoir without referring to the Christian
tone of his works as distinct from that which is merely
Ecclesiastical. The passage on justification by faith is
1 82 Champions of the Truth
sufficient to mark his soundness in theology. The
opening pages of the Third Book of the Polity show
that his own soul was breathing a purer and loftier
atmosphere.
With regard to the style of Hooker as a writer, the
judgment of Hallam is thus given : — " So stately and
graceful is the march of his periods, so various the fall
of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images,
so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction,
so little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of
pedantry in his learned phrase, that I know not whether
any later writer has more admirably displayed the
capacities of our language, or produced passages more
worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of
antiquity."
Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World,
published 1615, is the first English writer who quotes
Hooker as an authority, and gives the definition of law,
with the same feeling of admiration which so many
illustrious writers have since that time regarded it.
The influence and authority of Hooker as a Christian
philosopher has increased rather than diminished since
his own day. His large and charitable views, and his
moderation in presenting them, with the conspicuous
absence of all bigotry and prejudice, have commended
his writings to the most opposite schools of religious
thought, who have found in him confirmation of their
views, and quote him as an authority. No human
works are free from error, and sentences can be found
which are scarcely consistent with the teaching of the
Reformed Churches on certain points ; but these faults,
like spots on the sun, do not greatly affect the splen
dour of his pages.
Locke, the author of the Human Understanding, and
the great advocate of liberty of conscience and tolera-
Richard Hooker 183
tion, found in Hooker the most convincing and eloquent
expositor of his own principles of toleration and of the
fundamental principles of all civil government. In an
age memorable for the extremity to which party views
in religion were carried, and for the bitterness in which
they were expressed, it is Hooker's great distinction
that, without any sacrifice of Christian principle, his
constant aim was moderation, and next to it the expres
sion of his moderate views in the language of Christian
charity. He always spoke what he believed to be the
truth, but he always " spake the truth in love''
RICHARD BAXTER
By (1615-1691)
W. G* Blaikie, LL.D.
RICHARD BAXTER was the son of a Shropshire yeoman
of the same name, and of Beatrice Adeney, of Rowton,
in the same county, at which latter place he was
born on 1 2th November 1615. His mother was
the daughter of Richard Adeney, of Rowton, near
High Ercall. About the time of Baxter's birth his
father had been converted, mainly through the reading
of the Holy Scriptures. To his instructions and in
fluence Richard owed his first religious impressions.
At a very early period he came under the power of
Divine truth. A book called Bunny's Resolution, by
a Jesuit named Parsons, corrected by Edmund Bunny,
was the means of the decisive change.
The neighbouring clergy during Baxter's early years
were usually both ignorant and careless, and little of
any kind was to be learned from them. What Baxter
knew of divine truth was gathered chiefly from books,
among which Sibb's Bruised Reed, Perkins' On
Repentance, On Living and Dying Well, and On
the Government of the Tongue, and Culverwell's
Treatise on Faith, were pre-eminently useful. His
education was conducted in a somewhat fitful and
irregular way. Ill -health and other causes deprived
him of the benefits of University training. What he
184
RICHARD BAXTER.
Richard Baxter 185
knew of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew (and it was not
much), and what he acquired of logic and metaphysics,
for which he had a great liking, was attained mainly
through his own exertions.
At an early period he became the victim of ill-
health, and during all his life he suffered from a com
plication of diseases that often inflicted acute and terrible
suffering. His unprecedented activity indicates very
forcibly what prodigious vitality of spirit he must have
had, to labour as he did, in spite of such an accumula
tion of bodily infirmities.
In early years he was troubled with grave doubts as
to his spiritual condition. His lapses into sins which
were condemned by his own conscience were the main
causes of his perplexity. When he came to under
stand how " the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the
spirit against the flesh," he was more satisfied of the
genuineness of his faith. He came to see that " he who
would rather leave his sin than have leave to keep it,
and had rather be the most holy than have leave to be
unholy, or less holy, is neither without true repentance
nor the love of God."
On loth May 1634 Baxter lost his mother. From
this time his desire to be a minister of the Gospel be
came very strong. Hitherto, though he found little to
admire in the neighbouring clergy, he had conformed
to the Church ; and indeed he had at first a dislike to
nonconformity. It was his becoming acquainted with
some nonconformist ministers of eminent godliness, and
learning that they were persecuted by the bishops, that
turned his sympathies into another channel. But he
had no difficulty in subscribing the Articles, nor in
receiving ordination at the hands of a bishop. Accord
ingly, in 1638, Baxter was ordained by Thornborough,
Bishop of Worcester, and received a licence to teach in
1 86 Champions of the Truth
the school of Dudley. After a year he removed to
Bridgnorth, where he acted as assistant to the minister
with considerable success. He was led at this time to
examine more carefully the grounds of controversy be
tween the Church and nonconformists, with the result
that in many points he came to agree with the latter,
on whose side, gradually but decidedly, and without
either bigotry or bitterness, he came to stand.
Baxter's youth and early manhood extended over
the reign of Charles I. The Church was still undivided ;
but the Puritan portion gave it but a wavering allegiance,
as their requests for reforms were so little regarded.
In 1640 the town of Kidderminster petitioned
against their vicar, an ignorant and drunken fellow, and
he, to compromise the matter, offered to allow sixty
pounds a year for a preacher, on whom the main part
of the duty of the parish would fall. The people con
curring with this offer, gave an invitation to Baxter,
who willingly accepted it.
It was a large and necessitous field ; the congrega
tion was numerous, but rude and ignorant, and at first
the faithfulness of Baxter raised up enemies against
him. His doctrines were misrepresented, and some
times atrocious charges were brought against his
character. Besides preaching, he held meetings in his
house both with young and old, for going over the
sermon, removing difficulties, and making fuller explana
tions. Two days every week were devoted to family
catechising and conference. With each family he spent
about an hour, not allowing any stranger to be present,
in order that there might be no hindrance to the frank
expression of his people's views. Every first Wednes
day of the month he had a meeting for parish discipline ;
every first Thursday the neighbouring ministers met for
prayer and conference. But the details of Baxter's
Richard Baxter 187
ministry at Kidderminster will be given more suitably
in connection with the second and longer ministry
which he exercised in the place. Two years after his
first settlement there as lecturer he was obliged to
withdraw. In connection with a Parliamentary order
for defacing images of the Trinity in churches and
removing crucifixes, for which Baxter was held to be
accountable, a violent attack was made on his life and
on that of a churchwarden. Baxter had not yet had
time to live down calumny and make his true character
to be universally known and respected. It was judged
best, therefore, that he should retire for a time from
Kidderminster, and find employment in some other
sphere. An attempt, a few weeks afterwards, to resume
work in Kidderminster had such ill success that Baxter
was fully persuaded that a change was necessary.
The breach with King Charles I. had become so
serious that an army against him was in the field.
Baxter, when he left Kidderminster penniless, hardly
knew where to turn, but having a friend at Coventry,
he went to spend a few weeks with him. While at
Coventry he was asked to preach to the soldiers of the
Parliamentary army stationed there, and, as he says, the
offer suited well to his necessities. But he resolved that
he would not be chaplain to a regiment nor accept a
commission ; he merely preached once a week to the
soldiers and once to the people, taking nothing from
either but what sufficed for food. This continued for
about two years, but at the end of that time Baxter
got a more specific invitation to be chaplain to the
troops. In accepting this invitation it was not easy for
him to get over the fact that, in taking the oath of
allegiance, he had sworn to be faithful to the King and
his heirs. But it was at this time the common opinion
in the army that the Parliament was faithful to the
1 88 Champions of the Truth
King, having no other desire than to restrain him from
unconstitutional exercises of his authority. So Baxter
decided to go among them. " As soon as I came to
the army," he says, " Oliver Cromwell coolly bade me
welcome, and never spoke one word to me more while
I was there."
Baxter set himself, he tells us, to find out the errors
and corruptions of the soldiers, and to discourse and
dispute them out of their mistakes, both religious and
political. He found that the spirit of disputation, both
on political and religious questions, was very rampant.
His account of the army is by no means flattering,
and conveys on the whole an unpleasant impression of
the kind of religion that prevailed in it. One would
suppose from it that there was much more of vain
glorious disputatiousness among those who made a
profession of religion than of the faith that works by
love and purifies the heart. It is supposed by some
that his account was coloured by disappointment, from
his not being more successful in his dealings with the
men of this class that he came in contact with. Even
of Cromwell, Baxter had a very qualified opinion ; he
found him not disposed to dispute with him, and much
more fond of making discourses of his own on free
grace than of listening to arguments against Anti-
nomianism or Anabaptism.
If it be thought that, because Baxter devoted so
much energy in the army to controverted subjects, the
tone of his own spirit must have been cold and carnal,
that notion is put to flight by the fact that at the end
of this period, after a severe illness, the first and
perhaps the most spiritual of his books was written,
The SaMs Everlasting Rest. " While I was in
health," he says, " I had not the least thought of writing
books, or of serving God in any more public way than
Richard Baxter 189
preaching ; but when I was weakened by great bleeding,
and left solitary in my chamber at Sir John Cook's, in
Derbyshire, without any acquaintance but my servant
about me, and was sentenced to death by the physicians,
I began to contemplate more seriously on the ever
lasting rest, which I apprehended myself to be just on
the borders of. That my thoughts might not too much
scatter in my meditation, I began to write something
on that subject, intending but the quantity of a sermon
or two ; but being continued long in weakness, where
I had no books and no better employment, I followed
it on till it was enlarged to the bulk in which it is
published."
Except a Bible and a Concordance, Baxter had not
a single book to help him in writing The Sainfs Rest.
Afterwards he added references in the margin. " The
transcript of the heart," as he remarks, " hath the
greatest force on the hearts of others." It was the
truth that had been so useful and so acceptable in his
own time of need that he passed on to others, with
the image and superscription of his own experience.
Amongst the books that have come from uninspired
pens it has been one of the most useful.
The fourteen years which succeeded, from the age
of thirty-one to forty-five, may be called the golden
period of Baxter's life. While he was lying sick and
feeble from an attack of hemorrhage, after leaving the
army, the people of Kidderminster had renewed the
fight with their old vicar and his curate. Again they
looked to Baxter, and the living having been seques
trated, they offered it to him. But Baxter would hear
of nothing of the kind. He had insuperable scruples
about what was called the " et cetera oath." All that
he was willing to do was to resume the lectureship he
had held before, for which he would expect a stipend
190 Champions of the Truth
of a hundred pounds. In point of fact, he did not get
more than eighty or ninety pounds, and a few rooms
to dwell in at the top of another man's house.
In his settlement at Kidderminster he showed the
same disinterestedness which afterwards appeared in
his refusing a bishopric. At a subsequent time Baxter
was willing to continue his work at Kidderminister for
nothing, if he had only been permitted to remain.
While, however, Baxter did not desire to commit him
self to the Church more closely than was necessary for
enabling him to exercise his ministry, it must ever be
remembered that both now and during the rest of his
life he was unswerving in his personal loyalty to the
King. The execution of the King he always regarded
as a grievous crime ; and notwithstanding all that was
repulsive in his son, and all that he himself and his
brethren suffered at the Restoration, his allegiance to
Charles II. could never be reasonably challenged.
Baxter's account of his ministry at Kidderminster
is a most remarkable document. His methods of work
were very characteristic. After the war, he preached
but once on the Lord's day and once every Thursday,
besides occasional sermons. But a sermon in those
days was like a little book. Mention has already been
made of the meetings that were held at his house to
go over the sermon, and of the two days spent by him
and his assistant in catechising the people. Having
some knowledge of medicine, and as there was at first
no physician in Kidderminster, he had to look after the
sick in more ways than one, and sometimes as many
as twenty would be at his door at once ; but for this
service he never took a penny. All these labours,
however, he tells us, were but his recreation, and, as it
were, the work of his spare hours ; his writings were
his chief daily labours.
Richard Baxter 191
But his bodily weakness contracted sadly the time
which he was able to give to these. Owing to infirmity,
he could not get up before seven in the morning, and
afterwards not till much later ; he needed an hour for
dressing, an hour for walking before dinner, and the
same before supper ; and after supper he could rarely
study. Yet there never was a year of Baxter's life,
after he began to publish, but he gave to the world
some treatise or treatises, often very elaborate works,
and full of learning. The total list of his publications
amount to a hundred and sixty-eight, being on an
average about four per annum for the fifty-two years
of his literary activity.
His labours were abundantly appreciated. The
brunt of opposition was broken during his first ministry ;
ever after he found the people tractable and unpre
judiced. In the beginning of his ministry he was wont
to keep a list of conversions ; but soon the list exceeded
his ability to count. Five galleries had to be added
to the church to accommodate the increasing congrega
tion. The private meetings, too, were all full. " On
the Lord's day there was no disorder to be seen in the
streets ; but you might hear a hundred families singing
psalms and repeating sermons as you passed through
them. In a word, when I came thither first there
was about one family in a street that worshipped God
and called on His name, and when I came away there
were some streets in which there was not one poor
family in the side that did not do so. And in those
families that were the worst, being inns and alehouses,
usually some person in each house did seem to be
religious."
His personal dealings with families were also very
successful. Few went away without tears, or seem
ingly serious promises for a godly life. Some of
i92 Champions of the Truth
the poor people became excellent theologians, and
many of them were very able in prayer. Their lives,
too, corresponded to their professions. " The pro
fessors of serious godliness were generally of very
humble minds and carriage ; of meek and quiet
behaviour unto others, and of blamelessness and inno-
cency in their conversation." Round about Kidder
minster, too, the blessings spread. When he preached
at some of the neighbouring towns, the people not
only crowded the churches, but hung on the
windows and the leads in the intensity of their desire
to hear.
Baxter had his own way of accounting for all this
success. First, such preaching and such methods were
new to the people. Then, being himself in the vigour
of his spirits, having naturally a familiar moving voice,
and yet speaking in the consciousness of his infirmity
as a dying man to dying men, he riveted their attention
and arrested their hearts. The success of his party in
the war gave him a more advantageous position, as
people are wont to give more attention to the supporters
of a winning cause. His own character too helped his
preaching. He tells us that he was greatly aided by
the zeal and diligence of the godly people, and by their
holy, humble, blameless lives. The unity and concord
of the brethren was a further help. His medical
practice among the poor ; the books he wrote ; his
being unmarried, so that he could take his people to
his heart as his children, so to speak ; his not meddling
with public business ; and his having nothing to do
with tithes, are all enumerated by him as secondary
causes that contributed to his success. Perhaps in
this enumeration he hardly lays stress enough on what
under God must have been the great cause, namely,
the purity, sincerity, and ardour of his own convictions,
Richard Baxter 193
and the whole-hearted simplicity with which he poured
them out to his people.
The effects of his labours at Kidderminster were
seen long after he left the place, and even after the
termination of his life. In an edition of The Saint's
Rest in 1759, almost a century after he left Kidder
minster, it was said that the religious spirit which he
introduced was yet to be traced in some degree in the
town and neighbourhood. Of a life retaining its
fragrance and its influence so long it cannot be doubted
that it was in closest and most vital contact with the
Son of God.
Baxter occupied a peculiar position in relation to
the Commonwealth and its heads. While he agreed
in the main with the Parliamentary party in the steps
they took for securing the liberties of the country, even
when opposition had to be offered to the King, his
loyalty to the King's person remained unshaken, and
the King's execution appeared to him a great national
crime.
Though he had once taken the Covenant, Baxter
came to disapprove of it, as a snare to conscience and
a premium on insincerity. So also he disliked the
" Engagement" which the Independents promoted. In
regard to Cromwell, he could not but be pleased with
his intense love of the Gospel and desire to see the
realm of Great Britain governed according to the law
of Christ. But he believed that, notwithstanding all
his godly sympathies, and perhaps under the influence
of hope that he might the better advance the Gospel,
Cromwell was influenced by an ambition that would
not rest till the whole government of the country was
brought into his own hands. Personally, Baxter looked
on Cromwell as a usurper. Yet he could not but
acknowledge it as a marvellous fact that under the
O
194 Champions of the Truth
government of a usurper he and other servants of the
Lord had enjoyed unbounded freedom in preaching
the Gospel, and had seen the Divine blessing descend
almost visibly upon their labours ; while a legitimate
sovereign had driven them from their pulpits and
parishes as nuisances not to be tolerated, and set an
example of personal lawlessness and debauchery which
served only to corrupt and degrade the nation.
Baxter was constantly endeavouring to conciliate
Church parties and unite them into one. Though he
held Presbyterianism to be the mode of church govern
ment which was most in accordance with the Word of
God, he was by no means an extreme Presbyterian, as
many were in his time. In some respects he differed
from the Presbyterians, and especially in these two : he
disliked their intolerance, and he did not accept their
view of the office of ruling elder. The Presbyterians
wished to compel men to uniformity ; Baxter had no
confidence in such compulsion. The truth, in his view,
could prevail only by its own inward victories ; it was
no service to Christ to compel men to accept it.
Baxter would have been willing to accept a form of
church government which borrowed features from Epis
copacy on the one hand or from Independency on the
other. He was willing, with Archbishop Usher, to
have a government in which bishops should exercise
functions corresponding to those of the superintendent
in the early Reformed Scotch Church, though far below
those of the prelate. We shall have by and by to
notice his efforts in this direction after the Restoration.
All his life Baxter endeavoured to reconcile and unite,
wherever he thought such a course legitimate and
possible ; and for this reason he was less liked by the
leaders of parties than he would have been had he been
the rigorous champion of some one method.
Richard Baxter 195
The cordiality with which all classes united in
welcoming Charles II. was very remarkable. The
Puritan section of the nation expected very different
treatment from that which they soon came to experience.
They were deceived by the King's solemn promises
and assurances, given only to simplify his way to the
throne, and flung aside by him as soon as his purpose
was gained. Some were even inclined to believe that
he was now a regenerate man, for Charles, while on
the Continent, had been mean enough, when Puritans
were within hearing, to pretend to extraordinary fervour
in his private devotions, wishing them to believe that
he was a converted man. Baxter and his friends were
full of hope that an ecclesiastical compromise would be
effected, by means of which the various parties would
be embraced in a single church.
And at first it seemed as if things were tending in
that direction. The Puritans were a powerful body,
and it was desirable not to offend them at first.
Baxter and others were appointed chaplains to the
King ; and once Baxter preached before His Majesty.
In an interview with him he urged his views very
solemnly and powerfully in favour of liberty and of
union, and besought the King not to imagine that the
Puritans were actuated by want of regard for him, but
solely by a regard for the highest welfare of the kingdom.
The King listened very attentively, and gave a gracious
answer, expressing his desire to forward all that had
been laid before him, insomuch that one of the ministers
present, Mr. Ash, burst into tears, and could not for
bear expressing what gladness the promise of His Majesty
had put into his heart.
At the King's request, proposals for settlement of
the Church question, on the basis of Archbishop Usher's
form of government, were drawn up by the ministers,
196 Champions of the Truth
with a view, as it was believed, to a conference with
the Episcopalians. They did not indicate what they
altogether approved of, but rather what they could
accept, and what the other side, as they believed, could
accept likewise. They were disappointed, however,
in regard to the conference. After some delay the
King communicated his intentions in the form of a
long document called a Declaration, to which the
Puritans were permitted to offer their objections.
There were some encouraging things in the Declaration,
but the Puritans saw little in it that could be a basis
of agreement. At last a meeting was brought about,
the famous Savoy Conference, between certain bishops
and certain Puritans ; but on the part of the bishops
there was no attempt at conciliation. They defended
things as they were, and it became apparent that they
did not wish for union. The Savoy Conference, after
much discussion, broke up without leading to any result.
On the part of the Puritans, Baxter was the chief
speaker, and he spoke at great length and with great
explicitness. His chief opponent was Bishop Gunning,
who drew him into many subtle logical disputes, in
which the great practical matters at stake seemed to
be forgotten.
Before the Savoy Conference, the King had offered
bishoprics to Baxter and two other members of the
Puritan party, Calamy and Reynolds. Baxter and his
friends were of opinion that, if some such concessions
as to the episcopal office as they sought were made,
there was no sufficient reason why they should not
accept. Personally, Baxter did not wish the office.
He was full of literary employment ; writing books
was the chief function of his life, and he did not wish
to be called from it. Besides, even then he had a
foreboding that the best and godliest of the ministers
Richard Baxter 197
would be cast out, and he did not wish to be severed
from them. He saw that the bishops would have the
painful duty of silencing these ministers in their dioceses,
and he was afraid that even if any modification were con
ceded as to the bishop's office, it would be withdrawn
in a short time. For himself Baxter explicitly refused.
Calamy declined also, but Reynolds accepted the offer,
on the understanding, as he told Baxter, that a bishop
and a presbyter did not differ ordine sed gradu, and
that he accepted the place as described in the King's
declaration, and not as it stood before. The result of
the Savoy Conference showed that if Baxter and Calamy
had accepted, they would have been in a very false
position, and Reynolds soon found that, whatever his
own understanding or wish might have been, no change
was really effected in the character of the office.
Having refused the bishopric of Hereford, Baxter's
request for himself was simply that he might be allowed
to remain at Kidderminster. The existing vicar was
a man of such character that Baxter dared not ask
that he should be preferred to any charge of souls ;
but if there were any vacant prebend or other place
of competent emolument, he asked that he might be
appointed to it, and that he himself might become vicar.
But if there should be any insuperable barrier to that
arrangement, Baxter was willing to return to Kidder
minster as curate, for his sole desire was to continue
his ministry among his beloved flock. Did ever such
a thing happen before or since in the Church of
England or anywhere else ? A man in the same
breath declining a bishopric and humbly craving to
be allowed to serve as curate to an incapable vicar !
The Act of Uniformity came into operation in
1662, and two thousand of the best ministers of the
country came out of the Church. For various reasons
198 Champions of the Truth
Baxter had not waited to the last, but left before the
fatal day, 24th August 1662. Of him it could hardly
be said that he was ejected from his living, for he was
but a lecturer, and the ninety pounds a year he had
from the old vicar was all that the Church gave him.
At the same time he was incapacitated from holding
even the office of curate.
Baxter's desire to continue at Kidderminster was
sternly refused. The persons who instigated the
refusal were Sir Ralph Clare, an old Royalist, and Dr.
Morley, bishop of the diocese. Baxter offered to the
vicar to do his work for nothing, but in vain. He
made a last appeal to him for leave to administer the
sacrament once more to his people, and preach a fare
well sermon ; but that too was refused.
Thus ended the ministry of Richard Baxter in the
Church of England. The work of St. Bartholomew's
Day was a grievous blow to the cause of evangelical
truth and life. The effects of it were felt in England
for more than a hundred years. No doubt a great
testimony was borne to Christian principle and Chris
tian conscience ; it was a marvellous act of allegiance
to conscience that, rather than violate it, two thousand
men abandoned their means of living, under circum
stances and conditions, too, that rendered it almost
hopeless for them to attempt to make a livelihood in
any other way. After all, it was not the mere ejection
of the ministers from their livings that constituted the
blow to evangelical religion, but the law that forbade
their continuing to live near their flocks, or minister
to them, or continue that influence which they had
exercised so long with the best results. We shall see
how it fared with Baxter, who removed to London,
and tried there to find some field for the exercise
of his ministry, but was harassed nearly the whole
Richard Baxter 199
remainder of his life with vexatious opposition and
interruptions, and even in his old age treated as an
alien and an enemy.
It is hard to believe that within three weeks of St.
Bartholomew's Day Baxter was married to a youthful
wife. Miss Margaret Charlton, daughter of a county
gentleman in the neighbourhood, had been greatly
benefited by his ministry while residing with her
widowed mother at Kidderminster, and, notwithstand
ing Baxter's known sentiments in favour of ministerial
celibacy, an affection had sprung up between them, of
which marriage was the natural result This event
would probably have happened sooner, but the negotia
tions with the King, the Savoy Conference, and other
public transactions had interfered, and it was only after
Baxter had been separated from his pastoral charge
that the purpose was carried into effect. As his wife
had a small portion, and as Baxter, from his books and
otherwise, was in possession of some means, they were
not confronted with that spectre of poverty which so
many of the ejected ministers had to face. Still, the
nineteen years they spent together was a troubled time,
and but for their warm affection for each other, and
enjoyment of the peace that passeth understanding,
there would have been little sunshine in their wedded
life.
The prohibition to exercise the ministry was carried
out with great rigour and harshness. Once, when
Baxter was expected with a few others at a friend's
house, to pray for a dying woman, two justices of the
peace came with the Parliament's serjeant-at-arms to
apprehend them, but fortunately missed them. Some
of the Puritans had been hoping for a relaxation of
the law, but in place of this being granted, an Act was
passed in June 1663, to the effect "that every person
200 Champions of the Truth
above sixteen years old, who should be present at any
meeting, under colour or pretence of any exercise of
religion, in other manner than is allowed by the liturgy,
or practice of the Church of England, where there are
five persons more than the household, shall, for the
first offence by a justice of peace be recorded, and sent
to jail three months till he pay five pounds ; for the
second offence six months till he pay ten pounds ; and
for the third time, being convicted by a jury, shall
be banished to some of the American plantations,
excepting New England or Virginia."
Baxter was mainly occupied during his first three
years' residence in London with his books. He
occupied himself likewise with endeavours to promote
the work of John Eliot, the noble missionary to the
American Indians.
At the end of 1665 things looked ill for the country.
" War with the Hollanders, which yet continueth ; and
the driest winter, spring, and summer that ever man
alive knew. . . . The plague hath seized on the
famousest and most excellent city in Christendom,
and at this time nearly 8300 die of all diseases in a
week. . . . Oh, how is London, the place that God
hath honoured with His Gospel above all places of
the earth, laid low in horrors, and wasted almost to
desolation by the wrath of God, whom England hath
contemned ! " With beautiful devotedness several of
the ejected ministers of London returned to the scenes
of their former labours, and preached to their flocks
from the pulpits from which their successors had fled
in terror. Yet in the midst of these scenes the
Parliament, which had gone to Oxford to avoid the
plague, was busy with an Act fitted to make the cases
of the silenced ministers more intolerable than before.
Baxter himself was now at Acton, a few miles out
Richard Baxter 201
of town, which continued for a time to be his place of
abode. In 1666 another fearful calamity befell London
— the fire which consumed a large part of the city.
One good came out of this catastrophe. The churches
being burnt, and the parish ministers gone, the non
conformists were now resolved to brave all dangers
and preach till they were imprisoned. Some of the
churches that were not burnt had able and earnest
ministers, among whom were Dr. Stillingfleet, Dr.
Tillotson, and Dr. Whichcote. Baxter regarded this
as a source of satisfaction ; but the prominent men in
the Church fancied themselves quite competent for the
whole work of the country, and they were desirous to
silence the rest. Good Lord Chief Justice Hale pre
pared a Bill with a conciliatory tendency, but the
bishops were alarmed, and nothing was done.
Baxter's friendship with Chief Justice Hale was
one of the happiest episodes in his life. His integrity,
patience, and soundness as a judge were admitted by
all. He was the great means of rebuilding London,
judging of all disputed questions, and removing a
multitude of hindrances. His style of living was plain
and simple, His diligence as an author brought out
books extending to four volumes in folio. His con
versation on religious subjects was most interesting
and edifying. Towards Baxter he showed the greatest
respect, and even when he saw that the people were
crowding into Baxter's house to hear him preach, Hale,
instead of trying to hinder them, seemed pleased and
happy.
But the clergyman of the parish was a man of very
different character. He hated Baxter, and was shocked
to find many of his parishioners going to his preach
ings. In 1670 Baxter was arraigned for holding con
venticles, and thereafter committed to prison. After
202 Champions of the Truth
a time he was discharged on a technical ground. But
his residence at Acton could not be continued, and he
removed to Totteridge, near Barnet The Act against
conventicles had expired, so that nonconformists were
hoping for more liberty in preaching ; but ere long it
was renewed with more restrictive enactments than
ever. But though Parliament was more severe, the
King became more lenient. Through the personal
interposition of His Majesty, what was called " the
indulgence" came into operation in 1672, and Baxter
and his friends found more liberty to preach the Gospel.
Baxter returned to London, and endeavoured, as we
shall see in the next section, to find a more regular
sphere for his ministry.
The nine or ten years that had now elapsed since
he left Kidderminster had been ill fitted for regular
work. The sad condition of the ministers and congre
gations that had suffered on St. Bartholomew's Day was
a continual source of depression. Moving about from
place to place was unfavourable for writing books.
The plague and the fire were additional elements of
disturbance and distraction. Occasionally hope would
revive that an accommodation might be brought about,
whereby the more moderate of the various schools
might find a place in the Church ; but all such hopes
were doomed to disappointment.
Baxter's chief employment was writing books, and
it is marvellous how much he accomplished. He
laboured under the disadvantage, which one might
have thought fatal to him as a writer, of being
separated from his library. On leaving Kidderminster
he had had to store his books in some old cellar, where
damp and the rats made sad havoc of them ; it was
twelve years before he was able to get them removed
to London, and very soon after, they were attached by
Richard Baxter 203
process of law. Between the years 1665 and 1670
Baxter laboured diligently on some of his most im
portant works.
During this period, too, he had a discussion and
correspondence with Dr. John Owen, about terms of
agreement among Christians of all parties. Out of
this, however, no practical result came. With a man
of very different character, the Scotch Earl of Lauder-
dale, he had some correspondence, in which Lauderdale
asked him to go to Scotland, to try to bring about
some settlement there, and offered him a bishopric or a
professorship, or such other position as he might desire.
Baxter excused himself, partly on public grounds, and
partly on the ground of health, as he did not think he
could live in Scotland. Strange to say, his opinion of
Lauderdale was not altogether unfavourable, though the
earl turned out so cruel a scourge to his co-religionists
that his name became a by-word. Baxter's charitable
temper hoped the best in regard to men who had some
compensating qualities, but the general drift of whose
lives was too plainly evil.
In 1672 King Charles issued a declaration to the
effect " that His Majesty, in virtue of his supreme power
in matters ecclesiastical, suspends all penal laws there
about, and that he will grant a convenient number of
public meeting-places to men of all sorts that conform
not." Under protection of this declaration, Baxter
began a Tuesday lecture in a church near Fetter Lane.
The Parliament declared the King's proclamation
illegal, and soon after passed the Test Act, a new and
very serious blow to the nonconformists.
Baxter continued preaching at various places in
London with encouraging success, as far as the wretched
state of his health allowed ; but he was not allowed
to pursue such useful labours in peace. Some of his
204 Champions of the Truth
brethren complained that he used too much of the
English service, and it was given out confidently that
he had conformed. On the other side he was harassed
with prosecutions and threats of imprisonment. So
vexatious were these proceedings that, finding it in
jurious to have any goods that might be distrained, he
parted with all he had, including his library, which a
year or two before he had at last got from Kidder
minster. This must have been a serious blow. But
Baxter quietly remarks, " We brought nothing into this
world, and we must carry nothing out. The loss is
very tolerable."
Still Baxter persevered with his preaching, and now,
through the kindness of his friends, a commodious place
of meeting was built for him in Oxenden Street. It
happened, owing to the vigilant malice of his enemies,
that he never preached but once in this place. He
was obliged to let it stand empty, paying thirty pounds
per annum for the ground rent, and glad to preach for
nothing near it, in Swallow Street, in a chapel which
some one had built on speculation.
In 1 68 1 Baxter was visited by a great domestic
trial — the death of his beloved wife, to whom he was
deeply attached, and who had been a great comfort to
him. Mrs. Baxter was taken away just before the
storm broke on her husband in its greatest severity.
The worrying efforts to bring Baxter to account for
continuing to preach in London went on more fiercely
than ever. On I4th August 1682, after a short period
of retirement, he had returned in miserable health, and
on the 24th, after preaching, when in an extremity of
pain, he was suddenly surprised by an informer, accom
panied by many constables and officers, who rushed in,
apprehended him, and served on him one warrant to
seize his person for coming within five miles of a cor-
Richard Baxter 205
poration, and other five, to distrain for a hundred and
ninety-five pounds for five sermons. He was on his
way to prison when he met his medical attendant, who
sent him back, and took oath that he could not go to
prison without danger to his life. But his goods were
seized, and he had to take secret lodgings in another
place.
Baxter was troubled also by money matters. In
1672 he had lost nearly all that he possessed, the
King having caused his Exchequer to be shut, where
Baxter had deposited his money. His goods and
books had been distrained for payment of fines. His
chapel had had to be closed. And now a sum of six
hundred pounds, which had been bequeathed to him to
be paid to sixty ejected ministers, was sued for in
Chancery, and given to the King.
When James II. succeeded to the throne, the
Puritans were chastised with scorpions. Baxter was
one of those against whom a determined effort was
made. His trial, under Judge Jeffreys, at the beginning
of the reign of James II., may well be regarded as the
most flagrant instance of the miscarriage of justice, and
the most scandalous outrage on the forms of law and
the dignity of a judicial court that our history supplies.
The scene is graphically described in the first volume
of Macaulay's History of England.
The charge against Baxter was that his Paraphrase
of the New Testament, which had been published shortly
before, was a seditious and scandalous book. He had
had the hardihood to say something against the suffer
ings of the nonconformists ! When the trial came on
at Guildhall, Jeffreys first attempted to browbeat
Pollexfen, Baxter's advocate. " Pollexfen, I know
you well . . . This is an old rogue, a schismatical
knave, a hypocritical villain. He hates the liturgy.
206 Champions of the Truth
He would have nothing but long-winded cant without
book " : and then his lordship turned up his eyes,
clasped his hands, and began to sing through his nose,
in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's style
of praying : " Lord, we are Thy people, Thy peculiar
people, Thy dear people." Pollexfen gently reminded
the Court that his late Majesty had thought Baxter
deserving of a bishopric. " And what ailed the old
blockhead then," cried Jeffreys, "that he did not take
it ? " His fury now rose almost to madness. He
called Baxter a dog, and swore that it would be no
more than justice to whip such a villain through the
whole city.
When the lawyers were silenced, Baxter himself
attempted to put in a word. " My lord," said the old
man, " I have been much blamed by dissenters for speak
ing respectfully of bishops." " Baxter for bishops ! "
cried the Judge, " that's a merry conceit, indeed ! I
know what you mean by bishops, rascals like your
self, Kidderminster bishops, factious, snivelling Presby
terians ! " Again Baxter essayed to speak, and again
Jeffreys bellowed: "Richard, Richard, dost thou think
we will let thee poison the Court ? Richard, thou art
an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to
load a cart, and every book as full of sedition as an
egg is full of meat By the grace of God, I'll look
after thee ! "
One of the junior counsel tried to show, by reading
the context, that the words objected to in Baxter's
book did not bear out the construction put on them.
In a moment he was roared down. " You shan't turn
the Court into a conventicle." The noise of weeping
was heard from some of those that surrounded Baxter.
" Snivelling calves ! " said the Judge.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty. On a follow-
Richard Baxter 207
ing day sentence was pronounced. Baxter was fined five
hundred marks, condemned to lie in prison till he paid
it, and bound to his good behaviour for seven years.
He was unable to pay the fine, and he knew that even
if he did he might be prosecuted again on any pretext ;
so with the weight of seventy years on his head, and a
worse burden in the form of sore, continuous, harassing
disease, to prison he went.
And there he lay for nearly two years. Yet his
imprisonment was not so dreary as we might think.
Baxter was allowed to occupy part of a private house
near the prison. When it was seen that he would
neither pay the fine nor petition for release, a private
application appears to have been made to the King to
relieve him. Coming events were now casting their
shadows before, and the Court was finding more occa
sion for the good feeling of dissenters. On 28th
February 1687 Baxter returned to his house and, as
far as his health would permit, to his public labours.
For some four or five years he resided at Charter
House Yard, assisting his friend, Mr. Sylvester, whose
meeting-house was in that neighbourhood. When
unable to go out, he threw his doors open at family
worship, praying and reading and expounding the
Scriptures with all who chose to come in. It was his
joy to see at last a Government established in England
which at least gave toleration to the dissenters. Baxter
must have been disappointed that no place was found
for them in the Church, and still more disappointed
that the Test Act remained unrepealed, for though
King William desired its removal, his counsellors were
of another mind.
At last the hour came of Baxter's release. His
death-bed was not one of raptures. While he had long
and earnestly taught that the enjoyment of God was
20 8 Champions of the Truth
the great end and reward of true godliness, he did not
in his own case have much experience of the sensible
delights of divine communion. The peace in which he
died was less a thing of the feelings than a conclusion
of faith. He knew whom he had believed, and he
knew that of God's infinite mercy all was well with
him. He felt himself to be a great sinner, and saw
that if he were to be tried by his works, it would be
easy for God to condemn him for the best of them all.
His whole hope was in the free mercy of God in Christ.
Yet he felt the value of a life that had been spent, as
his had been, in the earnest endeavour to do God's
will. By this means it had been easier for him to
exercise a steady faith in Jesus Christ as the Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world. The last
hours of Baxter, like so much of his life, were hours of
terrible pain. But on the morning of Tuesday, 8th
December 1691, the last of his many pains was over,
and through the valley of the shadow of death the
wearied sufferer passed at last into " the saint's ever
lasting rest."
There are not many men that can be classed with
Richard Baxter. Even among Puritans he stands
alone. In many respects he was a combination of
opposites. Intensely controversial, yet in heart most
catholic ; as devoted to logic as Thomas Aquinas, as
soaring and ethereal as Bernard of Clairvaux ; com
bining an intellect as clear and sharp as a diamond
with the burning soul of a seraph ; wasted and diseased
in body, yet working with the energy and un-
weariedness of perfect health ; uncompromising in his
maintenance of the Gospel of the grace of God, yet
with a charitable feeling to men on every side, who in
many points were opposed to him ; partly Calvinist,
partly Arminian, mainly Presbyterian, but partly
Richard Baxter 209
Episcopalian, and partly Independent — Baxter indeed
presented combinations unknown in any other man.
The most remarkable of these combinations was in
tensity of conviction with great catholicity. There is
something very beautiful in this combination, although
it exposed Baxter to many a disparaging remark even
from those with whom he had most in common, but who
could not see why, if his convictions were so intense,
his charity should diffuse itself over so wide a field.
Evidently, Baxter belonged, as we have already
remarked, to the order of reconciling minds. He
thought far more of the things in which men agreed
than the things in which they differed. He was ever
trying to bring harmonious elements together, not to
drive discordant elements asunder. Much though he
loved congenial fellowship, he saw clearly that in a
vast institution like the visible Church of Christ, it
was vain to hope that all should be found to conform
to a single type. He was prepared to make room for
greater diversities than evangelical champions gener
ally would allow. On the subject of regeneration he
held very high ground. No one could enter the
kingdom of God unless he were born again. The
change must not be merely formal or ecclesiastical,
but real, inward, personal. In the sight of God no
one could be a member of the Church who had not
undergone this change. Yet Baxter held very decidedly
that the administrators of the Church are not entitled
to demand evidence of this change before receiving a
man into fellowship. They are bound to have regard,
and to give effect to, the desire of the applicant, if
there be nothing to show that he is making a false
profession. You can never secure that the Church as
seen by man shall be precisely the same as the Church
as seen by God.
P
210 Champions of the Truth
From the very beginning of his career, Baxter was
characterised by intense fervour and profound devotion.
As years rolled over him, his personal feelings became
only deeper and stronger, but he was less demonstrative.
In an interesting account he gives of his experience,
he tells of the change between youth and old age.
In youth his style was more careless and flowing ;
afterwards more careful and guarded. In youth he
was more confident of the correctness of all he uttered ;
afterwards he saw his ignorance more clearly. In his
riper years he saw more evil and more good than in
his youth, more evil in good men, and more good in
those that had seemed wholly evil. As his life ad
vanced, he grew in toleration. The sharp lines of
separation that he had drawn in his youth had to be
modified, and he felt more and more incapacitated for
the task of judging men, and more and more disposed
to commit judgment wholly to God.
What we have called the reconciling tendency of
Baxter's mind may in some degree account for the
peculiarities of his theology. His desire seemed to
be to find a common ground on which devout men of
all churches, not excepting even the Church of Rome,
might come together.
The practical works of Baxter have been collected
in twenty-three octavo volumes. If all that he
published were brought together, the number of volumes
would probably be sixty or seventy. Three of his
books retain an undying vitality, The Call to the
Unconverted, The Sainfs Rest, and The Reformed
Pastor.
JOHN BUNYAN
By (1628-1688)
S* G* Green, D.D»
JOHN BUNYAN, son of Thomas Bunyan and Margaret
Bentley his wife, was born in the village of Elstow, a
mile from Bedford, November 1628. For the know
ledge of his early days we are entirely indebted to his
marvellous autobiography, Grace abounding to the chief
of Sinners ; and as this book is a record of mental
impressions and spiritual experiences rather than of
outward events, we are more familiar with the phases
of his religious history than with the details of his
life. His father belonged to the poorer classes, yet
not to the very poorest. He was, as we should say,
the " whitesmith" of the village, or, as he terms himself
in his will, the " brasier," making or mending his
neighbours' pots and pans ; visiting Bedford and other
towns on market days in pursuit of his craft : — no
" gipsv " or travelling tinker, as some have represented,
but a hard-working handicraftsman, able to give his
children an ordinary education, and to leave at his
death the freehold of his cottage to his family. John
was the eldest child of a second marriage, and seems
to have been taken from school at Elstow or Bedford,
at an early age, to help his father in his trade.
Among the village lads of Elstow, the great Dreamer
worked and played, unconscious of his destiny, but
211
212 Champions of the Truth
from very early life the subject of thick-coming fancies
and intense emotions. " Even in my childhood," he
writes, " the Lord did scare and affright me with fear
ful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful visions."
He had been early instructed in the truths of the
Bible : these laid hold of his conscience, while his
imagination gave distinctness and terror to his con
victions of sin. When but nine or ten years old, he
seemed in his very slumbers to be haunted by wicked
spirits, and he was "greatly afflicted and troubled with
the thoughts of the day of judgment."
But by degrees the vividness of these impressions
passed away, and before he was sixteen he had
become the "ringleader of all the youths that kept
him company, into all manner of vice and ungodliness."
Thus did Bunyan view his own state, in the light of
God's pure and perfect law. According to conventional
standards of morality, it is probable that a less severe
judgment would have been passed. He was neither
licentious nor a drunkard. Yet, with a defiant
thoughtlessness, he had crushed his early convictions,
and, like many a godless youth of active fancy and
fluent speech, had been prone to sins of the tongue ;
especially to ingenious falsehoods and reckless oaths.
At the age of sixteen he lost his mother by death ;
in two months his father married again for a third
time ; John Bunyan left his home and enlisted as a
soldier, in the civil war then raging. Here seems
the glimpse of a sad family history, and of a passionate
resolve which might, but for God's great mercy, have
wrecked that bright spirit for ever. Bunyan's military
career was brief. He could not have entered the army
before the age of sixteen, November 1 644 ; and the
battle of Naseby, June 1645, practically closed the war.
His soldier's life of six or seven months was not with-
John Bunyan 213
out its stirring experiences. In his record of provi
dential deliverances he mentions that once he " fell
into a creek of the sea and hardly escaped drowning."
This suggests an encampment or march at some
distance from his home. Again, he was once "drawn
out to go to such a place to besiege it," when another
begged to take his place, and was shot " as he stood
sentinel." At what siege this incident occurred is un
certain. The tradition that it was at the siege of
Leicester by the Royalist forces is extremely unlikely,
as the evidence decisively points to Bunyan's having
been on the side of the Parliament ; having been in
the first instance summoned with the Bedfordshire con
tingent to Newport Pagnell.1 His military life is chiefly
memorable as having familiarised him with the originals
of " Greatheart " and of the warriors in " Mansoul."
The army was disbanded in 1646, and the lad of
eighteen returned to his father's occupation at Elstow.
Here he married his first wife, a virtuous, gentle girl of
his own rank in life, who had received a Christian
training. The young couple were " as poor as poor
might be, we not having so much household-stuff as a
dish or spoon betwixt us both." But she brought two
books as her marriage-portion — The Plain Man's Path
way to Heaven and The Practice of Piety. Bunyan
and his wife often conned these books together, and
the youthful husband found in their pages an echo of
the thoughts that, with all his recklessness, had never
quite left him. Still he continued his intimacy with
his former companions, and while his " Mercy " was
quietly resting at home, he was found, with his old
audacity, upon the village green. The era of the
" Book of Sports " had come to an end ; the church
bells which had summoned to service on the Lord's
1 See the exhaustive and invaluable Biography by Dr. John Brown.
214 Champions of the Truth
day morning no longer rang for the football match or
for " tip-cat " in the afternoon. But the games, how
ever unlicensed, still continued. Bunyan tells how one
Sunday, after being much impressed by a sermon in
the morning against the profanation of the day, he
"shook the sermon out of his mind," and was playing
at "cat" in the afternoon, when he was brought to a
sudden stand by what seemed a voice from heaven :
Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have
thy sins and go to Hell ? A glance upwards seemed
to show the Lord Jesus looking down upon him " as
hotly displeased " ; the instant conclusion took hold of
Bunyan's soul that it was now too late to seek salvation,
and while standing there he formed the decision to go
on in sin. " I can but be damned, and if it must be
so, I had as good be damned for many sins as to be
damned for a few." All this passed swiftly through
his mind as he paused, with stick uplifted, in the midst
of his play, his companions knowing nothing of the
spiritual struggle. The game went on, and none but
Bunyan knew how " desperately " he had " returned to
the sport again."
In this terrible resolution to take his fill of sin
Bunyan persisted for " about a month or more," when
he was again arrested by the words of an Elstow dame,
who chid him for " the ungodliest fellow for swear
ing that she ever heard in all her life," and " able to
spoil all the youth in a whole town, if they came but in
his company." This reproof from one who, Bunyan
says, was herself but " a loose and ungodly wretch,"
touched him to the quick ; and in his sudden shame he
longed to be a little child again, that his father might
teach him to speak without swearing. Was it now too
late to make the effort? Bunyan at least would try.
Greatly to his own surprise, he was able to leave off the
John Bunyan 215
bad habit from that day. This success encouraged
him to make further efforts for self-reform. He began
to read the Bible, tried heartily to keep the command
ments, and thought he " pleased God as well as any
man in England." His conscience became very
sensitive as to the amusements that had been a snare
to him. He gave up bell-ringing, which had been a
favourite pursuit, though not without a struggle ; he
would often linger at the door of the Elstow church
tower while others were practising, until the fear that
the steeple might fall and crush him caused him to flee in
terror. To abandon dancing cost him a twelvemonth's
struggle. His neighbours were amazed at the change,
and commended him much, to his secret pride ; for,
as he afterwards declared, he was " but a poor painted
hypocrite," " without Christ or grace, or faith or hope."
Thus it was with Bunyan until the memorable day
when, on a visit to Bedford, he came upon that group
of poor women whom he has rendered immortal,
" sitting at a door in the sun, talking about the things
of God." He drew near to listen, perhaps to join in
the conversation, being himself " a brisk talker in the
matters of religion." But to his astonishment, the
language of these good people was wholly strange to
him. They spoke of heart experiences, mysterious
conflicts and triumphs, happy fellowship with God, of
which he knew nothing. " Methought they spake as if
joy did make them speak ! " There was a secret that
he never yet had learned ; and he went away, resolved,
if possible, to attain this new knowledge. He fre
quented the society of these poor people, learning more
and more of his own deficiencies and still crying for
light. He turned to the Bible with new zest ;
" especially," he says, " the Epistles of the Apostle Paul
were sweet and pleasant to me " ; and at length the
216 Champions of the Truth
intense contrast between what he saw in these rejoicing
Christians, and what he felt himself to be, shaped
itself into a waking dream, in which we may discern
some far-off glimpses of the Pilgrim's Progress.
" The state and happiness of these poor people at
Bedford was thus, in a dream or vision, represented to
me. I saw as if they were set on the sunny side of
some high mountain, there refreshing themselves with
the pleasant beams of the sun, while I was shivering
and shrinking in the cold, afflicted with frost, snow, and
dark clouds. Methought also, betwixt me and them,
I saw a wall that did compass about this mountain.
Now through this wall my soul did greatly desire to
pass, concluding, that if I could, I would go even into
the very midst of them, and there also comfort myself
with the heat of their sun.
" About this wall I thought myself to go again and
again, still prying as I went, to see if I could find some
way or passage by which I might enter therein ; but
none could I find for some time. At the last, I saw,
as it were, a narrow gap, like a little doorway in the
wall, through which I attempted to pass ; but the pass
age being very strait and narrow, I made many efforts
to get in, but all in vain, even until I was well-nigh
quite beat out by striving to get in ; at last, with great
striving, methought I at first did get in my head, and
after that, by a sideling striving, my shoulders, and my
whole body ; then was I exceeding glad, and went and
sat down in the midst of them, and so was comforted
with the light and heat of their sun."
The vision prefigured a long mental struggle.
Strange despairing thoughts often seemed to prevail ;
but at length the view of Christ as " our Righteousness "
overcame all misgivings, and the ardent troubled soul of
the Pilgrim entered into peace.
John Bunyan 217
Bunyan was now a rejoicing believer ; yet the time
of conflict was not over. He had crossed the Slough of
Despond, and had surmounted the Hill Difficulty ; but
he had yet to pass through the Valley of Humiliation, to
do battle with Apollyon, and to quail amid the darkness
before the spectres of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
But meanwhile he found a little rest in the Palace Beauti
ful. Already had the teachings of the Gospel been
opened up to him by " Evangelist," in the person of JOHN
GIFFORD, the wise and saintly pastor, once a soldier in
the King's army, now incumbent of St. John's, Bedford,
where, in accord with the comprehensive ecclesiastical
system of the Commonwealth, he gathered and taught
a Baptist Church, constituted with full freedom of com
munion toall who loved the Lord Jesus Christ, irrespective
of their views concerning ordinances. Giffbrd was pre
sented by the Corporation of Bedford to this incumbency
in 1653 ; in the same year Bunyan became a member
of the church, being baptized, according to tradition,
in a little tributary of the Ouse, near Bedford Bridge.
The next two years, perhaps, were the most un
troubled part of Bunyan's career. He was still living
at Elstow with his wife and two little daughters. His
was a nature which would enter into the joys of a true
church fellowship ; and the happy converse of " Chris
tian " with " Prudence, Piety, and Charity," symbolises
for us the peaceful and invigorating communion enjoyed
by Bunyan with the little company meeting in St. John's.
Mr. Giffbrd, from the slight notices left of him, seems
to have been a pastor eminently suited to the tempera
ment of his young disciple, being both wise and strong,
sympathetic and large-hearted. He was for five years
pastor of the church, being removed by death in 1655,
two years after receiving Bunyan into fellowship.
The year of Mr. Gifford's death witnessed the
2i 8 Champions of the Truth
removal of Bunyan from Elstow to Bedford. His
father was still living, and it is probable that the change
of the son's residence was made for business reasons.
He would naturally now take a more active part in the
work of the church, and we find that in the year of his
taking up his abode in the town he was asked by the
brethren to speak a word of exhortation in their
gatherings.1 At first he was reluctant, then with fear
and trembling he consented. His gifts were recognised
at once, and he was appointed to go out into the
villages with the lay preachers of the congregation.
Hundreds soon came from all the country round to hear
the tinker preach ; and the church at Bedford with fast
ing and prayer set him apart in 1657 to the ministry
of the Word, " not only to and amongst them that
believed, but also to offer the Gospel to those who had
not yet received the faith thereof."
Soon after Bunyan became a preacher, he appeared
also as an author. The followers of George Fox, in
preaching the doctrine of the inward light, appeared to
Bunyan to disparage the written word ; and as in their
travels they came to Bedford, there are glimpses of
animated discussions between them and Bunyan " at
the market cross," and elsewhere. Nothing was more
attractive to the sober Puritans of that day than a
stirring theological debate — often with hard words
given and received ; and Bunyan entered so warmly
into the question, that he treated it in a little volume
entitled Some Gospel Truths Opened (1656), with a
commendatory preface by John Burton, who had suc
ceeded Gifford as pastor of the church.
A reply was published by Edward Burrough, a
young man of note among Fox's disciples, and Bunyan
rejoined in A Vindication of Gospel Truths Opened
1 Brown, John Bunyan, p. no.
John Bunyan 219
(1657), in which he still more earnestly pleads for
what we should now call an historical Christianity, in
distinction from what appeared to his strong and
healthy common-sense a delusive mysticism. In the
year following he published a very earnest and solemn
exposition of the parable of Dives and Lazarus : A
Few Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soul ;
and in 1659 a striking treatise entitled The Doctrine
of the Law and Grace Unfolded, in which it is not
difficult to see the germ of Grace Abounding, which
was written seven years afterwards.
At the same time he continued in the diligent
prosecution of his worldly business, and was fairly
successful. " God had increased his stores," writes a
contemporary biographer, " so that he lived in great
credit among his neighbours."
But this period was not without its share of bitter
conflicts. One year began with a serious and prolonged
failure of health, accompanied by great spiritual depres
sion — the natural reaction, as may well be supposed, of
his intense experiences. His terrified spirit found itself
within the Valley of the Shadow of Death, But " by
and by the day broke ; then said Christian, He hath
turned the shadow of death into the morning."
A bitter sorrow had visited his home. The wife of
his youth — the gentle " Mercy," l — who seems to have
borne him two children after the removal to Bedford,
had been taken from him by death. His eldest child,
Mary, a girl of seven at the time, was blind, and we do
not wonder to find that she was peculiarly dear to her
father.
1 "We do not know her Christian name," remarks Dr. Brown, who has
not been able to find the registry of Bunyan's first marriage. It was probably
at a distance from Bedford, but the place is quite unknown. The comparison
of Bunyan's two wives to " Mercy" and " Christiana" was made by the late
T. T. Lynch.
220 Champions of the Truth
Thus left with four little ones, his course was for a
while sad and solitary. Of sorrows like these, how
ever, he tells us but little ; he is occupied rather with
the temptations and difficulties which beset him in his
work. What true minister of the Gospel will not
sympathise with Bunyan's account of his own trials ?
" In this work, as in all other, I had my temptations
attending me, and that of divers kinds ; as sometimes
I should be assaulted with great discouragement therein,
fearing that I should not be able to speak a word at
all to edification ; nay, that I should not be able to
speak sense unto the people ; at which times I should
have such a strange faintness and strengthlessness seize
upon my body, that my legs have scarce been able to
carry me to the place of exercise.
" Again, when sometimes I have been about to
preach upon some smart and searching portion of the
Word, I have found the tempter suggest, ' What ! will
you preach this ? This condemns yourself ; of this
your own soul is guilty ; wherefore preach not of this
at all ; or if you do, yet so mince it as to make way
for your own escape ; lest, instead of awakening others,
you lay that guilt upon your own soul, that you will
never get from under.' "
But these and other trials he was enabled to surmount;
and if ever he found himself in Doubting Castle, the
" Key called Promise " eventually opened all the locks
of the prison, and once again he was free.
In 1659 he married his second wife, Elizabeth, the
Christiana of the Pilgrim's Progress, who became a
true mother to his children ; and to her husband, as
we shall see, a brave-hearted, heroic helper in time of
need.
In the year 1660 Charles II. was recalled by the
English people and placed upon the throne. Old laws
John Bunyan 221
were at once put in force against the nonconformists,
and Bunyan was the first to suffer. A statute of the
35th year of Elizabeth required all persons to attend
at their parish churches on pain of imprisonment. If
at the end of three months they still refused, they were
to be banished the realm ; and if they should at any
time return without royal permission, they were to be
executed as felons. Of this Act Bunyan's enemies
now took advantage. The Baptist congregation had
been deprived of its place of meeting and was now
without a pastor. Bunyan faced the situation, and
determined to continue to hold assemblies and to
preach so long as he should have opportunity. As
he afterwards said, " The law hath provided two ways
of obeying ; the one to do that which I in my con
science do believe that I am bound to do actively,
and the other, when I cannot obey actively, I am
willing to lie down and suffer what they shall do
unto me." His resolution was soon put to the proof.
Being asked to address a meeting on the I2th of
November at Samsell, a village near Harlington, about
thirteen miles south of Bedford, he was warned before
hand that a warrant was out for his arrest. The friend
at whose house the service was to be held, " questioned,"
says Bunyan, " whether we had best have our meeting
or not, and whether it might not be better for me to
depart : — to whom I said, ' No, by no means, I will
not stir, neither will I have the meeting dismissed for
this. Come, be of good cheer ; let us not be daunted.' "
At the appointed time, accordingly, he took his
place among the little company, and began the service.
In a few minutes the constable appeared with his
warrant, and Bunyan was able to address only a few
words of encouragement to his friends before he was
led away. On the morrow he was brought before
222 Champions of the Truth
the justice who had issued the warrant, Mr. Francis
Wingate, and a lively examination ensued, the vicar of
Harlington, Dr. Lindall, whom Bunyan calls an " old
enemy of the truth," stepping in to take part in the
proceedings. Mr. Wingate, it appears, had some con
fused notion of the complicity of the little congregation
with the Fifth Monarchy men, who at this time were
stirring up great commotion in London and elsewhere.
One of his first questions to the constable was to
ascertain what weapons had been found on Bunyan
and his followers. The constable could but reply that
there were only " a few people met together to preach
and hear the Word, and no sign of anything else."
On this the magistrate was bewildered, then lost his
temper. The vicar coming in made matters worse.
Bail was required for the prisoner, and was instantly
tendered. The sureties, however, were informed that
they were bound to keep Bunyan from preaching, and
that, if he did preach, their recognisances would be
forfeited. The brave man instantly replied that he
should refuse to keep the conditions ; and therefore
released his friends from their promise. Further parley
ensued with a Mr. Foster, lawyer, of Bedford, who
professed much attachment to Bunyan, and tried to
induce him only to promise " not to call the people
together any more, for no one really wanted to send
him to prison." But he was firm, and Mr. Wingate
committed him to Bedford jail, there to lie until the
quarter sessions.
" And verily," writes Bunyan, " as I was going forth
of the doors, I had much ado to forbear saying to
them (Wingate and Foster) that I carried the peace
of God along with me ; but I held my peace, and,
blessed be the Lord, went away to prison with God's
comfort in my poor soul."
John Bunyan 223
In seven weeks from that time the quarter sessions
were held at Bedford ; and after a remarkably lively
scene between Mr. Justice Keeling and the dauntless
young Puritan, sentence was pronounced as follows :
" Hear your judgment : You must be had back
again to prison, and there lie for three months follow
ing ; and at three months' end, if you do not submit
to go to church to hear divine service, and leave your
preaching, you must be banished the realm : and if,
after such a day as shall be appointed you to be gone,
you shall be found in this realm, etc., or be found to
come over again without special licence from the king,
etc., you must stretch by the neck for it, I tell you
plainly."
Such was the best return which the world had in
that day to give to the man whom God had raised up
to be among its wisest and noblest teachers !
So Bunyan, to use his own repeated expression,
went " home to prison."
Three months passed, and the assizes were about to
be held. The justices were at their wits' end what to
do with their impracticable prisoner. Their clerk, Mr.
Cobb, went to the jail, to expostulate with him further.
But John Bunyan was more than a match for Mr. Cobb.
Their dialogue, too long to be quoted here, was racy
and good-tempered : they parted in friendliness, and
Bunyan adds, in recording the interview, " Oh that we
might meet in heaven ! "
The coronation of the King, 23rd April 1661, seemed
to afford an opportunity for the release of Bunyan with
that of thousands of other prisoners. It was held
necessary, however, that all who had been convicted
should sue for pardon ; and as this would have implied
the promise to offend no more, Bunyan could not take
any step in this direction. He maintained, moreover,
224 Champions of the Truth
that the sentence of quarter sessions had been irregular
and illegal, and claimed a formal trial.
At the August assizes, accordingly, he presented a
petition that his case might be heard by the judges of
the realm. One of these judges was Sir Matthew
Hale, the other was Judge Twisden. The petition was
committed by Bunyan to his brave wife Elizabeth, who
had previously visited London on the same errand,
and had succeeded in interesting some noblemen and
members of Parliament in her husband's case. Mrs.
Bunyan was at first kindly received by Hale ; but
afterwards, throwing her petition into the judges' coach,
was harshly repulsed by Twisden. Undauntedly, how
ever, this true Christiana, introduced by the high sheriff,
made her way into court and repeated her appeal.
One of the county justices, Sir Henry Chester, urged
in opposition that Bunyan had been duly convicted at
the quarter sessions. In vain did she argue with her
woman's wit against the legality of the conviction.
There was nothing for it, said Hale, kindly enough,
but either to sue for the King's pardon, or to apply for
a writ of error. So the matter dropped. The simple
words of Elizabeth Bunyan deserve to be placed side
by side with the noblest utterances of heroic woman
hood. " Will not your husband leave preaching ? " it
was asked of her ; " if he will do so, then send for him."
" My lord," said she, " he dares not leave preaching as
long as he can speak." " Only this, I remember," she
said afterwards, " that though I was somewhat timorous
at my first entrance into the chamber, yet before I
went out I could not but break forth into tears, not
because they were so hard-hearted against me and my
husband, but to think what a sad account such poor
creatures will have to give at the coming of the Lord."
At first, the imprisonment of Bunyan was not very
John Bunyan 225
rigid. By permission of the jailer he was able to go
out into the country places and hold occasional services.
He even attended church meetings in Bedford in
September and October 1661 ; and once travelled to
London " to see Christians " in that city. It was almost
as if he were out on bail, still expecting that his case
would be heard by the judges. But in this hope he
was again disappointed. After his case had actually
been entered in the calendar, it was, through some
sinister influence, withdrawn ; the jailer being, at the
same time, sharply taken to task for the measure of
liberty allowed his prisoner. Bunyan was now rigor
ously confined ; " so that," he says, " I must not look
out at the door."
The stoutest heart might have quailed at the pro
spect now before the brave prisoner. His case unheard,
his business going to wreck, his wife and blind daughter,
and three little ones besides, left dependent on friends
or on the world's cold mercies, his chosen work forbidden
him, and his appeal to justice persistently ignored : —
what could be more desolate ? True, he might have
ended it all by a promise " to speak no more nor to
teach in the name of Jesus." But rather than this, he
would lose all ; rather than this, he would die ! At
first he did sometimes anticipate the gallows with
which he had been threatened by Justice Keeling.
And, in the prospect of that fate, it is characteristic
that his great fear was lest he should seem to tremble
before he leaped off the ladder, and so bring discredit on
his profession. But there was little time for lonely
broodings. For one thing, he must earn a livelihood ;
he learned to "tag laces," and made many hundred
gross, " to fill up," says an acquaintance, " the vacancies
of his time," as well as to meet other and more
substantial needs. " In a museum of the saints," it
Q
226 Champions of the Truth
has been said, " a lace-tag by Bunyan would be very
interesting ! " The " vacancies of his time " were still
better " filled " by writing those books in which his
genius now first found full scope, and which have
made those long prison months and years an immortal
remembrance. " A s I walked through the ivilderness
of this world) I lighted on a certain place, where was a
Den ; and I laid me down in that place to sleep ; and
as I slept, I dreamed a Dream"
Bunyan remained in prison for twelve years — 1660
to 1672. The period was divided by a brief interval
of freedom in 1666, when he was released "through
the intercession of some in trust and power that took
pity upon his suffering " ; but he was speedily re-arrested
for holding a religious service, and remained a prisoner
until Charles's specious Declaration of Indulgence set
him free.
Buriyan's library all this time chiefly consisted of
two books, the English Bible and Foxe's Acts and
Monuments. But he was free to use his pen, and
eight of his published works belong to the first period
of his imprisonment. Three are in verse : the Four
Last Things, Ebal and Gerizim, and Prison Meditations.
Although possessing many a quaint turn and some few
startling felicities, these compositions cannot be called
poetry ; the chief characteristic of the homely rhymes
is a rough directness and common-sense, with earnest
devout feeling. Bunyan was a poet in prose, but by
no means one in rhyme ! He also wrote short
devotional treatises : Profitable Meditations, A Discourse
on Prayer, On the Resurrection, and The Holy City,
which last strikingly applies the apocalyptic vision of
the New Jerusalem to the spiritual Church of Christ on
earth.
To these smaller works must be added the Grace
John Bunyan 227
Abounding, the date of which was 1666. The
unequalled power and pathos of this autobiography
were at once confessed, and six editions of the book
were published in the author's lifetime.
From the date of his re-arrest in 1666 until that of
his release in 1672 only two works of his appeared,
both in the latter year. One deserves notice, not only
for its own sake, but as a specimen of the then current
style of religious controversy. It is entitled A Defence
of Justification by Faith in Jesus Christ, in reply to a
rationalistic work by Dr. Fowler, afterwards Bishop of
Gloucester, on " the Design of Christianity." In his
preface Bunyan enumerates forty of Mr. Fowler's
alleged errors, set in order in a list ; then without stint
or reserve of language he attacks and denounces them
all. " Your book, sir, is begun in ignorance, managed
with error, and ended in blasphemy." Bunyan calls
his own book an " unpleasant scribble " ; yet he never
wrote more vigorously or with more consummate skill
in the quotation and arrangement of Scripture texts.
This mastery of the Word of God is also shown in
the latest tractates belonging to this prison period :
A Confession of my Faith, and A Reason of my Practice
in Worship ; the former being a summary of the
principles of Puritan theology, fortified at every point
by the citation of passages from Scripture, the latter
setting forth Bunyan's views as to Church fellowship,
under two heads: "(i) With whom I dare not hold
communion ; (2) with whom I dare." Under the
latter division there is a defence of free Christian
Communion, which perhaps exhausts all that is to be
said on that side of the question.
During the latter part of his imprisonment his
treatment was considerably mitigated. He was per
mitted again at intervals to leave the jail and to
228 Champions of the Truth
mingle with his brethren. We find his name at
frequent intervals among the attendants at the church-
meetings in Bedford ; l and before his formal liberation
he had been chosen pastor of the little community.
His election to that office bears date 2ist January
1672 ; he received a licence to preach, under the
Indulgence, on the Qth of May ; and his pardon under
the Great Seal bears date the I3th of September.
In the forty-fourth year of his life, therefore, he was
free ; and for sixteen years his active pastoral life con
tinued, with a six months' interval of imprisonment in
1675. When he thus came forth from prison in the
prime of life, it was with a mind well furnished, and a
mastery of language, partly natural, partly acquired, that
placed him at once in the highest rank of teachers.
A barn belonging to one of the congregation was
licensed and fitted up as a place of worship, and
Bunyan entered upon what he ever regarded as the
great work of his life — the ministry of the glorious
Gospel of the Grace of God.
Six years after Bunyan's release the Pilgrim's
Progress first appeared. It is certain, however, that
the book had been written in prison, and it is probable
that during his brief incarceration in 1675 the book
was completed from its first draft. Happy was the
opportunity thus afforded signally " out of evil still
educing good ! "
The book at once became popular. A second
edition followed the first in the very year of publica
tion, succeeded the next year by a third. In each of
these new issues there were important additions. Mr.
Worldly Wiseman was an afterthought ; Mr. By-ends
and his friends, with their discourse with Christian and
Faithful, first appear in the third edition, while the
1 See Extracts from the church-book, in Dr. Brown's Life, pp. 204-213.
John Bunyan 229
second had given a wife, Mistress Diffidence, to Giant
Despair.
To comment upon the PilgrMs Progress would
now be superfluous. Its deepest though most subtle
charm is that it is the history of a soul. We hardly
need the details of Grace Abounding for the assurance
that the picture of a human life is before us, rare indeed
in its capacities of enjoyment and of suffering, in the
tenderness of its conscience and the heroism of its
endeavours ; and yet, although upon a grander scale,
such a life as all of us who are in earnest about
salvation feel that we too are called to live. We
recognise ourselves, as in a glass ; we know also the
types of character portrayed. Even the allegorical
personages are not abstractions, like those of Spenser ;
they are flesh and blood : we exclaim, with Christian,
as one or another is introduced to us, " Oh, I know
him : he is my townsman, my near neighbour, he
comes from the place where I was born." The masters
of literature have acknowledged the power and the
charm of this Bedford tinker's book. True, their
recognition was belated : it is an instance, as Macaulay
observes, in which the critical few have come round to
the opinion of the many. Cowper almost apologises
for mentioning the Pilgrim's Progress, and will not
introduce into his verse the author's name, lest it
should provoke a sneer. But now Bunyan is an
acknowledged classic. " In the latter half of the
seventeenth century," writes Macaulay again, " there
were only two minds which possessed the imaginative
faculty in a very eminent degree. One of those minds
produced the Paradise Lost ; the other the Pilgrim's
Progress'' Coleridge remarks that the child reads the
Pilgrim's Progress for its story, the theologian for its
doctrine, and the critic for its language. Of this last,
230 Champions of the Truth
indeed, Bunyan in some of his homely rhymes has told
the secret :
Thine only way
Before them all, is to say out thy say
In thine own native language, which no man
Now useth, nor with ease dissemble can.
Bunyan was now at his best. In the same year
with the PilgrMs Progress appeared his Come and
welcome to Jesus Christ, "with its musical title and
soul-moving pleas." The book is a sequel, in fact, to
Grace Abounding ; the difficulties and excuses described
as hindering the soul's return to God are those which
Bunyan himself had known ; the arguments urged with
such melting and winning force are those which had
prevailed over his own reluctant heart. One or two
minor treatises followed. Then came the great
companion picture to the " Pilgrim " : The Life and
Death of Mr. Badman.
This terrible delineation of an evil career is in no
sense an allegory ; the topic could not so be treated,
nor could the way of transgressors be idealised into a
pilgrimage. In its hard unredeemed baseness and
moral ugliness the life of a selfish, irreligious, vulgar
profligate is portrayed, with no touch of poetry or
sentiment to relieve the deformity. Such lives were
lived, no doubt, in that as in every age, and Bunyan
may have met Badman's prototypes every Bedford
market-day ; for this type of evil is not classed with
the openly criminal, evidently destined from the first to
a bad end. For a while he is a seemingly prosperous
tradesman ; he affects to be religious ; he marries well ;
then again he throws off the yoke and becomes an
atheist, "if such a thing as an atheist could be."
But we need not follow his career, through stage after
stage of fraud and shame. To the end he keeps him-
John Bunyan 231
self well out of the grasp of the law, and though ruined
in fortune, dies without fear. " When he drew near his
end," writes Bunyan, " there was not any other altera
tion in him than what was made by his disease upon
his body. His mind was the same, his heart was the
same. He was the self-same Mr. Badman still, not
only in name but conditions, and that to the very day
of his death, yea, so far as could be gathered, to the
very moment in which he died." " There seemed not
to be in it to standers-by so much as a strong struggle
of nature, — and as for his mind, it seemed to be wholly
at quiet." " He died like a lamb." The picture is a
fearful one throughout, and this solemn close, with its
suggestion of the awakening after death, enhances its
awfulness.
The book has never been popular. Its moral dis
sections are almost too remorseless ; and its gloom is
unrelieved. Then, in parts, its very truth to life makes
it unquestionably coarse. The form of dialogue into
which it is cast is also unattractive. Mr. Wiseman tells
the story, Mr. Attentive listens and makes his
comments. Many anecdotes of awful judgments on
transgressors, and other sensational incidents, are
interspersed, to which our times perhaps would give
another interpretation than Bunyan's. Now and then,
too, the discussion between the two interlocutors waxes
tedious. But on the whole it is a book of terrible
power, and every student of Bunyan should read it,
after Grace Abounding, the Pilgrim 's Progress, and the
Holy War.
We come now to the wonderful story of " MansouJ,"
its rebellion, siege, and deliverance. This appeared
in 1682 ; and lays under contribution the author's
experience in the field and before courts of justice, to
illustrate the religious history of man, fallen, convicted,
232 Champions of the Truth
and struggling against conviction ; converted and
renewed, yet imperfect to the end. It has sometimes
been questioned whether the author's great theme was
mankind or the individual. There can scarcely be a
doubt that he had the latter chiefly in view. To him
the salvation of one soul was the result of the strife
and clash of spiritual forces, to the close contending for
the mastery. Among the inhabitants of Mansoul, Lord
Will-be-will is the hero of the story. Many of the
characters brought upon this scene of stirring warfare
are necessarily but impersonations of qualities ; they
lack the human interest of those in the Pilgrim's
Progress ; and the later allegory can never speak to
the heart like its predecessor. But nothing could excel
the knowledge of the human heart and its conflicts
which the book evinces. The trial of the Diabolonians
is a masterpiece of spiritual pathology. And how
expressive the description, at the close, of the " new
man " still beset by earthly imperfections !
" Then my lord Self-denial took courage, and set to
pursuing of the Diabolonians with my lord Will-be-
will ; and they took Live-by-feeling, and they took
Legal-life, and put them in hold till they died. But
Mr. Unbelief was a nimble Jack ; him they could
never lay hold of, though they attempted to do it
often. He therefore, and some few more of the
subtlest of the Diabolonian tribe, did yet remain in
Mansoul, to the time that Mansoul left off to dwell any
longer in the kingdom of Universe."
Of smaller works, chiefly expositions, which appeared
during this fertile period of Bunyan's life, Doe mentions
The Barren Fig- Tree, The Greatness of the Soul, and
The. Pharisee and the Publican ; with several other
tracts, notably A Case of Conscience resolved: the
" case " being that of women's employment in con-
John Banyan 233
ducting religious meetings. Bunyan gives to this
question a decided negative, citing Bible rules and
precedents, enumerating reasons, and answering objec
tions, in a very curious way. The reader will at least
sympathise with its closing sentence : " I entreat that
these lines may be taken in good part, for I seek
edification, not contention."
That Bunyan fully appreciated the worth and beauty
of Christian womanhood he nobly showed in the Second
Part of the Pilgrim's Progress, published 1684, six
years after the first part. This sequel is necessarily
inferior in interest to the account of Christian's own
pilgrimage. Not even Bunyan could present another's
experience as vividly as his own. Yet the characters
are true, many of the sketches are exquisite in their
beauty, and there are some touches unequalled in
their tenderness by anything in the earlier and grander
part of the story. There is a current phrase as to
choosing to " live with " a picture. Perhaps of all the
pictures with which any of us might well delight to
live, none is to be preferred to that of the Valley of
Humiliation, not as when Christian passed through it,
dark in shadow, and with the awful form of Apollyon
" coming over the field to meet him " ; but as when
Christiana, with her children and Mercy, escorted by
bold Great-heart, found it, " beautiful with lilies," and
saw the shepherd boy who " sat by himself and sung :
He that is down need fear no fall ;
He that is low, no pride ;
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his guide."
The last four years of Bunyan's life had but few
noticeable events. He continued an indefatigable
pastor and preacher, itinerating largely, annually
visiting London, always [attracting crowded congre-
234 Champions of the Truth
gations.1 His counsel was sought far and wide ;
ministers and churches appealed to him in their
difficulties : he was known familiarly as " Bishop
Bunyan." Inducements were held out to him to
accept more conspicuous positions, but he preferred
his home, where the very prison walls, as he passed
them in the street, would remind him of converse with
angels and of glimpses into the Celestial City. His
household life was calm and happy. The blind child,
his darling Mary, had been taken to her heavenly
home during the later days of his imprisonment ; but
his true wife Elizabeth was still by his side, and the
three remaining children, born of his " Mercy " in the
old Elstow days, were growing in stability of character
and true godliness. To one of his boys a London
merchant had offered a place in his house, but Bunyan
had refused. " God did not send me," he said, " to
advance my family, but to preach the Gospel." His
worldly circumstances had improved, though he was
never rich ; his health also appears to have been good.
" Happy in his work, happy in the sense that his
influence was daily extending, spreading over his own
country, and to the far-off settlements in America, he
spent his last years in his own land of Beulah, Doubting
Castle out of sight, and the towers and minarets of
Emmanuel's Land growing nearer and clearer as the
days went on." J
His latest books were now written, including The
Jerusalem Sinner saved, in which he interprets the
Lord's words, " Beginning at Jerusalem," as implying
" good news to the vilest of men " — a view of the text
which he unfolds and applies with marvellous power ;
1 On one occasion, it is recorded, 3000 people came to hear him in Zoar
St., Southwark, " so that half were fain to go back again for want of room,"
2 J. A. Provide.
John Bunyan 235
also the Divine Emblems, containing some of his
happiest metrical effusions. To this period of his life
also belongs his controversial work, written in reply to
some of his brother Baptists in London, Water Baptism
no bar to Christian Communion : with his book on
Solomon's Temple, in which every part is spiritualised
— not only the altars, the laver, the candlestick and
the shewbread, the veil and the mercy-seat ; but the
doors, windows, pillars, porches, pinnacles and stairs,
the bowls and basins, the snuffers and snuffer-dishes ;
with other appurtenances of the temple — under seventy
heads, all copiously illustrated from Scripture. It
would be strange if some of the applications were not
forced : the author's fancy proves itself more fertile, if
possible, than ever ; and we smile at the simple con
clusion of the seventy particulars : " Thus you see
something of that little I have found in the Temple
of God."
Many other works written by Bunyan from time to
time cannot here be enumerated. He is said by his
friend Charles Doe to have " lived sixty years and
written sixty books." Some of these were not printed
during his lifetime, as an Exposition of the First Ten
Chapters of Genesis, The House of the Forest of Lebanon,
and The Heavenly Footman.
The end of Bunyan's life came in 1688, the year of
the Revolution, which event he did not live to see.
He had been but little troubled by the succession of
James the Second to his brother Charles, and in the
consequent agitations. He found himself at larger
liberty to preach the Gospel and to visit the churches.
His last journey was taken on an errand of mercy.
He had travelled from Bedford to Reading on horse
back, to effect a reconciliation between a father and
son. Having succeeded in his errand, he purposed
236 Champions of the Truth
returning by way of London, and rode from Reading
to the metropolis in heavy rain. A chill came on,
which, however, did not prevent his preaching once
more (iQth August, at Mr. Gamman's meeting, near
Whitechapel) — a brief and interesting discourse on
being born of God, printed from the notes of a hearer
under the title of Mr. Bunyaris Last Sermon. Fever
ensued, and the great preacher breathed his last, in
his sixtieth year, on 3ist August 1688. His remains
were interred in Bunhill Fields, where an appropriate
monument marks his place of burial.
The statue raised to Bunyan's memory in 1874 at
Bedford presents him in the attitude of preaching ;
and upon the pedestal is inscribed an extract from
his own noble description of the minister of Christ :
" Christian saw the picture of a very grave person
hung up against the wall : and this was the fashion of
it ; it had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books
in his hand ; the law of truth was written upon his
lips, the world was behind his back ; it stood as if it
pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over
its head."
JOHN WESLEY.
JOHN WESLEY
By (1703-1791)
J* H. Rigg, D*D*
JOHN WESLEY was born i/th June 1703, at Epworth,
where his father, the Rev. Samuel Wesley, was rector
during the first thirty years of the eighteenth century.
He was five years older than his brother Charles, so long
his companion in labour and so gifted as a sacred poet.
The rectory was filled with a numerous family, of
whom those that grew up, whether sons or daughters,
were all accomplished. Brave, bright spirits and high
principles were the growth of that remote Lincolnshire
parsonage. It was the home of strict and earnest
religion, of much learning, of true high breeding, and
of pinching and sometimes bitter poverty. Both the
rector and his wife came of a line of Puritan ancestors,
who had endured persecution for their faith, but who
were at once gentlemen, scholars, and divines ; and the
training in the parsonage was not unworthy of such a
twofold ancestry.
Susanna Wesley was an admirable mother, and it
was her custom to give each of her children an hour a
week, on a fixed day, for religious conversation and
prayer. It was on Thursday that she conversed and
prayed with John. Orderliness, reasonableness, stead
fastness of purpose, calm authority, tender affection,
were combined in the mother of the Wesleys. And
237
238 Champions of the Truth
all these qualities were remarkably reproduced in her
son John.
When John Wesley was six years old the rectory
was set on fire by a malicious parishioner. All the
rest of the family had escaped safely from the flaming
house, when it was found that " Jacky " was missing.
Two brave fellows rescued him at great peril to them
selves, and he was delivered into his father's arms.
" Come, neighbours," said the rector, " let us kneel
down ; let us give thanks to God ! He has given me
all my eight children. Let the house go : I am rich
enough."
John Wesley commemorated this escape, in after
life, by an engraving, under one of his portraits, of a
house in flames, underneath which is the motto : " Is
not this a brand plucked out of the burning ? "
Before he was eleven the boy was sent to the Charter
house School. Here he suffered such hardships and
oppressions as were common at public schools in that
age. But he was a diligent and successful scholar,
and a patient and forgiving boy, of a brave and elastic
spirit, who had at home been inured, not indeed to
oppression, but ,to hard living and scanty fare. When,
therefore, his seniors robbed him of the best portions
of his meat, as they not seldom did, he could bear the
privation with more patience, and perhaps with less
injury, than if he had been a full-fed and pampered
child. It is a characteristic feature in his case that he
seems to have carried away on the whole pleasant
recollections of his school where, in due time, he rose
to be among the most distinguished scholars. Once
a year in later life it was his custom to revisit the scene
of his school-days and walk round the Charterhouse
garden, " chewing the cud " of early memories, to him
more sweet than bitter.
John Wesley 239
Wesley left Charterhouse and went to Oxford, the
University of his family and forefathers, in 1720, having
been elected to a studentship at Christ Church. He
was seventeen years of age when he thus became a
resident at Oxford, where he was to remain, with the
exception of a comparatively short period of curacy
with his father, for the next fifteen years of his life.
At this time he was a clever, sprightly, and upright
youth, full of wit and pleasantry, exact and forward in
his work, who duly attended the services of the Church,
who read the Scriptures and religious books, especially
commentaries, but who was without any true apprehen
sion of spiritual religion. He was a devout, yet half
worldly, young Pharisee, not unlike the ruler in the
Gospels, only without possessions.
In" due course John Wesley took his degree. At
this time he had a high reputation at the University,
not only as a scholar, but as a gentleman and a pleasant
friend and companion. " He appeared," we are told by
a contemporary, " the very sensible and acute collegian,
a young fellow of the finest classical taste, of the most
liberal and manly sentiments." As yet no discredit
of severe religiousness attached to him.
In 1725, however, when he was twenty-two years
of age, and had in view his preparation for taking holy
orders, he became increasingly serious; and in 1726,
when he was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, he
took advantage of the exchange of college residence
made necessary by this appointment to give a reso
lute, though not uncourteous, conge to all his former
acquaintances who were not serious and earnest like
himself.
Meantime, during the year 1725 he had received
deacon's orders. During the same year he had read
the Christian Pattern and Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living
240 Champions of the Truth
and Dying. The effect of these books was deeply to
awaken his conscience, and not less to awaken his
critical intelligence as to certain points of Christian
belief. He rejected — as we learn from a letter to his
mother — the doctrine taught by Jeremy Taylor that a
child of God cannot on earth know that he is a new
creature and at peace with God. " If we dwell in
Christ, and Christ in us, certainly," he insists, " we
must be sensible of it." In the same year also he
made up his mind once and for all — as likewise appears
from a letter to his mother — that the doctrine of repro
bation was to be altogether rejected. Further, in the
self- same year, from the books already named, he
learned the doctrine of entire Christian consecration
and holiness, the equivalent of which afterwards found
its place in his matured theology as the Methodist
doctrine of " Christian Perfection."
Thus, almost at one stroke, his logical and systematic
mind had shaped into form, at this early date, three
out of the four points of doctrine which were afterwards
to define Wesleyan theology, viz. conscious salvation,
general grace, and the privilege and duty of Christian
purity of heart and life. But with all this the root-
truth of experimental theology was still far away from
his thought, completely out of his sight. Thirteen
years were to pass before he learnt St. Paul's doctrine
as to " the righteousness of faith."
For four years after this (1725-1729) Wesley's
views would appear to have undergone little change.
A rigid adherence to the rubrics of his Church made
for him the sum of religious means and duties.
"From the year 1725 to 1729," he himself said
afterwards, " I preached much, but saw no fruit of my
labour. Indeed, it could not be that I should, for I
neither laid the foundation of repentance nor of preach-
John Wesley 241
ing the Gospel, taking it for granted that all to whom
I preached were believers, and that many of them
needed no repentance. From the year 1729 to 1734,
laying a deeper foundation of repentance, I saw a little
fruit ; but it was only a little, and no wonder, for I did
not preach faith in the blood of the covenant."
The period 1729-1734, of which John Wesley here
speaks, coincided with the rise and course of the
Methodist Society at Oxford. Of this, though it was
founded by Charles Wesley in 1729 during his brother
John's absence in his father's parish, where he was
serving for a time as curate, from the moment of his
return to Oxford, John was recognised as of necessity
the head. The bond of association among the members
of this Society, besides weekly communion, was the
common study of the New Testament, with which they
joined regular fasting, stated hours for private devotion,
visitation of the sick and poor, and of prisoners, and
the instruction of children. This strict and unworldly
Society received many derisive names from outsiders.
But the name which prevailed was " Methodist." This
title followed the Wesleys when, ten years later, and
after their return from America, they founded a very
different Society, one which, although the same name
was given to it and stuck to it, was in its characteristic
principles and doctrines the greatest possible contrast
to the Methodist Society of Oxford. In one respect,
however, there was an undeniable fitness in the title as
applied to both Societies, descriptive as it was of one
unchanging and inseparable feature of Wesley's personal
character and habits, a feature which he impressed also
very generally on his followers.
Mention must here be made of a special influence
with which the Wesleys had been brought into contact
a year or two before this time (about 1727). The two
R
242 Champions of the Truth
great writings of William Law, his Serious Call and his
Christian Perfection, were published at the period to
which we refer, and had a powerful effect on both the
brothers, bringing Charles, in particular, to a state of
serious decision to which before he had been a stranger.
It was, as we have seen, the awakened Charles who,
during his brother's absence from Oxford, first organised
in 1729 the Society which received the nickname
"Methodist." On John Wesley, Law's two books
produced the further effect of sending him to Putney to
consult Law in regard to things spiritual. This was in
1732, and, for two or three years after this, Law was
to John Wesley a sort of oracle.
Law was a Jacobite, a nonjuror, and, like most of
the same school, an extreme Laudian High Churchman.
A few years afterwards he became addicted to the
mystical school of theology, or, to speak more correctly,
theosophy, and eventually he went all lengths with
Jacob Behmen. His influence on Wesley in 1732 was
to make him a still more extreme High Churchman, a
tendency which continued to increase upon him for
some years. Afterwards the influence of Law led
Wesley to read and admire the mystic writers and to
endeavour to combine ritualism and mysticism in his
religious life.
Between 1732 and 1735, accordingly, Wesley and
the Oxford Methodists generally became intensely and
increasingly High Church. Such mere externalism,
however, could not but often be weary and dreary work
to Wesley. What he wanted was life, inspiration, a
well-spring. Like many another under similar circum
stances he was tempted to seek after satisfaction in the
shadowy region of mysticism, whither, indeed, his teacher
Law was now beckoning him to follow. Not under
standing anything as to the true spiritual union with
John Wesley 243
Christ through faith and the new birth, he sought
by contemplation, by abstraction, by asceticism, to
attain to that self-inwrought identification with God,
as revealed in Christ — which, however, is in truth only
an illusion — whereby the mystic school, in varying forms
and degrees, has, in misguided yet often noble earnest
ness, counterfeited the spiritual union through faith of
the renewed soul with God in Christ. In this condition,
endeavouring to unite extreme High Churchmanship
and some tincture of mysticism in an asceticism at once
severe and loving, Wesley continued for some years.
" Though I could never," he says, " come into this " —
the quietism of the mystics — " nor contentedly omit
what God enjoined, yet, I know not how, I fluctuated
between obedience and disobedience — continually
doubting whether I was right or wrong, and never out
of perplexities and entanglements. Nor can I at this
hour give a distinct account how I came back a little
toward the right way ; only my present sense is this —
all the other enemies of Christianity are triflers ; the
mystics are the most dangerous ; and its most serious
professors are most likely to fall by them." These
words were written in 1738, a few months before
Wesley's " conversion."
Wesley left England to go to Georgia, as a missionary
of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in the
autumn of 1735 ; he had left Oxford a few months
earlier. With his departure from Oxford — his brother
also left the University at the same time — Methodism
in Oxford came to an end, and, what is more, Oxford
Methodism came to an end. Never at any one time
does the Oxford Society appear to have numbered as
many as thirty members ; and the Society can hardly
be said to have had any organisation. There was a
small band of men who were called " Methodists," and
244 Champions of the Truth
who were strict, rubrical High Churchmen, and met at
each other's rooms — or at Wesley's rooms — for reading
and prayer, and were zealous of good works. But there
was no common bond of special doctrine or of dis
cipline, nor was there any official authority, or any force
more direct or weighty than personal influence.
There could not be a more decisive evidence of this
than is to be found in the early and wide divergence of
the various members of the Oxford Methodist Society
after their brief association at the University came to
an end. The Wesleys went their own way alone ;
their friend Whitefield made a separate orbit of revival-
istic movement for himself. John Clayton, one of the
closest and most esteemed Oxford comrades of the
Wesleys, settled at Manchester, renounced the Wesleys
after they began their evangelical movement, and
remained an unbending High Churchman, of Jacobite
proclivities, to the end of his days. Benjamin Ingham
became a great evangelist in Yorkshire, founded
societies, and with his societies or churches, took the
decisive step of leaving the Church of England and
embracing the position of avowed Dissent. The
saintly Gambold, a poet as well as a theologian
and preacher, became a Moravian bishop. James
Hervey was in after life a famous evangelical clergyman
holding " Low " and Calvinistic views. These were the
chief of the Methodists of Oxford. Oxford Methodism,
in fact, came to an utter end in 1735.
Of Wesley's personal character and influence as the
leader of the Oxford Methodists there happily remains
a portrait drawn by the hand of his friend and fellow
Methodist, Gambold. After describing how he became
acquainted, in the first place, with Charles Wesley, how
Charles Wesley took him to his brother, and the
profound deference and unbounded affection that
John Wesley 245
Charles ever showed towards John, Gambold thus
proceeds : —
" Mr. John Wesley was always the chief manager,
for which he was very fit. For he had not only more
learning and experience than the rest, but he was
blessed with such activity as to be always gaining
ground, and such steadiness that he lost none ; what
proposals he made to any were sure to alarm them, be
cause he was so much in earnest ; nor could they after
ward slight them, because they saw him always the
same. What supported this uniform vigour was the
care he took to consider well of every affair before he
engaged in it, making all his decisions in the fear of
God, without passion, humour, or self-confidence ; for
though he had naturally a very clear apprehension, yet
his exact prudence depended more on honesty and
singleness of heart. To this I may add that he had, I
think, something of authority in his countenance. Yet
he never assumed any to himself above his companions;
any of them might speak their mind, and their wishes
were as strictly regarded by him as his by them. . . .
" He thought prayer to be more his business than
anything else, and I have often seen him come out of
his closet with a serenity that was next to shining ; it
discovered where he had been and gave me double hope
of receiving wise direction in the matter about which I
came to consult him. . . . He used many arts to be
religious, but none to seem so ; with a soul always
upon the stretch and a most transparent sincerity, he
addicted himself to every good word and work. . . ."
There can be no doubt that this portrait strikingly
depicts Wesley's distinctive personality.
Wesley's father died in the spring of 1735 (25th
April). His illness had lasted eight months, during
which period at least, if not before, " he enjoyed," as
246 Champions of the Truth
John Wesley testified, " a clear sense of his acceptance
with God." " I heard him express it," says his son,
writing in 1748, "more than once, although at that
time I understood it not. ( The inward witness, son,
the inward witness,' said he to me, ( that is the proof,
the strongest proof of Christianity.' And when I asked
him (the time of his change drawing nigh), * Sir, are
you in much pain ? ' he answered aloud with a smile,
1 God does chasten me with pain ; yea, all my bones
with strong pain ; but I thank Him for all, I bless Him
for all, I love Him for all ! ' "
To his son Charles he said, more than once, " Be
steady. The Christian faith will surely revive in this
kingdom ; you shall see it, though I shall not." In
this spirit he remained to the end. " Now you have
done all," he said to his son John, at the close of the
commendatory prayer, after the final administration of
the Lord's Supper. These were his last words.
It had been the desire of the father and of the
family that John Wesley should succeed to the living
of Epworth, and keep a home for the mother and
unmarried sisters at the rectory. To his widowed
mother and to his sisters John Wesley was all his life
through dutiful and generous. He provided better for
them, there can be no doubt, than he would have been
able to do at Epworth. He had felt, when the matter
was urged upon him, that it was not his providential
vocation to remain secluded in a remote country
parsonage, or to give his days to farming his glebe.
And when he had reluctantly consented to entertain
the proposal, it was found that, in consequence of his
" Methodist " peculiarities, he was considered unfit for
the preferment. Retaining his fellowship, therefore,
which enabled him to help his family, he determined to
accept the opportunity afforded to him, in part, at least,
John Wesley 247
through the influence of General Oglethorpe, a warm
friend of his family, of going out to Georgia as a
missionary.
It was a mission in which his father had felt deeply
interested, and which, if he had been a younger man,
he said that he would have volunteered to take. John,
accordingly, sailed from Gravesend for Georgia, under
the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts, on 2ist October 1735.
His brother left with him and proceeded to Georgia
as a sort of chaplain and private secretary to General
Oglethorpe.
Two features of Wesley's strange and perplexed
history in Georgia are very noteworthy ; one that he
carried his rubrical punctilios and his High Church
practices to the uttermost extreme ; the other that his
mission was a total failure.
Nevertheless, Wesley learnt much in Georgia, and
still more, perhaps, in his voyages to and fro. On his
voyage out he met with pious Moravians, whose deport
ment and whose inward experience, as he learnt it from
conversation with them, filled him with astonishment.
Their steadfast peace, and their superiority to all fear
of death, were a mystery to him. What he most felt
his want of they seemed to possess. He met with
godly Presbyterians also, after his arrival on the Con
tinent, who gave him his first lesson in regard to public
extemporary prayer. His journal seems to show that,
notwithstanding his extreme High Churchmanship —
all the more extreme, perhaps, for his entire renunciation
of mysticism — he was inwardly beginning to change,
even before he left Georgia. And it is certain that
during his voyage home a very great change was
wrought in him. Wesley was not quite two years in
America. But he returned to England a very changed
248 Champions of the Truth
character, a " wiser " if a " sadder man." Before he
landed again on his native shore — which he did on
ist February 1738, at Deal — he had so far learned the
meaning of Scripture, and the lessons of his own
experience, as to be truly and deeply convinced of sin
and spiritual helplessness — his Pharisaism was broken
up — and as, further, to have come to a clear under
standing and conviction that justification and salvation
were to be obtained only through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ But what that faith meant he did not
yet know. " One thing," he says, " have I learnt in
the end of the earth, that I who went to America to
convert the Indians, was never converted myself." He
had learnt this, but the way of salvation he had not learnt.
Nor did he learn it until he met with Peter Bohler,
the Moravian teacher, who was at this time staying in
England to obtain a passage to the very colony Wesley
had just left. Notwithstanding the deep and searching
experience through which he had been brought, step
after step, the spiritual insensibility which infected the
whole atmosphere of moral thought in England during
that age, still, as to this point, clung fast to him. He
had no other idea of Christian faith than as a sincere
belief of the Christian creeds and acceptance of the
authority of Scripture and the Church, operating
morally but altogether naturally on the opinions and
character of the believer. Of faith as an essentially
spiritual act and habit of the heart and soul, exercised
under special Divine influence, he had no conception
whatever.
It was Peter Bohler who proved to him out of
Scripture that faith was such a spiritual act and habit
of Divine operation. After repeated lessons, Wesley
was thoroughly convinced at last on Sunday, 5th March
1738. He writes in his journal for that day: "By
John Wesley 249
whom " — Bohler — " in the hand of the great God, I
was clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of that
faith whereby alone we are saved." Having learnt this
hard lesson, he determined to act on his teacher's
advice, " Preach faith, till you have it ; and then
because you have it, you will preach faith."
On the 3rd of May his brother Charles, who had
been much disturbed by the change in his brother's
views, was at length convinced of the truth of the
Moravian teacher's doctrine. " My brother," says John
Wesley, in his journal for that day, " had a long and
particular conversation with Peter Bohler. And it now
pleased God to open his eyes ; so that he also saw
clearly what was the nature of that one true living
faith, whereby alone, * through grace, we are saved.' "
The next day Peter Bohler left London, in order to
embark for Carolina, and Wesley makes the following
very remarkable entry in his journal : " Oh ! what a
work hath God begun since his coming into England ;
such an one as shall never come to an end till heaven
and earth pass away."
It was at a private meeting of a religious society
in Aldersgate Street, on Wednesday, 24th May 1738,
that Wesley was enabled to exercise a true Gospel
faith in Jesus Christ as his Saviour.
One was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle
to the Romans, in which the Reformer describes the
change which God works in the heart through faith in
Christ. Listening needfully, prayerfully, for to him the
subject was one of life or death, the truth as to Christ
and the sinner's salvation, as to the personal relation
of the Saviour to the sinner, broke in upon his soul.
" I felt my heart," he says, " strangely warmed ; I felt
I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation ; and
an assurance was given me that He had taken away
250 Champions of the Truth
my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin
and death." From this time Wesley could use for
himself the language of St. Paul, " I live ; yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Gal. ii. 20.)
This earlier history of Wesley, to a truly spiritual
man, is more interesting than any part of the great
history that follows, because here, at its crisis and
culmination, is the very spring and fountain of the life
and power through which the wonderful achievements
of Wesley's after life were accomplished, and through
which alone it was possible that they should be
accomplished.
He had passed through formalism, legalism, and
ceremonialism, and not found life or peace. Following
his master Law, he had resorted to the fountains of
mysticism, but had proved that the deeper he drank
the more disturbed and dissatisfied his spirit became,
until at length he finally abandoned them. His life
long verdict was that the depths of mysticism, as he
had tested them, were " Behmenish, void, and vain."
In this condition, outwardly an Anglican of the extreme
Laudian school, inwardly full of endless perplexities —
" a restless seeker after rest " — Wesley had gone to
America, only to find that his presentation of Chris
tianity utterly broke down when brought into contact
with life's naked realities. He offended, without
awakening, the colonists. He had no gospel wherewith
to reach the Indian's soul. Abased and broken down
in spirit, he returns to England a true penitent, feeling
after faith, but without any idea of its nature ; and,
finally, through the teaching, first of the German
Moravian Bohler, and then of the living words of the
long dead German Reformer, Luther, he is brought
John Wesley 251
into the full faith, the true life and liberty, and the
loving evangelical holiness of Christ's kingdom.
Wesley himself, indeed, in after life, took a less
severe view of his own state and character before his
" conversion " than he did at the time of that critical
experience. He would not, in 1770, have maintained,
as he affirmed in 1738, that he was an unconverted
man during all the time that he was in Georgia. But
to his life's end he held that he was in many, and in
most important respects, an unenlightened man. Nor
is it possible to understand in the least his after life,
unless it be apprehended that in 1738 a very great and
critical change passed in his experience, and one which
transformed, in many ways, his character for all his
following course.
From henceforth Wesley is a new man. The
Oxford Methodist is radically renewed. He may still
be called a Methodist in years to come, but he can no
longer be an Oxford Methodist. He is a " new creature
in Christ Jesus." His conversion made Wesley an
evangelist. He had a forgotten gospel to preach — the
gospel by which men were to be converted, as he had
been, and to become " new creatures." This result,
this new birth, he had learnt once for all, was not
dependent on any priestly prerogative or service, or on
any sacramental grace or influence. " Faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." To raise
up, accordingly, by his preaching and personal influence,
a body of converted men who should themselves become
witnesses of the same truth by which he himself had
been saved, was henceforth to be Wesley's life-work.
This was the inspiration under which he became a
mighty preacher, a flaming evangelist, a "burning and
shining light."
Wesley's evangelical doctrines were not new in
252 Champions of the Truth
England or the Church of England. They were only
the old Gospel, and were essentially identical with the
teaching and preaching of the Reformers — English as
well as Continental — of the Puritans, and of the
Homilists of the English Church. But they were new
and startling in that earlier Georgian period of spiritual
torpor. The clergy were offended, and became alarmed
at the immense popularity of the preacher. Soon the
churches were shut against him.
Accordingly, in 1739, Wesley followed the example
already set him, a little while before, by his former
pupil at Oxford, George Whitefield, and preached in
the open air to immense crowds, first near Bristol,
afterwards in or near London, and elsewhere. In
1739, also, he became possessed of an old building in
Moorfields, called the (< Foundery," and transformed it
into a meeting and preaching house. About the same
time in Bristol, and the neighbouring colliery-district
of Kingswood, he felt obliged to become the owner
much against his will at first, of premises for the
purpose of public preaching and religious meetings.
Here was the beginning of that vast growth of preaching-
houses and meeting-rooms, all of them for nearly fifty
years settled on Wesley himself, which became after
wards through Wesley, the property of the Methodist
Connection.
The society which Wesley established at the
Foundery in 1739 — near to where City Road Chapel
now stands — was the first society under the direct
control of Wesley, and herein was the actual and vital
beginning of the " Methodist Society," that is, of
Wesleyan Methodism and all its kindred churches.
Hence the Wesleyan Methodists celebrated their
centenary in 1839.
In 1743 Wesley published the rules of this Society.
John Wesley 253
His brother Charles's name was joined with his own at
the foot of these rules in their second edition, dated
ist May 1743, and so remained in all later editions
while Charles Wesley lived. Those rules are still the
rules of Wesleyan Methodism, so far as relates to
membership of the Church. Since Wesley's death
they have not been altered. In 1742 the societies
were divided into classes, each class being placed
under the charge of a " leader." The class-leaders of
Methodism, together with the local stewards, became in
course of time, and have remained for nearly a century
past, the ordinary disciplinary council in every society.
From first to last there is no trace or colour of any
Anglican character in the organisation of Wesley's
society or societies — for the societies collectively
constituted " the Methodist Society," or the "United
Society." Moravians or Dissenters might have entered
the fellowship, and, before long, many did enter it who
had either been Dissenters or, at any rate, had seldom
or never entered a parish church. What would to-day
be called the " unsectarian " character of his society was
indeed, in Wesley's view, one of its chief glories. All
the time, however, this " unsectarian " society was only
another sect, in process of formation. And, indeed,
Wesley himself, for many years before his death, had
seen that, unless the rulers of the Church should come
to adopt in regard to his preachers and preaching-
houses a liberal policy of recognition, this might be the
outcome of his life-work. Nor did he, in his latest
years, shrink with any repugnance from the prospect ;
rather at the last he would appear to have even rejoiced
in it.
Very early, indeed, Wesley had been driven, sorely
against his will, to make a distinct separation of his
societies in London and at Bristol from the Church of
254 Champions of the Truth
England. The clergy not only excluded the Wesleys
from their pulpits, but often repelled both them and
their converts from the Lord's Table. This was first
done on a large scale, and with systematic harshness
and persistency at Bristol in 1740. The brothers
believed that they had no alternative but to administer
the Sacrament themselves in their own preaching-rooms.
The practice having thus been established at Bristol,
the original society at the Foundery naturally claimed
the like privilege, the more so as too many of the
London clergy acted towards Wesley's followers in the
same manner as those at Bristol. These administra
tions, once begun, were afterwards steadily maintained,
one of the Wesleys, or else some co-operative or friendly
clergyman, being always present, whether in London
or at Bristol, to take the service. Both on Sundays
and on week-days, in these first centres of Methodist
work and influence, full provision was made for the
spiritual wants of the societies, quite apart from the
services of the Church of England. The only link with
that Church was that the sacramental administrators
were clergymen.
In 1741 Wesley began to employ lay-preachers.
The story is well known how he hastened up to
London from Bristol to put an end to his schoolmaster
Maxfield's preaching at the Foundery. He took his
venerable mother's wise advice, however, and heard
Maxfield preach himself. Thenceforth lay-preaching
became a Methodist institution. One High Church
prejudice after another was giving way ; and this
circumstance registers the last struggle of one of these
prejudices. Wesley could by no means have done his
work without his lay-itinerants ; he would have been
as helpless as a general without officers. These
itinerant preachers, stationed, from year to year, in
John Wesley 255
wide " circuits," conducted the simple services in the
Methodist preaching-rooms, and were, in effect, as to
most points, the spiritual pastors and guides of the
societies. But they did not administer the Sacraments,
for the reception of which the members had to go to
Church, if they were allowed to have them there, or
else to wait — often for long months or even years — for
the coming round of Wesley or his brother Charles, or,
in later years, of Dr. Coke. Long before Wesley's
death, however, there was a growing desire among the
societies, especially as the itinerant preachers improved
in quality and faculty, to have the Sacraments ad
ministered by their own preachers. This came to pass
universally after Wesley's death, and he himself took
steps in the later years of his life which prepared the
way for it.
In the beginning of 1738 Wesley had been a High
Churchman ; and even after his conversion in that year
he continued for several years to hold in the abstract
High Church views as to points ecclesiastical. But in
1746 he abandoned once for all his ecclesiastical High
Churchmanship. He relates in his journal, under date
2oth January 1746, how his views were changed by
reading Lord (Chancellor) King's account of the
primitive Church. From this time forward he con
sistently maintained that " the uninterrupted succession
was a fable which no man ever did or could prove."
One of the convictions derived by him at this time
from reading Lord King's book was that the office of
bishop was originally one and the same with that of
presbyter ; and the practical inference drawn by
Wesley was that he himself was a " Scriptural
Episcopos," and that he had as much right as any
primitive or missionary bishop to ordain ministers, as
his representatives and helpers, who should administer
256 Champions of the Truth
the Sacraments instead of himself to the societies
which had placed themselves under his spiritual charge.
This right, as he conceived it to be, he was often
moved to exercise, that he might satisfy the needs and
outcries of his societies ; but he refrained until he felt
it was impossible to resist the call of Providence on
behalf of the American Methodist Societies. In 1784
when the Colonies had become an independent nation,
Wesley ordained his trusted friend and helper Dr.
Coke, a clergyman of the Church of England, as
superintendent ('ETTLO-KOTTOS) for America, where Coke
ordained Francis Asbury presbyter and alsoi superin
tendent, and where Coke and Asbury together
ordained the American preachers as presbyters. Thus
American Methodism was constituted an independent
church. To-day the Methodism of America, taken
collectively, is the largest aggregate of national
Protestantism in the world.
The following year (1785) Wesley ordained Method
ist ministers for Scotland. In 1786 he ordained a
minister for Antigua and another for Newfoundland.
A number of other preachers were ordained by him
during the next three years.
In 1784 Wesley had legally defined his yearly Con
ference. His preachers had been accustomed for forty
years to meet with him in annual Council or "Conference."
To " the Conference " — consisting legally of a hundred
ministers, chosen and appointed by name, who them
selves are required to fill up the vacancies in their
number from year to year — the legal instrument or
Deed of Declaration of 1784 gives supreme jurisdiction
as to the appointment of preachers to the chapels of
the Connexion, and as to the admission and expulsion
of ministers. In practice all the powers, whether
original or acquired, of the Conference have, since
John Wesley 257
Wesley's death, been shared by all the ministers attend
ing the yearly sessions of the Conference, whether
members of the " Legal Hundred " or not.
Wesley could not have done his wonderful life-work
but for an extraordinary combination of qualities,
physical and intellectual, as well as moral and spiritual.
Notwithstanding his vast correspondence and voluminous
authorship, it has been calculated that he usually
travelled — always on horseback till he was nearly
seventy years of age — four thousand five hundred
miles a year.
His day's work began with preaching at five o'clock
in the morning, and he preached two, three, or some
times even four sermons a day. To ride from sixty
to seventy miles, besides preaching at least twice,
and this day after day, was an ordinary performance
with him.
There were times when he went far beyond this
measure. He tells us, on one occasion, that after
riding from Bawtry to Epworth, not by the direct road,
which was under water, a distance of " more than
ninety miles," he " was little more tired than when he
rose in the morning." Another time in Scotland he
reached Cupar, " after travelling near ninety miles,"
and found " no weariness at all." When he was near
seventy years of age he was obliged to discontinue
riding on horseback ; but in other respects his energy
and endurance remained unimpaired till a much later
age. A sudden call to Bristol reached him at Congleton
when he was seventy-one years old. He took chaise to
Bristol, gave two hours to his business, and immediately
returned to Congleton, having done the distance of
280 miles and his business in little more than forty-
eight hours, and " no more tired," he records, than
when he set out.
258 Champions of the Truth
His person was small, spare, and sinewy, perfectly
proportioned and made for activity. His features were
striking — the nose somewhat aquiline, the lips firm,
the mouth mobile and handsome, the eyes bright and
vivid, now piercing, now commanding, and again
sympathetic. His complexion was very beautiful —
fair, clear, and somewhat ruddy ; his forehead was fine
and fully developed ; his brown hair was soft and long
with a natural curl. Contrary to the fashion of the
time, he wore it without a wig until his later years.
As a thinker he was acute, consecutive, and system
atic. He was a remarkably keen and skilful logician.
At Oxford his reputation was high as a scholar ; but
it was highest as a logician. He was a wide and
various reader all his life, and his Appeals to Men of
Reason and Religion, as well as some of his sermons,
show how his mind had been enriched and enlarged
by the philosophical studies of his earlier life. On the
purely intellectual side of his nature, and especially
when dealing with matters of taste or questions of
history, he was severely critical, and, indeed, often
sceptical, as is shown by many passages in his journals
and his letters, while on the spiritual side he was
candid, open, charitable, and sometimes — particularly
as to what seemed to be " other -world " facts or
phenomena — credulous.
His preaching, which must not be judged by his
published sermons, was, as to the present phrase and
colour and tone of his utterances, almost always truly
extemporaneous. He and his audience were in living
contact and sympathy with each other, mind with
mind, and not only face to face. Perhaps his most
distinctive and unfailing characteristics were the trans
parent clearness of his exposition, and the direct and
searching force of his application. His manner was
John Wesley 259
always perfectly simple and natural ; at the same time
he spoke with a calm authority, a serene commanding
force, a sustained power, free from all spasmodic fervours,
yet sometimes vehement in its intensity, which com
bined to mark him out as a preacher altogether unique
in style and character. No words could be plainer
than his, no style less ambitious ; of descriptive or
dramatic eloquence he had nothing ; yet his phrases
flew like bolts, and his applications and appeals often
overwhelmed his hearers as with a sudden overthrow,
or struck them straight to the heart, so that men and
women " dropped down as dead."
The triumphs of Wesley's ministry were perhaps
greatest in Cornwall. Before he visited that county it
was the abode of a people ignorant, barbarous, and
reckless, almost beyond belief. Christian civilisation
seemed scarcely to have touched them. Under his
preaching and that of his brother, and their lay
evangelists, the character of the county was radically
and permanently transformed. It has now for many
generations been noted for the religious and Christian
character of the population. The work which, under
Providence, he accomplished in Newcastle and among
the dales of Northumberland, Durham, and North York
shire is not so celebrated, but was almost as remarkable
in its character and results as the work in Cornwall.
The whole region has retained a deep savour of earnest
and practical Christianity to this day. Wonderful,
also, were the successes of his ministry among the
barbarous population of what is now known as " the
black country," and among the colliers of Kingswood.
Nor did the work of his life die out or even decline.
The revival, as he delighted often to say, continued
and increased under his eye and under his hand for
more than half a century.
260 Champions of the Truth
The personal influence of Wesley and the kingly
authority which seemed to belong to him are among
the most marked characteristics of the man. Even
in the beginning at Oxford, as we have seen, he always
led those with whom he came into contact ; and this
magnetic power belonged to him through life. It was,
however, greatly increased after his conversion. In
the midst of a mob " I called," Wesley writes, " for a
chair ; the winds were hushed, and all was calm and
still ; my heart was filled with love, my eyes with
tears, and my mouth with arguments. They were
amazed ; they were ashamed ; they were melted down ;
they devoured every word."
One of the griefs of Wesley's life was the difference,
and, for a while, controversy between Whitefield and
himself in regard to the questions of election and pre
destination. But the two great evangelists were not
very long in agreeing to differ. They loved each other
dearly. Whitefield appointed Wesley his executor,
and Wesley preached Whitefield's funeral sermon.
Wesley's old age was in all respects remarkable.
The once proscribed and reviled evangelist came to be
the object of almost universal honour. The churches
had been shut to him for nearly half a century ; but
at length they were opened to him on every hand.
Bishops paid him reverence, clergy flocked to hear him
and to take part with him in administering the Lord's
Supper. His strength, too, his activity, the bright
intelligence of his faculties, seemed to be almost preter
natural.
Not until he reached his eighty-fifth year do we
find an intimation of any of the infirmities which
belong to old age. But the charm of his old age was
its happiness and goodness. Alexander Knox, the
friend of Southey, had been his friend for thirty years,
John Wesley 261
and has furnished a description of his old age, which
forms a fine counterpart to Mr. Gambold's picture of
him at Oxford as he was fifty years before.
"It would be far too little to say," writes Mr. Knox,
"that it was impossible to suspect him of any moral
taint, for it was obvious that every movement bespoke
as perfect a contrariety to all that was earthly or
animal as could be imagined in a mortal being. His
countenance, as well as conversation, expressed an
habitual gaiety of heart, which nothing but conscious
virtue and innocence could have bestowed. My ac
quaintance with him has done more to teach me what
a heaven upon earth is implied in the maturity of
Christian piety, than all I have elsewhere seen or heard
or read, except in the sacred volume." It is no wonder
that such a man was welcome among the pure and
good of all ages and of every circle, or that children
especially loved and delighted in him as he loved and
delighted in them.
His death was in harmony with his life. " The
best of all is God is with us " were almost his last
words. And the last hymn that he sang, and tried
once again to sing when very near his end, was the
one which begins —
I'll praise my Maker while I've breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers ;
My days of praise shall ne'er be past
While life and thought and being last,
Or immortality endures.
He died on 2nd March 1791, being eighty-seven
years old. He had preached his last sermon on
Wednesday the 23rd of February. He wrote his last
letter on Saturday the 26th. It was addressed to
262 Champions of the Truth
William Wilberforce, and was an exhortation to him
to persevere in his public efforts against the slave-trade.
His last word was a simple " farewell," addressed to
his old companion Joseph Bradford, one of his most
faithful and best trusted preachers.
CHARLES WESLEY.
CHARLES WESLEY
By (1708-1788)
Benjamin Gregory, D»D*
CHARLES WESLEY holds an unchallenged place amongst
the greatest hymn -writers of the Christian Church.
The most competent judges of the most opposite
theological schools — Dr. Watts, the precentor of the
Nonconformist psalmody, and John Keble,1 the most
classic of the High Church lyrists — hail him as the
leader of their choir. He has, moreover, the decisive
suffrage of the alternative first or second place. Who
ever else may be accounted first, Charles Wesley's name
invariably comes next.
Charles, the youngest son, and the eighteenth child,
of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, M.A., was born at Epworth
on 29th December (N.S.) 1708, five years later than
his still more famous brother, John. Charles came into
the world prematurely; the future hymn -writer and
evangelist lay for weeks wrapped up in soft wool, with
closed eyes, and without uttering a sound. Before he
was two months old, the memorable incendiary fire
occurred which on a wild winter's night burnt down the
rectory, in the flames of which little Jacky Wesley all
but perished.
Having survived the fire and the frost of that
February night, Charles Wesley spent in the remote
1 British Critic, 1840.
263
264 Champions of the Truth
river-island the first seven years of a life that was to
be so stirring and itinerant. His highly intellectual,
accomplished, and devoted mother had the task of
training the young minstrel's opening mind, and
moulding his character. There was little in the level
landscape on which the Epworth parsonage looked
down to awake poetic genius, unless to Charles Wesley,
as to his fellow-countyman, Lord Tennyson —
A willowed swamp
Rivalled the beauty of Italian skies.
The sluggish Idle and Milton's " gulfy Don " were within
the range of a holiday ramble, if any such he had ; and
across the cultured flats could be seen the glitter of the
broadening Trent, which here —
Like some earth-born giant, spreads
His thirty arms along the indented meads.
In autumn, the graceful, delicate blue flowers of the
flax-fields would refresh his eye. His father's placid
verse reflects the moist treeless scenery, where —
Morning greets the skies
With rosy cheeks, and humid eyes,
and the birds " build on the green turf their mossy
nests," overhung by " the low liquid sky." The rivers
are invoked as —
Nurses of soft dreams :
Reedy brooks, and winding streams ;
Where, through matted sedge, you creep
Travelling to your parent deep.
— " Hymn to the Creator."
But Charles was not a descriptive poet, and was much
less susceptible to the charms of Nature than his brother
John.
Charles spent less than three years under his
Charles Wesley 265
mother's schooling, though more than seven under her
effective training. The children were not set to learn
the alphabet till they were full five years old, and
Charles was not yet eight when Samuel Wesley, junior,
who was second master at the great school of West
minster, undertook his youngest brother's maintenance
and education.
It was a wonderful experience for the imaginative,
sensitive little genius, when he emerged from the
seclusion of his home at Epworth and made that slow,
yet to him swift-seeming, journey of a hundred and fifty
miles, to " royal-towered " Westminster. He must have
been thinking of this first crisis of his life when he
wrote the tender hymn which comes next to that " For
a Child Cutting his Teeth," that " For Sending a Child
to the Boarding School " : —
Not without Thy direction
From us our child we send,
And unto Thy protection
His innocence commend.
Jesus, Thou Friend and Lover
Of helpless infancy,
With wings of mercy cover
A soul bestowed by Thee, etc.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century West
minster took a still higher rank than now amongst the
great public schools of England. It was no slight advan
tage to Charles Wesley to be under the tutelage of his
brilliant brother Samuel, who was seventeen years his
senior ; and to whom he looked up with veneration as
born in an earlier century. He was scarcely less
favoured in having his brother John as a neighbour,
who was then, and for three years after, a scholar at
the Charterhouse. Charles spent ten years at West
minster — five at the school, and five at St. Peter's
266 Champions of the Truth
College, as " King's scholar," his brother being thus
relieved of his expenses. His ingenuous, noble-natured
gratitude for education at the cost of the beneficent is
shown in one of his earliest publications — Hymns for
Charity Children (1741) : —
With what resembling care and love
Both worlds for us appear
Our friendly guardians ! — those above,
Our benefactors here.
Blessings — the payment of the poor —
Our lips and hearts return.
At Westminster Charles displayed the physical
fearlessness and British pluck which stood him in such
good stead in his evangelistic perils. A Scotch lad,
William Murray, who was very badly treated by his
schoolfellows because his father had sided with the
Pretender, was valorously championed by the son of
the Lincolnshire parson. When Pope's " silver-tongued
Murray " became Chief Justice, and Earl of Mansfield,
he thankfully remembered this early obligation to
Charles Wesley.
Whilst at Westminster, Charles Wesley had what
his brother John called "a fair escape" from becoming
a man of wealth and high social rank. Garrett Wesley,
Esq., M.P., of Dungan, Ireland, having large estates, but
no child, and being nearly sixty years of age, wrote to
Samuel Wesley, senior, offering to adopt his son Charles
and make him his heir. Much correspondence ensued
between father and son ; and an Irish gentleman, sup
posed to be Garrett Wesley himself, visited Charles
at Westminster, and pressed upon him the acceptance
of the heirship. This did not accord, however, with
Charles's life-plan ; and, being left to his own judgment,
he declined the overture. Thereupon Garrett Wesley
Charles Wesley 267
adopted his cousin, Richard Colley, of Dublin, on con
dition of his assuming the name of Wesley. Richard
Colley's son, Garrett Colley Wesley, became Earl of
Mornington, and was the father of Richard Wesley,
Governor-General of India, created Marquis of Welles-
ley ; and of Arthur Wesley, the great Duke of
Wellington.1
In 1726, Charles Wesley, in his eighteenth year,
went up to Christ Church, Oxford, where he spent nine
years.
These nineteen years of classic training left deep,
bright traces on Charles Wesley's hymns. In a letter,
written soon after he first found himself at Westminster,
he says that he has come there "to be bred a scholar."
And a scholar he was bred. His father was a scholar,
and an author of some reputation, both in prose and
verse ; and his mother's vigorous and graceful mind was
richly cultivated. His brother Samuel was a recognised
scholar, wit, epigrammatist, and poet, moving in the
highest literary circle, counting Pope, Addison, Prior,
Attenbury, and Lord Oxford amongst his personal
friends. He, too, wrote imperishable hymns, as well as
the exquisite lyric, " The morning flowers display their
sweets." At Westminster Charles Wesley also passed
under the hands of Vincent Bourne, the deftest, liveliest,
most tasteful, and most charming of English masters of
Latin poetry, who was then in his prime, and not the
listless, slip-shod teacher he had become in Cowper's
day. Charles Wesley's genius richly repaid his classic
cultivation. His English is at once idiomatic, ver
nacular, and scholarly. He modestly depreciates his
1 Wellington's name in the Army List for 1800 is "the Hon. Arthur
Wesley." "Wellesley" is a recurrence to an older form of the name of
which "Wesley " is a contraction. The first member of the family known to
history held lands near the city of Wells, in Somerset.
268 Champions of the Truth
own style in comparison with that of his most popular
contemporaries : —
Could I like rapid Young aspire,
Transported on his car of fire,
Or flow with academic ease
Smooth as our own Isocrates.
But his English has much more the " flow " of
" academic ease," as well as of the strength and purity
of the antique models, than that of the author of the
" Meditations in a Flower Garden " and " Amongst the
Tombs," to whom he makes this affectionate allusion.
Charles Wesley's spiritual state when, in his
eighteenth year, he went to Oxford, is thus described
by his brother John : — " He pursued his studies
diligently, and led a regular, harmless life ; but if I
spoke to him about religion, he would warmly answer,
* What ! would you have me to be a saint all at once ? '
and would hear no more. At that time his ideal was
to be, like his eldest brother, a scholar, a wit, a church
man, and a gentleman. Saintship was to supervene on
churchmanship, in due course."
Yet Charles Wesley was the originator, though John
was the organiser, of Oxford Methodism. It was in
1729, when Charles was not yet quite of age, and John
was away acting as his father's curate, that Charles,
having taken his degree of B.A., and his position as
college-tutor, began a course of such systematic study,
such strict conformity to the university statutes, such
scrupulous attendance on the services of the Church,
and such regularity and precision in the disposal of his
time, as to present a reproving contrast to the habits
of his compeers, and to win for himself the nickname
Method-ist.
This first stage of his conversion was singularly
gentle ; for the conversion of both the brothers had two
Charles Wesley 269
stages, so marked that they might be designated
dispensations. In the first stage, each " came to him
self" ; in the second, each came to his Father's arms.
Charles, in the letter to his brother announcing the
great change that had come over him, confesses his
inability to trace it to any direct instrumentality. " It
is owing in great measure to somebody's prayers (my
mother's, most likely) that I am come to think as I do ;
for I cannot tell myself how or when I awoke out of
my lethargy." But, no doubt, his own experience is
reflected in the powerful hymn : —
Thou great, mysterious God, unknown,
Whose love has gently led me on,
Even from my infant days !
as well as in the verse : —
I sing of Thy grace,
From my earliest days,
Ever near to allure and defend, etc.
Charles soon became the nucleus of a small " society "
of godly young gownsmen, who shared his principles,
and his reproach. When, however, John Wesley,
returning to Oxford, joined the little brotherhood, he
was at once recognised as its directive mind. Besides
his natural gifts of leadership, he was more than five
years older than Charles, had been six years longer at
the university, and was Fellow of a college. Charles,
in the letter just quoted, had already put himself under
his brother's direction.
Charles Wesley must, in all justice, be acknowledged
as a co-founder of Methodism. Whitefield distinctly
attributes his conversion to the instrumentality of the
younger brother. The duality of the Foundership is
plain. Each brother was the other's complement. In
them we see the union of argumentation cool and close,
270 Champions of the Truth
and administration, firm, calm, wise, and loving, with
poetic passion. They were the Moses and Aaron of
the new exodus ; the Jachin and Boaz of the new
spiritual temple. The one bold stride of field- and
street-preaching was to each at once the Jabbok and
the Rubicon ; and Charles was the first to take it.
The younger brother had, indeed, more initiative than
the elder. He was also the first to administer the
Lord's Supper to Methodists separately, and in an
unconsecrated place. It is a beautifully significant fact
that at least ten volumes of Hymns and Psalms were
published in the joint names of John and Charles
Wesley ; so that in many cases it is impossible to
determine by which a particular hymn was written.
The brothers spent the six years 1729-1735 in the
conscientious discharge of their tutorial duties, in the
humblest philanthropic labours, and in the earnest
study of the Scriptures and cultivation of the spiritual
life in association with the Godly Club. In 1735 they
crossed the Atlantic together as missionaries of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel ; Charles
as chaplain-secretary to General Oglethorpe, governor
of the new colony of Georgia, and as parish priest
of Frederica. Shortly before embarkation he was
ordained — in his twenty -eighth year. During their
sixteen weeks' voyage the young clergymen's whole
time was utilised in the most Methodistic manner, in
" doing or receiving good."
At Frederica, Charles devoted himself to his pastoral
work with the utmost assiduity, holding four services a
day, and being indefatigable in the individual oversight
of his flock. Yet his want of success was most dis
heartening. His fidelity and earnestness procured him
more enemies than hearers, insomuch that his life was
attempted more than once. He was fired at, in his
Charles Wesley 271
favourite meditative " myrtle-walk in the woods." The
truth is, the devoted brothers had not yet found the
secret of personal happiness and ministerial success.
Nevertheless, Frederica proved no bad training-
ground for his appointed work. There being no church,
he was obliged to conduct service " under the shade of
trees," or in the shed "where the public stores were
kept." This was his first practice in preaching out of
doors, and in unconsecrated places. His lodging was
in a leaky hut, compared with which the wood and
plaster rectory in which he was born was like an archi-
episcopal palace. His furniture did not include a tea
kettle or even " boards to lie on." Much of his time
was spent at " the camp," for invasion was expected
daily, seven Spanish men-of-war having anchored at the
mouth of the river waiting for a favourable wind. But
his humour never failed him. He writes : " I begin to
be abused and slighted into an opinion of my own
considerableness. I could not be more trampled upon
was I a fallen minister of State. I sometimes diverted
myself with their odd expressions of contempt, but found
the benefit of having undergone a much lower degree
of contempt at Oxford." But strength and valour both
gave way. He writes : " My outward hardships and
inward conflict —
" down
At last have borne my boasted courage."
" A friendly fever " put him quite hors de combat.
" When my fever was somewhat abated, I was led out
to bury the scout-boat man (killed by the burst of a
cannon) and envied him his quiet grave." Such was
the despondency of a man who had before him more
than half a century of intense, exultant, successful, and
abiding work ! His fever returned, accompanied by
dysentery, yet he " was obliged to go abroad and
272 Champions of the Truth
preach and give the sacrament." His text, chosen
from the Prayer-Book version of the Psalms, " Keep
innocency and take heed to the thing that is right, for
that shall bring a man peace at the last," " was inter
preted as a satire against Mrs. H ." At last his
congregation dwindled to " two Presbyterians and a
Papist."
Oglethorpe at length resolved not to await the attack
of the Spaniards, but to contest their landing. The old
soldier-statesman sent for Charles Wesley, and said :
" I am now going to death. You will see me no more."
He then gave Charles a diamond ring, as at once a
token, a testimonial, and memento. To Oglethorpe's
remark " that he much desired the conversion of the
heathen, and believed my brother intended it," Charles
Wesley gave this notable reply : " But I believe it will
never be under your patronage, for then men would
account for it without God." But the Spaniards, after
three weeks waiting on the wind, betook themselves
elsewhere. Charles then accompanied Oglethorpe to
Savannah and took his brother's work. The man who
afterwards preached fearlessly to threatening thousands,
writes : " The hardest duty imposed upon me was to
expound the lessons to a hundred hearers. I was
surprised at my own confidence, and acknowledged it
not my own."
In July 1736 he was sent to England with
despatches, in a wretched craft, with a more wretched
captain. On embarking he was again prostrated by
dysentery and fever. After six days at sea, they were
obliged to run into Boston harbour, U.S., for repairs.
Here his state was so critical that he was attended by
three physicians. Nevertheless, he felt bound, as soon
as the ship was ready, at all risks to hasten to England
with his despatches. After a tempestuous and most
Charles Wesley 273
trying voyage of two months, he landed at Deal in
December.
His grateful sense of his many signal deliverances
he poured forth in the hymn : —
God of my life, whose gracious power
Through varied deaths my soul hath led :
Or turned aside the fatal hour,
Or lifted up my sinking head ;
In all my ways Thy hand I own,
Thy ruling providence I see ;
O ! help me still my course to run,
And still direct my paths to Thee.
Oft from the margin of the grave
Thou, Lord, hast lifted up my head ;
Sudden I found Thee near to save ;
The fever owned Thy touch, and fled.
Oft hath the sea confessed Thy power
And given me back to Thy command ;
It could not, Lord, my life devour,
Safe in the hollow of Thy hand.
On partial recovery, he hastened to Oxford, to visit
his Methodist friends, and the prisoners.
Through Lady Betty Hastings, Charles Wesley soon
became acquainted with the godly aristocracy. He
had also an audience with George II., and dined with
the King and Queen at Hampton Court. He had
interviews with Archbishop Potter, and the Bishops
of London and Oxford. On his birthday, he
described himself as " in a murmuring, discontented
spirit"; and on 22nd January 1737, finding a friend
reading an announcement of his death, he writes :
" Happy for me had the news been true." Whilst
in this state, he wrote his " Hymn for Midnight,"
beginning : —
274 Champions of the Truth
Fain would I leave this earth below,
Of pain and sin the dark abode ;
Where shadowy joy, or solid woe,
Allures, or tears me from my God.
It ends, however, in the true Wesleyan key : —
Come quickly, Lord, Thy face display,
And look my darkness into day.
Sorrow and sin and death are o'er,
If Thou reverse " the creature's " doom ;
Sad Rachel weeps her loss no more,
If Thou, the God, the Saviour, come ;
Of Thee possessed, in Thee we prove
The light, the life, the heaven of love.
He sought light from the solemn, earnest Mystic,
William Law, who bade him farewell with this true
saying : " Nothing / can either speak or write will do
you any good."
But he had two other interviews far more important
and influential than those with philosophical divine,
prelate, archbishop, or royalty itself. Count Zinzendorf,
just arrived from Germany, sent for Charles Wesley ;
and Peter Bohler, another Moravian, preparatory to
going as a missionary to Georgia, " put himself under
Charles Wesley's care to learn English." The pupil
taught his tutor a yet nobler lesson. Charles Wesley
was again laid low by alarming illness. When he
seemed " on the point to die," Bohler asked him, " Do
you hope to be saved ? " Charles answered, " Yes."
" For what reason do you hope it ? " " Because I have
used my best endeavours to serve God." " He shook
his head, and said no more. I thought him very un
charitable, saying in my heart : Would he rob me of
my endeavours? I have nothing else to trust to."
Poor returned missionary ! he knew he had no success
to lean on.
Charles Wesley 275
That sad, silent, significant shake of Peter Bohler's
head shattered all Charles Wesley's false foundation of
salvation by " endeavours."
This illness barred his fully -intended return to
Georgia — -the doctor assuring him it would be certain
death. During his three months' sojourn in England
Peter Bohler most effectively taught the two brothers
whose teaching was to influence, directly or indirectly,
so many millions of souls. On his departure, Charles,
still lying at the gates of death, was visited by one
Bray, a working brazier, "a poor, ignorant mechanic
who knows nothing but Christ." Under this man's
teaching the highly-cultivated man of genius resolved
to place himself, and was " carried in a chair " to his
house in Little Britain. There he " first saw Luther
On the Galatians" on reading which he writes : " I
marvelled that we were so soon and so entirely removed
from him that called us into the grace of Christ, unto
another Gospel. Who would believe that our Church
had been founded upon this important article of
justification by faith alone ! "
At last, in his sick-room in a narrow outlet from
Smithfield, on Sunday, 2 1st May 1738, Charles Wesley
could write, for the first time in his life, " I now found
myself at peace with God." In this, too, the younger
brother outstripped the elder, but only by three days.
On the 24th of May, Charles makes this record :
" Towards ten my brother was brought in triumph by
a troop of our friends, and declared ' / believe' " The
party then sang a hymn which Charles had composed
the day after his own emancipation, to commemorate
that grand event. It was probably the fine hymn con
taining the verse —
Long my imprisoned spirit lay '
Fast bound in sin and nature's night ;
276 Champions of the Truth
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray ;
I woke ! the dungeon flamed with light ;
My chains fell off; my heart was free ;
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Charles Wesley was then in his thirtieth year. He
obtained a curacy at Islington, but after preaching a
sermon on the Fourth Commandment, he was pre
vented by force from entering the pulpit by the
churchwardens. This was his last appointment in
the English Church.
On Royal Oak Day, 1739, Charles Wesley having
been refused the church, a farmer invited him to
preach in his field, at Broadoaks, Essex. He "did
so, to about five hundred, on ' Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand.1 " Two days after, at the
" pressing invitation " of a Quaker, he preached at
Thaxted to " many Quakers, and near seven hundred
others." Thus began his long career of evangelisa
tion. To the Archbishop's interdict and threat of
excommunication, he replied by preaching the next
Sunday to ten thousand people in Moorfields, London,
from " Come unto Me all ye that labour," etc. The
Sunday after that he took his turn at the University
Church, Oxford, preaching on Justification by Faith.
The next Sunday morning he preached again at
Moorfields, to as large a gathering as before, and in
the afternoon to " an immense multitude " on Ken-
nington Common ; with prodigious effect, so much
had heart-peace improved his health. For the latter
service he was indicted and heavily fined.
The next ten years he devoted, like his brother,
to itinerant evangelism, through England, Wales, and
Ireland.
In 1749 he married Miss Gwynne, a Welsh lady;
his whole income being ;£ioo a year, from the profits
Charles Wesley 277
of his own and his brother's publications. For some
months the newly-wedded pair itinerated on the same
horse. But his health proving unequal to so much
travelling and out-door preaching, Charles Wesley
undertook the charge of the two largest Methodist
Societies, those of London and Bristol, preaching
daily, and making occasional evangelistic excursions,
as far' as Cornwall and Yorkshire. In 1771 he took
up his permanent residence in London.
Charles Wesley's two sons, Charles and Samuel,
developed marvellous musical genius, and devoted
themselves to music as their profession. " Select
concerts " were held in a large room in their father's
house, attended by the Bishop of London, several
noblemen and foreign ambassadors, and the octo
genarian General Oglethorpe.
Among Charles Wesley's friends in London were
Samuel Johnson and Hannah More. He kept up his
early habit of prison-visiting. He died in St. Mary-
lebone, 29th March 1788, in the eightieth year of
his age. His holy dying was unconsciously described
by himself, sixteen years before, in one of his boldest
and tenderest productions, such as befits the Poet of
Assurance in the form of supplication : —
Thou Who hast tasted death for me,
Indulge me in my fond request,
And let a worm prescribe to Thee
The manner of my final rest.
Walk with me through the dreadful shade ;
And, certified that Thou art mine,
My spirit, calm and undismayed,
I shall into Thy hands resign :
No anxious doubt, no guilty gloom,
Shall damp whom Jesu's presence cheers ;
My light, my life, my God, is come !
And^glory in his face appears.
278 Champions of the Truth
Charles Wesley's poetry was lyric, elegiac, and
satiric. He owes much of the compactness, the
precision, the grace, the ease and music of his verse
to his familiarity with the best classic models. No
other English poet has such a variety, few have such
a mastery of metre. Metre and rhythm are matters
of the first importance to a hymn ; for a hymn proper
is made to be sung. The original Greek humnos
means both the air and the words (as in Hesiod).
The tune and the hymn were made together, and
were wedded and welded into one. Besides, most of
Charles Wesley's hymns were made to be announced
vocally before they were sung ; in the first instance,
by the poet himself. In the Iambic Common Metre —
the metre of the old English ballad and carol — of
" Chevy Chase " and " God rest you, merry gentlemen,"
it was impossible to surpass, it was glorious to come
up to, Watts at his very best ; whether in impetus
and bound, as in " My God, the spring of all my
joys " ; or in gravity and grandeur, as in " O God,
our Help in ages past " ; or in breezy sweep, as of
" the wafture of a world-wide wing," as in " Father,
how wide Thy glory shines," or " Eternal Wisdom,
Thee we praise." In this Watts, if he were not so
unequal, would be quite unequalled. In the Iambic
Long Metre, Charles Wesley bears the palm for
stateliness of structure and majesty of movement.
Of this his " Hymn to be Sung at Sea " is a fine
example.
In its cheery, tripping form — that of Marlowe's
" Come, dwell with me and be my love," — he is
equally at home : as in —
Come, sinners, to the Gospel-feast.
In six-eights •, at least in his favourite form of it,
Charles Wesley 279
Charles Wesley is unrivalled : witness " Come, O Thou
Traveller unknown." In fact he and his brother (in
his translations from the German) lifted that metre
from the popular pathos of " Sweet William's Fare
well," and " All in the Downs the fleet was moored," or
the descriptive humour of Shakespeare's " When icicles
hang on the wall," to a grand spiritual elevation.
In the second form of six-eights, he has Dryden's
energy and loftiness, with none of Dryden's roughness.
Take as proof his majestic version of the Te Deum, and
his hymn on " To him that overcometh will I give to
be a pillar in my house, to go out no more for ever " : —
Saviour ! on me the grace bestow
To trample on my final foe ;
Conqueror of death, with Thee to rise,
And claim my station in the skies :
Fixed as the throne that ne'er can move,
A pillar in Thy church above.
As beautiful as useful, there
May I that weight of glory bear,
With all that finally o'ercome,
Supporters of the heavenly dome ;
Of perfect holiness possessed,
For ever in Thy presence blest, etc.
His Short Metre, too, has a ringing resonance and
a mighty march which has never been outdone ; e.g. :
Soldiers of Christ, arise !
And put your armour on, etc.
Sometimes he makes its elastic feet to spring and clang
" like hinds' feet on the high places," as in his —
We shall our time beneath
Live out in cheerful hope ;
And fearless pass the vale of death,
And gain the mountain-top.
In the management of trochaic metres Charles
2 So Champions of the Truth
Wesley is equally deft. Of the metre " sevens " he
brings out all the varied capability. In the universally
adopted " Jesu, Lover of my soul," — the chosen death-
song of a multitude of the redeemed, — and in " Depth
of Mercy, can there be, Mercy still reserved for me" is
felt all its flowing, flute-like sweetness ; all its aptitude
for pleading plaint, for absolute abjection, and for
passive trust. Of the former, Henry Ward Beecher
said : " I would rather have written that hymn than
have the fame of all the kings that ever sat on the
earth. It has more power in it. That hymn will go
on singing till the last trump calls forth the angel-
band."
In Charles Wesley's Christmas, Easter, and Ascen
sion Hymns : " Hark, the herald angels sing," " Christ
the Lord is risen to-day," and " Hail, the day that
saw Him rise," we hear the animating sweetness of
the echoing horn. " Holy Lamb, who Thee confess,"
breathes the tranquil fervour of the cornpletest conse
cration. The last-named is so illustrative of the close,
neat plaiting of his hymnal texture, that I must quote
it entire. Each successive clause embodies a clear
idea in a bar of music. Each verse is perfect in itself.
Each line fits in like the cubes of an exquisite mosaic
pavement. There is not a loose thread, there is no
rough edging. The balance of rhythm, and the anti
thesis or parallelism of idea, are equally exact. Lines
and verses seem " knit together in love " : —
Holy Lamb ! who Thee confess,
Followers of Thy holiness,
Thee they ever keep in view,
Ever ask, " What shall we do ? "
Governed by Thy only will,
All Thy words we would fulfil ;
Would in all Thy footsteps go,
Walk as Jesus walked below.
Charles Wesley 28
While Thou didst on earth appear,
Servant to Thy servants here,
Mindful of Thy place above,
All Thy work was prayer and love ;
Such our whole employment be,
Works of faith and charity ;
Works of love on man bestowed,
Secret intercourse with God.
Early in the temple met,
Let us still our Saviour greet ;
Nightly to the mount repair,
Join our praying Pattern there ;
There, by wrestling faith obtain
Power to work for God again,
Power His image to retrieve,
Power like Thee, our Lord, to live.
Vessels, instruments of grace,
Pass we thus our happy days
'Twixt the mount and multitude,
Doing, or receiving, good :
Glad to pray and labour on
Till our earthly course is run
Till we, on the sacred tree,
Bow the head and die like Thee.
In the metre 6 — 7's, he comes up to his highest
models : Shakespeare's " Take, O take, those lips away,"
and Ben Jonson's " Queen and Huntress, chaste and
fair."
Take as a specimen one of Charles Wesley's hymns
which has received due literary recognition as a
Christian lyric ; that with which George Eliot repre
sents Seth Bede, the village Methodist, as singing
down all his griefs, perplexities, and cares, as he strode
across the lonely Derbyshire moors on a bright
Sunday morning : —
Christ, Whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only Light :
282 Champions of the Truth
Sun of righteousness, arise,
Triumph o'er the shades of night ;
Day-spring from on high, be near,
Day-star in my heart appear, etc.
It may be well to place side by side with this the
other morning hymn which George Eliot describes
another country Methodist, Dinah Morris, as singing
beneath the same heart-bruising sorrow, as she lights
the fire and dusts her little cottage-room. The words
breathe a " peace which passeth all understanding," and
" a joy unspeakable and full of glory " ; in powerful
contrast with the profound unrest, the melancholy mis
giving, and the prevailing mental and moral malaise to
which unbelief had doomed the great agnostic novelist
and poet : —
Eternal Beam of light Divine,
Fountain of unexhausted love,
In Whom the Father's glories shine,
Through earth beneath and heaven above,
Jesu, the weary wanderer's rest,
Give me Thy easy yoke to bear ;
With steadfast patience arm my breast,
With spotless love, and lowly fear.
Speak to my warring passions, " Peace ! "
Say to my trembling heart, " Be still ! "
Thy power my strength and fortress is,
For all things serve Thy sovereign will, etc.
A metre in which Charles Wesley excelled the most
esteemed of secular songs was " 8's." His paraphrase
of Canticles I. 7 : " Tell me, O Thou Whom my soul
loveth, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon,"
is almost as superior, for example, to Rowe's popular
" Despairing, beside a clear stream," in melody of
rhythm as in loftiness of sentiment : —
Charles Wesley 283
Thou Shepherd of Israel, and mine,
The joy and desire of my heart,
For closer communion I pine,
I long to reside where Thou art :
The pasture I languish to find
Where all who their Shepherd obey
Are fed on Thy bosom reclined,
And screened from the heat of the day.
'Tis there, with the lambs of Thy flock,
There only, I covet to rest,
To lie at the foot of the rock,
Or rise to be hid in Thy breast :
'Tis there I would always abide,
And never a moment depart,
Concealed in the cleft of Thy side,
Eternally held in Thy heart.
Charles Wesley was also a master of the favourite
mediaeval metre, 8's and 7's, with its blended pathos
and exultation, of which the Austrian national anthem
strikes the true key-note. His best-known hymn in
this metre is " Love Divine ! all love excelling."
Handel composed tunes to three of Charles Wesley's
hymns : " Sinners obey the Gospel word," " Rejoice,
the Lord is King," and " O Lord Divine, how sweet
Thou art ! " The last-named, and " Head of Thy
Church triumphant," and "Ye servants of God, your
Master proclaim," in three of his favourite metres, have
found their way into a great number of Collections.
It may be asked, Do Charles Wesley's hymns realise
the true conception of a Hymn ?
A hymn, as St. Paul indicates, holds a place between
a psalm and a song : " psalms, and hymns, and spiritual
songs." It is, however, more closely related to the
psalm than to the song ; as is implied by the necessity of
qualifying " songs " by the word " spiritual " ; whereas
the spiritual element is included in both psalms and
hymns. The Greek hymn, like the Hebrew psalm,
284 Champions of the Truth
was essentially a religious composition, for the use of
worshipping assemblies, and for solemn festivals. The
purpose of these three orders of sacred melody is to
give to devotion and edification — personal, social, and
public — enlivenment, intensity, facility, and delightful-
ness ; by the animating charm and potency of poetry
and music.
Like every other lyric, a hymn should be a flawless
gem. It should embody a complete sense : one full
sentiment and significance ; of which the last line is
the coping-stone. It should be perfect as a work of
art.
A hymn-writer must, first of all, be a born poet ;
and Charles Wesley's hymns bear the true stamp of
poetic genius. There should be in hymns a freeness
of movement, as if they were self-made. The easy
grace of most of Charles Wesley's hymns is exquisite.
Charlotte Bronte incidentally alludes, in Shirley^ to
another marked quality of Charles Wesley's hymns :
the strange blending of wailing pathos with exulta
tion. She describes the effect of the overhearing, as
she passed the door of a Yorkshire cottage where a
Methodist meeting was being held, the impassioned
singing of the hymn : —
Oh ! who can explain This struggle for life !
This travail and pain, This trembling and strife !
Plague, earthquake and famine, And tumult and war
The wonderful coming Of Jesus declare.
Yet God is above Men, devils and sin ;
My Jesus's love The battle shall win :
So terribly glorious His coming shall be,
His love, all-victorious, Shall conquer for me.
Charles Wesley's imagery is as clear-cut as that of
Byron. I give two examples : —
Charles Wesley 285
O Thou that earnest from above,
The pure, celestial fire to impart !
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart.
There let it for Thy glory burn
With inextinguishable blaze,
And trembling to its source return,
In humble prayer, and fervent praise.
As flowers their opening leaves display,
And glad drink in the solar fire,
So may we catch Thy every ray,
So may Thy influence us inspire,
Thou beam of the Eternal Beam,
Thou purging Fire, Thou quickening Flame.
There is also in Charles Wesley's hymns a sparkling
spontaneity, reminding one of Milton's paraphrase of
" As well the singers as the players on instruments
shall be there ; all my fresh springs are in thee " : —
Both they who sing, and they who dance,
With sacred songs are there ;
In thee fresh brooks and soft streams glance,
And all my fountains clear.
Charles Wesley would have been universally recog
nised as one of the greatest of lyric poets that ever
sang, but for the fact that he is not only a purely and
intensely religious poet, but is by eminence the poet of
religion, of religious revival, and of the loftiest and the
deepest spiritual life. This, too, has greatly limited
the area of adoption of Charles Wesley's hymns.
There are indeed exceptions, such as, " O love Divine,
how sweet thou art," and " O for a heart to praise my
God," " Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim,"
and " Head of Thy Church triumphant," as already
noted. This is owing greatly to their mellifluous
rhythm, which outvies the charm of secular song.
No other poet has given such a clear and varied
286 Champions of the Truth
expression to all the moods, stages, and vicissitudes
of religious experience, and "filled all the stops of"
spiritual " life with tuneful breath." Isaac Taylor truly
says : " There is no principal element of Christianity,
as professed by Protestant churches ; there is no moral
or ethical sentiment peculiarly characteristic of the
Gospel ; no height or depth of feeling proper to the
spiritual life, that does not find itself emphatically and
pointedly and clearly conveyed in some stanzas of
Charles Wesley's hymns."
Yet, intensely spiritual and revivalistic as are his
hymns, they are none the less the pure outflow and
the healthful incitement of a sober, practical, philan
thropic spirit. "They sing hymns to Christ as to a God,"
reports Pliny to Trajan, of the early Christians. And
Charles Wesley's hymns to the God-man are amongst
his noblest. " Christ, and Him crucified, and crowned,"
was the favourite theme of his hymns as of his preach
ing. This intensity, however, has doubtless greatly
limited the area of adoption or appropriation of the
Wesleyan hymnology. It was, as it were, " a new
song," as proclaiming the commencement of a new
and joyous era in the progress of the Kingdom of
God, and especially as expressing the jubilant elation
of revival and recovery. Even as all the great religious
restorations of God's ancient people : the bringing up
of the ark to Mount Zion, the dedication, and the
successive re-dedications of the temple, were inaugu
rated by grand festive musical demonstrations ; so has
it been in each reformation and revival of the Christian
Church. Yet it was only " as it were a new song " ;
abundant reminiscences of the older melodies came
mingling with its harmonies. It was but a bold and
spirited variation on the ancient anthems of the King
dom of God : Love's lays, like Love's Law, given forth
Charles Wesley 287
with a strange and startling emphasis ; both " new and
old."
Yet Charles Wesley's hymns have been circulated
by millions and sung by millions, and have been trans
lated into almost every language. Robert Southey
truly said : " No hymns have been so much treasured
in the memory or so frequently quoted on a death
bed." Coleridge says of Luther : " He did as much
for the Reformation by his hymns as by his translation
of the Bible, for in Germany the hymns are known by
heart by every peasant ; they advise, they argue from
the hymns ; and every soul in the church praises God
in words that are natural and yet sacred to his mind."
In like manner, Charles Wesley did as much for the
revival of the last century by his hymns as he and his
brother did by their sermons. The voice of Methodist
hymnody, of which Charles Wesley was precentor, was
" as of a voice out of heaven, as the voice of many
waters " : a crashing cataract of praise, multitudinous,
liquid, heaven - rending ; "as the voice of a great
thunder": waking up ten thousand echoes. It spread
away into a soft and world-wide melody, " as of harpers
harping upon their harps " : —
Loud, as from numbers without numbei ; sweet
As from blest voices uttering joy.
His short hymns on select passages of Scripture are
full of poetic power, expository value, and historical
significance as reflecting contemporary religious life.
Pure springs of tender wisdom gush up everywhere.
The leading lesson of a passage is seized with the
grasp of genius, and presented in the most concise
and effective manner, and with exquisite felicity yet
simplicity of expression. These rhythmic comments
like his own actions, prove that Charles Wesley's
288 Champions of the Truth
churchmanship, however stiffly loyal, was neither blind
nor servile. For the most part, these hymns give the
essential extract of Scripture, and are equally service
able to the devotional reader and the theological
student. Those on the Epistles, however, are more
distinguished by force and keenness than by gentleness
and beauty. As a specimen of true and helpful
exegesis, we quote that on " Fill up that which is
behind of the sufferings of Christ " : —
The sufferings which the body bears
Are still the sufferings of the Head ;
While every true disciple shares
The cross on which his Saviour bled :
The members all His cup partake
And daily die for Jesu's sake, etc.
Charles Wesley's elegiac poetry is a rich manifesta
tion of his mind and heart, and abounds with exquisite
tracings of character and experience. Sometimes he
reached a high strain of triumph ; as in his elegy
on Mrs. Horton, who at thirty -four died suddenly,
uttering the one word "Victory." His satire was
biting and blistering. It lacked Pope's subtlety,
delicacy, brilliancy, playfulness, and polish, but it had
much of Dryden's rugged might, without a grain of
Dryden's coarseness. It was marked by Churchill's
honest, homely energy of invective and denunciation,
but had no spot of his vulgarity. It could boast little
of Samuel Wesley's richly comic humour, but had
much of his epigrammatic point. It was pungent with
both Attic salt and the salt of grace. His satire
beginning : " What is a modern man of fashion ? — A
busy man without employment," is in a piquant airy
vein like that of Gay.
Charles Wesley was admitted to be one of the most
eloquent, effective, and successful preachers of the age.
Charles Wesley 289
The commentator, Joseph Sutcliffe, described him as,
at the beginning of his discourse, the most deliberate,
slow-speaking, and pauseful, but towards and at the
close, the most impetuous, impassioned, vehement, irre
sistible orator he ever heard. The few sermons of
his which remain, notably those preached before the
University of Oxford, from " He that winneth souls is
wise " and " Awake thou that sleepest," etc., are dis
tinguished chiefly by simplicity, fervour, and directness
of appeal. His sermon on The Ministry of Angels,
apparently preached before he went to Georgia, displays
a fine philosophic spirit, and proves that, had he cared
to cultivate the graces of pulpit oratory, he might have
rivalled the most distinguished of his contemporaries
— Blair or Seed or Atterbury. But he preferred to
deal out short, sharp sentences, pulsing with a fervid
yearning, and importunate evangelism.
In personal appearance Charles Wesley, like John,
was decidedly below the middle height. But each
was, every inch of him and every ounce of him, a man.
Wilberforce gives a most touching account of his
introduction to Charles Wesley. " I went to see
Hannah More, I think in 1782, and when I came into
the room Charles Wesley rose from the table, around
which a numerous company sat at tea, and coming
towards me, gave me solemnly his blessing. I was
scarcely ever more affected. Such was the effect of
his manner and appearance that it altogether overset
me, and I burst into tears, unable to restrain myself."
Charles Wesley was then in his seventy-fourth year ;
Wilberforce was twenty-three, and dated his conversion
three years later. What happy insight into a yet
undeveloped character ; what mysterious presage of
a calling yet to come, was given to the aged poet !
What a striking and significant picture ! The devout,
U
290 Champions of the Truth
intellectual, imaginative, and practically - benevolent
Hannah More presiding over the neat gentility of a
literary and religious tea-party; and the venerable
hymnist and evangelist, with impassioned look and
lifted hands, pronouncing a solemn and prophetic
benediction upon the youth who was to be, to two
generations, the great champion, by voice and pen, of
" Practical Christianity," philanthropy, and liberty.
Charles Wesley was himself a brave and ardent
philanthropist. At grave personal risk, he denounced
slavery in Charleston, Carolina ; and he continued the
laborious prison-visiting of his youth to the very end
of life. But his chief claim to the gratitude of the
Church and of the race lies in his many hundreds of
" psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."
JOHN NEWTON.
JOHN NEWTON OF OLNEY
By (1725-1807)
James Macaulay, M*A», MJX
IN the very heart of the City of London, at the
entrance of Lombard Street, close to the Mansion
House, the Royal Exchange, and the Bank of England,
stands the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth. Its greatest
attraction, to many a Christian pilgrim, is a plain
mural tablet to the memory of a former rector, who
was buried in the vault beneath. The inscription was
written by himself, leaving only the date of his death
to be added.
The epitaph begins thus : — " John Newton, Clerk,
once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in
Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and
Saviour, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned,
and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured
to destroy." The record then tells that he ministered
nearly sixteen years as curate and vicar of Olney, in
Bucks, and twenty-eight years as rector of the united
parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Wool-
church Haw, in the City of London. He died in his
eighty-third year, on 2ist December 1807, and was
buried on the last day of that year, a great concourse
of ministers and people being present.
This " clerk " has left no great name in history as
a man of learning or genius or eloquence, yet he will
291
292 Champions of the Truth
ever hold a high place in Christian biography. His
writings, if not brilliant, had the better merit of being
useful. He was an earnest preacher, a faithful pastor,
and a wise counsellor and teacher. He was no
common man who was the intimate friend of William
Wilberforce and of Hannah More, of the Grants and
the Thorntons, of Lord Dartmouth and Ambrose Serle,
and the best of the laity, as well as the clergy of all
denominations in that day. A more enduring fame
is his, in having been for many years the companion
and the comforter of the poet Cowper, and the joint
author with him of the classical and still popular book
of " Olney Hymns."
The course of his ministry, whether in the country
or in London, was uneventful, so far as outward
incidents of any remarkable kind are concerned. But
the early career of this " Clerk in Holy Orders " was
marked by a succession of adventures and a variety of
experiences such as few have encountered. The genius
of Defoe himself could not have invented a more
wonderful story, and it gives another illustration of the
common saying, that oftentimes " truth is stranger than
fiction."
John Newton was born in London in July 1725.
His father, a seafaring man, was for many years master
of a ship in the Mediterranean and Spanish trade. He
attained some position and substance, his career ending
as Governor of York Fort in Hudson's Bay, where he
died in 1750. He was a stern, severe father, in
manner at least, which his son attributed to his having
been educated at a Jesuit college in Spain. How he
came there, or his origin and ancestry, biography does
not record. That the severity was mainly in manner
and outward ways appears from another remark of his
son, where he says : " I am persuaded that my father
John Newton of Olney 293
loved me, though he seemed not willing that I should
know it."
He had married a gentle and pious wife, and John
was her only child, to whose early training she devoted
all a good mother's proverbial diligence and prayer.
We are told that when barely four years of age the boy
could read with facility, and his mind was stored with
many portions of Scripture. The mother's cares and
prayers were laid up before God ; and the seed sown
in that young heart, though long hidden and to all
appearance lost, bore fruit after many days. No
instance more striking, and no encouragement more
cheering for Christian mothers, could be given than the
life of John Newton. God alone saw the end from the
beginning of that life, and the story of it is full of
interest and instruction.
The father married again, and the second wife was
not of the same spirit as the first. Under his step
mother the boy was kindly treated, but he had no
further religious training, and being left to his own
ways, and in different companionship, the early influence
seemed to be lost.
When only eleven, after being about two years at
school, Newton was taken by his father to the Mediter
ranean in his own ship, and before he was fifteen he
had made several voyages. He was then placed in a
merchant's office at Alicante, in Spain. His prospects
were good, but his unsettled behaviour, and impatience
of restraint, caused him to lose his situation. On his
return home, his father, not intending to go to sea again,
was anxious to settle his son, and consulted a Liverpool
merchant, Mr. Manesty, who offered to send him out to
Jamaica, and to take care of his future welfare. To
the proposal that he should go to the West Indies the
young man consented readily, but a circumstance
294 Champions of the Truth
occurred which was to influence his whole future
history.
Some distant relatives of his mother invited him to
pay them a short visit in Kent, before he went abroad.
In the personal recollections of his life, he tells that he
was very indifferent about going to pay this visit, but
he went, and was most kindly received. In this family
were two daughters, the eldest of them, Mary Catlett,
then only fourteen years of age. It was a case of
" love at first sight." He said himself long after, " I
was impressed with an affection for her which never
abated or lost its influence over me. None of the
scenes of misery and wickedness I afterwards ex
perienced ever banished her for an hour together from
my waking thoughts for the seven following years."
To go to Jamaica, and to be absent for years, was
now felt to be something intolerable. He determined
he would not go, and yet he did not know how to tell
his father of his change of purpose. He stayed with
the Catletts for three weeks instead of three days,
lingering until the ship had sailed. His father,
although at first greatly displeased, became reconciled
to him, and in a short time found for him a good berth
on board a vessel trading to Venice.
Returning to England in December 1743, he
repeated his visit to Kent. Here he protracted his
stay in the same imprudent way as before, and again
disappointed his father in the plans for his welfare.
This disregard of duty almost provoked the father to
disown his son and leave him to his own ways. But the
difficulty was settled in a very summary way this time.
The sailor-looking lad, being met by a press-gang, was
taken by force aboard the Harwich man-of-war. As a
French fleet was then hovering on the coast, and as his
release could not be obtained, his father procured him
John Newton of Olney 295
a recommendation to the captain, and he was placed on
the quarter-deck as a midshipman.
The Harwich lay in the Downs, and Newton
obtained leave to go on shore for a day. Regardless
of consequences, he foolishly determined^ to pay an
other visit to the Catletts, before sailing to the West
Indies. The captain was prevailed on to excuse his
absence, but by this breach of discipline the lad lost
his favour. At length the ship sailed from Spithead,
but through stress of weather was compelled to put
in at Plymouth. Several vessels of the fleet under
convoy were lost in that gale. Newton's father had
interest in some of them, and on that account he went
to Torbay. Hearing of his being there, the son
resolved to see him. His object was to try to get his
release from the navy, preferring to go into the African
trade, with which his father was connected.
The thought no sooner occurred to him than, with
his habitual reckless impetuosity, he determined to
carry it out. He was sent one day on shore with a
boat's crew, with charge to look out that none of the
men deserted. He was no sooner on land than he
betrayed his trust and went off himself. When within
two hours of his father he was discovered by a party of
soldiers, brought back to his ship as a deserter, and
after being kept in irons some time, was publicly
flogged, and degraded from his rank as midshipman.
His rage was so great that he conceived the purpose of
taking the life of his captain ; then, overwhelmed with
shame and despair, he had the temptation to drown
himself. From this crime the thought of Mary Catlett
saved him. He could not bear that she should think
meanly of him after he was dead. No fear of God was
consciously present with him, yet His merciful providence
and abounding grace preserved the graceless reprobate.
296 Champions of the Truth
By a singular incident his desire to visit Africa,
instead of the West Indies, was realised. The
Harwich was in Funchal Bay, Madeira, and the fleet
was to sail on the following day. That morning he
was late in bed. One of the midshipmen coming
down, told him to turn out. Not complying with
instant haste, his hammock was cut down. Although
very angry, he dared not resent this, and was soon on
deck. Here he saw a man putting his clothes into a
boat, saying he was going to leave the ship. On
inquiry, Newton learned that two able seamen from a
Guinea Coast ship had entered on board the Harwich,
the commodore ordering the captain to send two of his
crew in their room. The boat was detained a few
minutes, when Newton appealed to the captain to give
him his discharge, and to let him take the place of one
of the men already in the boat. Strange to say, the
captain consented, although he had refused to grant his
discharge at Plymouth, even at the request of the
admiral on the station. In less than half an hour
after he had been asleep in his hammock he was on
board the Guinea Coast trader. In a few months the
captain of this slave-ship died of fever. The mate who
succeeded to the command had no good feeling toward
Newton, who, fearing he might be sent again on board
a man-of-war, determined to stay on shore at the first
opportunity.
Wandering alone, utterly destitute, Newton was
glad to enter the service of a slave-dealer on one of the
Plantain islands. Here he passed a time of terrible
hardship and wretchedness. The slave - dealer 'was
absent for a time, during which his black mistress
treated the strange servant with the utmost cruelty,
even when he was down with fever. When he began
to recover he was nearly starved to death, and in his
John Newton of Olney
297
own " Narrative " of this part of his life he tells how
his hunger compelled him to go out at night and
prowl about for food ; and at the risk of being flogged
if discovered, he used to pull up roots in the plantation
and eat them raw on the spot. Sometimes the poor
slaves in their chains pitied him, and secretly gave him
some of their scanty food.
On the return of the master his lot was still more
wretched, owing to the falsehoods told about him by
the black woman who had been his persecutor, and was
now his reviler. His condition provided a modern illus
tration of the prodigal in deepest misery in a far country.
It was by a happy accident, as it is called, but by a
providential event, as was afterwards gratefully acknow
ledged, that the rescue from Africa was at that time
effected. A strange ship unexpectedly hove in sight.
It turned out to be one belonging to Mr. Manesty of
Liverpool, the same who had already taken interest in
the son of his friend Newton of London, and who had
offered to take him to Jamaica. The father did not
know where his son was. He supposed he was in the
West Indies, and had given instructions to the captain
of Mr. Manesty's trading ship to bring the lad home if
he met with him. Little was it expected that he
should be found on the coast of Africa.
A new succession of perils and adventures occurred
during the voyage of this vessel. In January 1748
they started to return to England, but not by the
direct route now taken. There was a long navigation
of thousands of miles, partly for purposes of trade, but
also for getting the advantage of the trade winds. In
two months we find the ship off Newfoundland. Here
they amused themselves at the cod fisheries, but being
delayed by the ship needing repairs, the stores were
exhausted and they had to fish for their maintenance.
298 Champions of the Truth
It was early in March when they left the Banks.
The ship was leaky, and the passage across the
Atlantic stormy. Near the end of the month they
sighted the Irish coast, but were then driven by a gale
to the Hebrides, narrowly escaping there from total
wreck. Not till 8th April did they find safe anchorage
in Lough Swilly, in Ulster.
Newton had some wonderful personal adventures
and deliverances during the voyage. Once he was
awakened by a violent sea breaking over the ship.
Hastening on deck, the captain ordered him to fetch
a knife. When he went below for it another man
went up in his stead, and was immediately washed
overboard.
While the ship was refitting, Newton went to
Londonderry, where he met with much hospitable
kindness, and where his health was recruited. He
wrote to his father, who had despaired of ever seeing
him again, supposing the ship to have been lost, no
tidings having been received for so long a time. The
letter arrived a few days before Newton's father left
England, to take the appointment of Governor of York
Fort, then under the Hudson's Bay Company. Before
he sailed he paid a visit to Kent, and gave consent to
his son's marriage with Mary Catlett. At the end of
May 1748 Newton arrived at Liverpool, about the
same time that his father was sailing from the Nore.
From Mr. Manesty he received a warm welcome. His
treatment of the young man, now and always, was
most generous. After hearing all his story, the good
merchant offered him the command of one of his ships ;
but Newton wisely declined, thinking it better to make
another voyage first, " to learn to obey," as he said,
" and to acquire a further insight into business before
venturing to undertake such a charge."
John Newton of Olncy
299
In August he sailed from Liverpool in one of Mr.
Manesty's African ships. On the voyage he had new
adventures and some remarkable deliverances. Just
before leaving the Guinea coast he was employed in
bringing supplies of wood and water for the ship. He
had made several trips, and the boat was starting for
the last time, when the captain called to him to come
on board, and sent another man in his place. This
seemed strange, for he had always gone till now.
The boat, old and unfit for use, sank that night, and
the man who took his place was drowned. The
captain was asked why he called Newton back, and his
reply was that he had no reason except that it came
suddenly into his mind to do so. After going to
Antigua, and then to Charleston in South Carolina, the
ship made the home voyage, arriving at Liverpool,
6th December 1749.
As soon as the ship's affairs were settled, Newton
went to London, and thence to Kent. He was married
to Miss Catlett at Chatham, I2th February 1750. It
might be deemed a precipitate and imprudent step, for
he had saved very little of his pay, and his only hope
of being able to support his wife was Mr. Manesty's
promise of the command of a ship to Africa in the
ensuing season. The appointment came while he was
yet enjoying his honeymoon in Kent, and before many
months the separation from his young wife had to take
place.
He sailed from Liverpool in August of that year, as
commander of the Duke of Argyll, a fine and well-
appointed ship, with a crew of thirty seamen. In
Africa he met with many who had known him in his
days of deepest adversity, and who were surprised at
his altered circumstances, as well as conduct. Among
other incidents, we are told that he sent a long-boat,
300 Champions of the Truth
with a smart crew, to fetch his old black tyrant, the
slave-mistress at the Plantains, to pay a visit to the
captain of their ship. Her amazement on finding it
was John Newton was extreme, and the more when
he showed her great kindness, and loaded her with
presents. " I told the men that she had formerly done
me much good, though she did not know it. She
seemed to feel it like heaping coals on her head."
And so, under a salute from the ship, she returned to
her own place. From some of the rough and reckless
captains and traders he had to stand taunts and raillery,
when they found he would not join them in excess of
riot and wickedness. Leaving the African coast, the
ship went to Antigua with its cargo of slaves and
produce. The whole voyage lasted fifteen months.
Another voyage was made from Liverpool in July
1752, to Sierra Leone, and thence with slaves, as
before, to the West Indies. A third voyage, after
remaining only six weeks in England, commenced in
the middle of October 1754. This proved to be his
last experience of seafaring life. He was preparing
for a fourth voyage, in command of a fine ship, which
Mr. Manesty had purchased expressly for him, when
he was seized with a paralytic stroke. He speedily
recovered ; but the seizure had been so sudden and
unaccountable, that it was not thought prudent to risk
exposure in a tropical climate. He gave up the
command only two days before the ship was to sail.
Newton's " friend in need," Mr. Manesty, procured
for him an appointment as tide-waiter at Liverpool,
and the month of January 1756 saw the happy couple
settled in a comfortable home, and the husband busy
with congenial work in the port of Liverpool.
It has seemed advisable to give, without interrup
tion, the narrative of John Newton's seafaring career.
John Newton of Olney
301
If the details of these early years occupy what seems an
undue proportion in the story of a long life, it is partly
because they are in themselves of unusual interest,
but more especially because they affected the character
and course of his religious life, of the rise and progress
of which we have now to give a brief account.
To his mother's pious training in his childhood, and
the apparent loss of that good influence, reference has
been already made. Evil as his ways were in his
youth and early manhood, his was not a case of passive
and hopeless abandonment, or unchecked descent from
bad to worse. While not concealing or excusing his
avowed infidelity and shameless life, he himself tells
how it was only for a short period that he lived wholly
without God and in open sin. He tells how, during
his first voyages, old impressions of religion would
sometimes revive. He tells how, at one period, he
continued to read his Bible, and, with many resolutions
and much fasting, he strove to establish a righteousness
of his own.
For two years together he thus strove. But his
heart was not in the work, and when temptations came
he was helpless to resist evil companions and evil ways.
An infidel book, and the conversation of an infidel
shipmate, brought him to avowed scepticism, and he
threw off the restraints of the Divine Word. Even
then, when apparently dead in trespasses and sins, his
conscience was not seared, and his thoughts were
troubled. To find relief he plunged into deeper
excesses of evil, and at times seemed almost an
abandoned profligate. Then there were seasons of
reflection and of remorse. The remembrance of his
sainted mother, and thoughts of the pure girl to whom
he was attached, helped to strengthen his better
feelings. The remarkable escapes and deliverances, in
302 Champions of the Truth
times of sickness and danger, compelled him to recog
nise the hand of God in providence ; of the higher
power of Divine grace he was yet unconscious.
But the beginning of a new life was near. During
the last voyage before his marriage, when he had
narrow escapes from shipwreck, the decisive change
began to show itself. "About this time," he says, in
reviewing the events of his early life, " I began to know
that there is a God who hears and answers prayer. I
was no longer an infidel. I heartily renounced my
former profaneness. I had taken up with some right
notions, and was touched with a sense of God's
undeserved mercy. I was sorry for the past, and
proposed an immediate reformation. I was quite
freed from the habit of swearing, which seemed to
have been deeply rooted in me as a second nature.
Thus to all appearance I was a new man." But he
goes on to say : " Though I cannot doubt that this
change, so far as it prevailed, was wrought by the
Spirit and power of God, yet I was still greatly
deficient in many respects. My views of the evil of
sin, the spirituality and extent of the law, and the true
character of the Christian life, were still very defective."
The methods of Divine grace in the salvation of
sinners are various. There are cases when the exact
time and place of conversion can be described. But in
other instances it is not possible to say when the
quickening of the soul begins or what are the pro
cesses of the new birth. The experience of Newton is
instructive on this point. There can be no doubt that
the previous checks of conscience and convictions of
sin were also to be ascribed to restraining grace, and
were wrought by the spirit of God, who worketh when
and how He wills. The Gospel, or glad tidings of
salvation through faith in the Saviour, he did not at
John Newton of Olney
303
once receive as it is the privilege of many to do who
"believe and live." At Charleston he had heard
Gospel preachers, probably some of the early
Methodists, but he says he did not understand, and he
did not seek explanation. This, he says, threw him
more on the study of the Bible, with meditation and
prayer, and he found that truly unto the upright light
ariseth out of darkness. Of his sincerity, and his
decision to be on the Lord's side, there could be now
no doubt.
This state of mind was more marked in the voyages
after his marriage. During one of these he commenced
a diary, which he continued till far advanced in life.
This, after being long unknown, came into the hands
of the late Rev. Josiah Bull, who has made ample use
of its materials in his Life of Newton. He also com
menced a regular correspondence with Mrs. Newton,
and in his Letters to a Wife, which have been published,
the progress of his religious life is to be seen. For a
considerable time he had continued to make his way,
with such help as he could obtain from books taken
with him from England, among which were Dr.
Doddridge's Life of Colonel Gardiner and Bishop
Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale. At length he met
with one to whom, for the first time, he could open his
whole mind, and who proved to him a counsellor and
guide as welcome as was Evangelist to Christian in
Bunyan's Pilgrim }s Progress. Here is his own account
of Captain Clunie, whose friendship was one of the
memorable events in his history. " On my arrival at
St. Kitts this voyage (1754) I found a captain of a
ship from London whose conversation was greatly
helpful to me — a man of experience in the things of
God, and of a lively, communicative turn. We dis
covered each other by some casual expressions in
304 Champions of the Truth
mixed company, and soon became, so far as business
would permit, inseparable. He not only improved my
understanding but inflamed my heart. He encouraged
me to open my mouth in social prayer. He taught me
the advantage of Christian converse. He put me upon
an attempt to make my profession more public, and to
venture to speak for God."
It may seem strange that these two worthy sea-
captains had no scruple and felt no inconsistency in
being engaged in the slave trade. It was one of the
" controversies " which had not come to the front in
those times. Long after this, George Whitefield and
other leaders of the religious revival bought or accepted
gifts of slaves, for working in connection with the
Orphan House, in Georgia.
In the latter part of 1755 Newton undertook his
duties as tide-surveyor at Liverpool. At first he was
" boarding- surveyor," having to board ships on their
arrival in the Mersey, being out with his boat night and
day according to the tides. Afterwards he had less
arduous work, having merely to visit and clear ships in
the docks. In this duty he had less work, and had
more time upon his hands. He took active part in the
affairs of a Baptist church, but without joining its
membership, which could not be except upon " full
terms," namely baptism by immersion, of which he did
not see the necessity. At St. Thomas's Church he first
heard Whitefield, who in the evening preached in St.
Thomas's Square to an audience of about four thousand
people. He had much conversation with the great
evangelist, and some correspondence subsequently. In
one of his letters he mentions that the population of
Liverpool at that time was forty thousand people,
" who in matters of religion hardly knew their right
hand from their left."
John Newton of Olney 305
Having to spend much time at the watch-office on
duty, Newton busied himself there, as well as at home,
in study, commencing the reading of the Scriptures in
Hebrew and Greek, making use of Poolers Annotations
and similar books in his biblical pursuits. He was
always a diligent student, even on his voyages providing
himself with books of an instructive and useful kind.
About this time there occurred one of the providential
deliverances of which there were so many in his early
life. He had not long left the watch-house one
morning when a gale of wind threw down the chimney-
stack, and on his return he found the chair at which he
usually sat broken to pieces.
After a year spent in this routine of duty and study,
he seems first to have entertained thoughts of entering
the ministry. This was a matter requiring considera
tion, and, in company with Mrs. Newton and a young
friend, he undertook a journey into Yorkshire, where
he had heard of remarkable revivals, both within and
outside of the Established Church. Among other
places visited was Haworth, where he received a truly
Christian welcome from Mr. Grimshaw. " Had it been
the will of God," he says, " methought I could have
renounced the world to have lived in these mountains,
with such a minister and such a people."
Newton returned to Liverpool greatly refreshed in
spirit, and with his desire to enter the ministry con
firmed. But he would do nothing rashly, nor " run "
till he believed he was really called and " sent " to so
responsible an office. He remained at his secular
duties for nearly five years longer. The tone of his
mind may be seen from some of his favourite books at
this time : The Imitation of Christ ', by Thomas a
Kempis ; On Delighting in God, by John Howe ;
Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity; and the works of Philip
X
306 Champions of the Truth
and Matthew Henry. Of the Life of Philip Henry he
says, " So far as it is lawful to make a mere man a
pattern, I would as soon have chosen him for my
model as any one."
Armed with a title to holy orders from Mr. Crook
of Leeds, Newton proceeded to London, and saw the
Bishop of Chester, who received him with great civility,
but said that, as the title was out of his diocese, he
could do nothing. However, he countersigned the
testimonials from three clergymen, and then Newton
waited on the Secretary of the Archbishop of York.
By him he was told that the Archbishop had formed
an inflexible resolution to keep to the rules and canons
of the Church. He was thus disappointed in the
object of his journey, but he had great satisfaction in
visiting Romaine in London, Berridge at Everton, and
Young (of the Night Thoughts) at Welvvyn.
A second application to the Bishop of Chester,
followed by a letter to the Archbishop of York, having
brought him no nearer his object, Newton was dis
posed to enter the ministry in connection with the
Congregationalists, rather than not exercise the gifts
which were found increasingly useful in private
assemblies. From a church at Warwick he received a
call, after preaching there, and to Mr. Scott he offered
his services wherever they might be best available.
Meanwhile his friend at Leeds had interested the Earl
of Dartmouth, who had recently offered the curacy of
Olney to Dr. Haweis, famed afterwards as one of the
founders of the London Missionary Society. Dr.
Haweis declined, but recommended the appointment of
Newton, who had been warmly commended by Venn
of Huddersfield and other eminent men.
The Bishop of Lincoln then offered to ordain
Newton, after examination. This the Bishop himself
John Newton of Olney 307
undertook, and expressed himself highly satisfied. In
fact, Newton's fitness for the ministry, both in scholar
ship and in experience, was immeasurably greater than
the average of candidates, although he had not the
advantage of a university education. In less than a
fortnight the Bishop admitted him to deacon's orders,
at Buckden ; and after preaching in various places,
including St. George's, Liverpool, he preached for the
first time at Olney, on Sunday, 2/th May. He had
some difficulty in obtaining the three testimonials for
priest's orders, from the aversion then common to any
encouragement of " Methodism," but this was in due
time arranged, and the Bishop ordained him priest at
Buckden, and parted from him with great courtesy and
many good wishes.
Newton succeeded the Rev. Moses Browne at Olney
— a somewhat eccentric man, but a faithful evangelical
minister. The preaching of Mr. Browne had prepared
the people of Olney for a Gospel ministry. The
services in the parish church were well attended, and
cottage meetings were speedily established in surround
ing hamlets. Meetings were also held in a room in
what was known as "the Great House," a mansion
which was the property of the Earl of Dartmouth. At
first the place was only used for addresses to the
children of the congregation, but gradually attendance
at an evening meeting, for prayer and exhortation,
became a regular part of the vicar's duty. It was for
the services at this prayer-meeting that Newton prepared
most of the well-known " Olney Hymns," and in this
work he was fortunate in having the poet William
Cowper as his coadjutor. Cowper had then recently,
along with Mrs. Unwin, come to reside at Olney, and
greatly helped the minister in his pastoral work.
The living was a poor one, Mr. Newton's income
308 Champions of the Truth
being little more than sixty pounds a year, but a
generous friend, John Thornton, allowed him two
hundred a year, with a charge to draw upon him for
whatever more he might require. This enabled Newton
and Cowper to give help to many of the struggling poor
during their visits to the homes of the people.
The intercourse with the poet Cowper is the most
memorable feature of Newton's life at Olney. There
are people even now who, through ignorance or malice,
say that Newton's austere views of religion were the
cause of Cowper's insanity. Every one who knows
anything of the gentle poet's history is aware how
utterly groundless is this statement. Cowper's malady
was constitutional, and first manifested itself in his
early days, when as yet he had never given to religion
a serious thought. After his recovery he found in the
Unwin family at Huntingdon true and congenial friends.
When he went, along with the widowed Mrs. Unwin, to
live at Olney, he there spent some of the happiest and
most useful years of his life.
We are told that Newton reckoned this friendship
among his " principal blessings." It was a blessing
which his parishioners shared. Cowper eagerly offered
himself as a " lay helper " to his friend. He acted as
any curate, of the best type, would have done, visiting
the poor and the afflicted, and assisting the minister in
his prayer- meetings and week-day services. That he
enjoyed a course of peace, short intervals excepted,
from the time of his coming to Olney to the reappear
ance of his mental disorder, we know from the testimony
of Mr. Newton, who " passed these six years in daily
admiring and aiming to imitate him."
One memorable and lasting result of this friendship
was the alliance in the composition of the well-known
" Olney Hymns," to which we shall presently refer.
John Newton of Olney 309
Another name associated with Newton and Olney
is that of the Rev. Thomas Scott, then curate in a
neighbouring parish. Scott's views on various points
were cloudy and unsettled, and in his perplexity he
sought the advice of Newton. This was gladly given
to the earnest and sincere inquirer, who, by the force
of truth, as he himself has recorded, was led to clear
and hearty reception of evangelical religion. In his
preaching and in his writings, the spiritual change was
more and more apparent, and through his well-known
Commentary on the Bible his influence for good has been
felt down to our own day.
In the autumn of 1779, Newton's friend, John
Thornton, offered him the living of St. Mary Woolnoth,
vacant by the death of Dr. Plumtree. Believing that this
larger sphere of usefulness was providentially opened,
and satisfied that the interests of his people at Olney
would not suffer by his removal, he entered on his new
duties early in the following year. In the new church
the audiences were different, but the preaching was the
same. " I preach my own sentiments, plainly but
peaceably, and directly oppose no one," he said in a
letter to a friend, after being some time in London.
" Accordingly, Churchmen and Dissenters, Calvinists
and Arminians, Methodists and Moravians, now and
then, I believe, Papists and Quakers, sit quietly to hear
me." Many came from outside his parish to attend his
ministry, for the evangelical preachers in those days
were few and far between.
It was not only in the pulpit that Newton preached
the Gospel. He held regular services at several houses
in or about London, one of the places being at Mrs.
Wilberforce's residence, where he also gave a series of
lectures on the Pilgrim's Progress. The morning and
evening daily exercises at his own home, first at
3io Champions of the Truth
Charles Square, Hoxton, and afterwards in Coleman
Street, were a notable feature in his ministerial work.
Many attended, invited and uninvited. His house was
also constantly open to visitors, who came to consult
him about their spiritual concerns. At breakfast he
was always ready to receive guests, and many an
interesting meeting at this season is mentioned in
biographies of these times. On several occasions the
routine of his pulpit services was broken by series of
discourses upon special subjects. One of these, which
attracted much attention, was the series of sermons on
the passages which formed the subject of Handel's
greatest oratorio, the performances of which were given
amidst much popular enthusiasm. There were fifty
discourses in all, afterwards published under the title
of The Messiah.
While bearing his testimony against what he deemed
the irreverence of using such themes for purposes of
public entertainment, Newton took occasion to preach
with earnestness and clearness the doctrine of salvation
through Christ. Other sermons on public occasions
attracted unusual notice ; but during most of the
twenty -eight years of his London incumbency his
labour was devoted to diligent and zealous discharge
of ordinary ministerial and pastoral work. He took no
public part in political affairs, and he was careful to
avoid controversy either on doctrinal or ecclesiastical
questions. Sometimes he was accused by Calvinists
of being an Arminian, and sometimes by Arminians
of being a Calvinist, " which," he says, " makes me
think that I am on good scriptural ground." Courteous
and tolerant towards all who differed upon minor points,
he was held in honour and loved by all.
Of the good done by his published sermons and
other works many gratifying testimonies were received.
John Newton of Olney
31*
An American correspondent informed him that thou
sands of readers had obtained comfort and instruction
from them. From India also letters of grateful acknow
ledgment came, and many were the messages which the
post conveyed, from all parts of England and Scotland,
of the benefit received from his writings as well as his
preaching.
He was also a most ready and voluminous letter-
writer. He was applied to by innumerable corre
spondents, most of whom sought advice or instruction,
and he devoted much of his time to the voluntary task
of replying, often at considerable length, to their ques
tions, or striving to solve their difficulties. Many of
these letters have from time to time been printed,
besides correspondence on more general topics. In the
early volumes of The Sunday at Home will be found
not a few of these long-treasured letters. During his
life, or soon after his death, various volumes of letters
were published, of which the best known are the Letters
to a Wife, Letters to Captain Clunie> and a collection of
letters on many important topics of Christian life and
experience, under the title of Cardiphonia, or the heart's
utterances on sacred subjects. It was Cowper who
suggested this happy title for the two volumes of letters
addressed originally to many correspondents and on a
great variety of subjects.
In his hymns and sacred poems Newton has left a
precious legacy to the Christian Church. He had not
much poetical genius, in the ordinary sense of the
phrase, and unfortunately he had a theory which
tended to damp any little fire that he possessed.
" There is a style and manner," he says, " suited to the
composition of hymns, which may be more successfully,
or at least more easily, attained by a versifier than a
poet. They should be hymns, not odes, if designed
312 Champions of the Truth
for public worship, and for the use of plain people.
Perspicuity, simplicity, and ease should be chiefly
attended to ; and the imagery and colouring of poetry,
if admitted at all, should be indulged very sparingly,
and with great judgment." Notwithstanding this
restraint, there are some of Newton's hymns so uni
versally popular that his name holds honourable posi
tion among the singers of the Christian Church. Few
hymns are more welcome, and sung with more hearty
feeling, than these, of which we need only give the
opening lines : —
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer's ear !
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
For united praise in the sanctuary how joyous is
this strain : —
Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God ;
He whose word cannot be broken
Formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose ?
With salvation's walls surrounded,
Thou mayst smile at all thy foes.
How cheering, too, are the words of encouragement
to prayer : —
Behold the throne of grace !
The promise calls me near ;
There Jesus shows a smiling face,
And waits to answer prayer.
And in similar tone : —
Come, my soul, thy suit prepare,
Jesus loves to answer prayer :
He Himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay.
John Newton of Obey 313
Some of the best of his hymns are those which
express the feelings and experiences of the believer, as
in that utterance of humility and dependence : —
Quiet, Lord, my froward heart :
Make me teachable and mild,
Upright, simple, free from art ;
Make me as a weaned child :
From distrust and envy free,
Pleased with all that pleases Thee.
Others describe the internal conflicts that sometimes
exercise the faith and patience of God's people, as that
beginning :—
'Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious doubt,
Do I love the Lord, or no ?
Am I His, or am I not ?
Of the three hundred and forty-eight hymns which
form the Olney collection, Cowper wrote only sixty-
eight, almost all of them remarkable for poetic beauty
or for experimental religion.
In the latter quality Newton's are equally rich, and
the inferiority of the poetry in not a few of the hymns
is compensated by the deep piety and tender spirit of
the good pastor.
Very touching are the words in the preface to the
book as it first appeared, when, in referring to the joint
authorship, he says, " A desire of promoting the faith
and comfort of sincere Christians, though the principal,
was not the only motive to this undertaking. It was
likewise intended as a monument, to perpetuate the
remembrance of an intimate and endeared friendship."
By nature Newton had great warmth of heart as
well as energy of mind, and these qualities, when
sanctified and directed to the service of Christ, made
him active and earnest in the Maker's work. But the
314 Champions of the Truth
most marked characteristics were due to his singular
personal history. He had an abiding sense of self-
abasement and deep humility, on account of his former
wickedness of life, and his presumptuous rejection of
the Gospel. Where sin abounded grace more abounded,
was his constant feeling. God had freely forgiven, he
knew ; but he never could forgive himself, and with his
humility was mingled perpetual admiration of the mercy
and grace of God towards such a sinner as he had
been.
Along with this deep humility there was conspicuous
in him complete resignation to the will of God. This
was especially seen in times of trial and affliction.
" Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the
punishment of his sins ? " This was a favourite text
with him in seasons of trial or sorrow.
Not less remarkable was his abiding sense of the
presence and the providence of God in every event of
his life. " When I go to St. Mary Woolnoth," he once
said, " it seems the same whether I turn down Lothbury
or go through the Old Jewry " (he lived then in Cole-
man Street), " but the going through one street and
not another may produce an effect of lasting conse
quence. A man cut down my hammock in sport ; but
had he cut it down an hour later I had not been here.
A man made a smoke on the seashore at the time a
ship passed, which was thereby brought to, and brought
me to England." It was this entire and constant
reliance on Providence that made him calm in all
events, both public and private, so that nothing seemed
to surprise him or throw him into confusion, but his
mind was kept in perfect peace.
Another notable feature in Newton's character was
his sympathy and tenderness of heart It was said of
him that he literally wept with those that wept and
John Newton of Obey 315
rejoiced with those that rejoiced. The law of love was
in his heart and the language of it on his lips.
Whether in the pulpit or in his letters, or above all in
personal intercourse, every one felt the quick sympathy
and ready helpfulness of this man of God. He remem
bered his own wretchedness, when ready to sink into
despair and none to help or comfort him ; and having
found in the compassionate Saviour One who is touched
with the feeling of human infirmity, he was possessed
of a large portion of the same spirit of tenderness and
pity.
It was in his pastoral visits, and still more in receiv
ing the numerous strangers who came to consult him,
that this tender sympathy was seen, and also the wise
and kind counsel he gave to every applicant. He
knew how to comfort the afflicted, to confirm the
wavering, to cheer the feeble-minded, and was in every
way a good physician of souls.
After the death of Mrs. Newton, in the winter of
1790, Newton experienced a succession of trials and
afflictions, some of which were of a kind common to all
who live to a great age. His sight was feeble and his
strength decreased. For some years his favourite niece,
Miss Catlett, devoted herself to his comfort, but the
home was again made desolate when mental disease
required her removal to an asylum. He felt also, with
a grief such as might be expected from so warm a
heart, the loss of most of his Christian friends of early
days. Still, amidst his trials and his declining strength
he took the liveliest interest in all passing affairs — the
conflicts of political parties at home, the events of the
great war of Napoleon's time, the movements on the
Continent and in distant lands in those stirring times.
Above all, his heart was cheered by the rise and
progress of home and foreign missionary work, the
316 Champions of the Truth
establishment of the Religious Tract Society and of the
Bible Society and other agencies for the extension of
Christ's kingdom. He continued also without inter
mission to carry on his own ministerial work, even
when friends would dissuade him from public exertion.
Cecil said to him, at the beginning of the year
1 806, " Might it not be best to consider your work in
preaching as done, and stop before you discover you
can speak no longer ? " "I cannot stop," was his
reply, raising his voice. " What, shall the old African
blasphemer stop while he can speak ? " His last public
sermon was announced, with a collection for the benefit
of the sufferers from the battle of Trafalgar. His
faculties were so far gone that he had to be reminded
of the subject of his discourse. When he could no
longer preach, he usually sat in the pulpit, that he
might be able to hear the preacher.
The last time Newton attempted to speak in his
church was in the reading-desk, just before the death
of his curate, which happened on 5th December 1806.
Throughout the next year he grew gradually feebler,
and he died on 2ist December 1807. Newton's body
was laid to rest beside that of his wife in the church of
St. Mary Woolnoth. In 1893 the church was cleared
of human remains, and those of Newton and his wife
were reinterred at Olney.
CHARLES SIMEON
By (1759-1836)
Horace Noel, M*A.
CHARLES SIMEON was born at Reading, 4th September
1759. He was the youngest of four brothers. Of
the others, Richard, the eldest, died at a comparatively
early age. The second, John, became a distinguished
lawyer, and for many years represented the borough of
Reading in Parliament. A baronetcy which was con
ferred upon him has descended to the present Sir John
Simeon. The third brother, Edward, was an eminent
merchant and a Director of the Bank of England.
Charles was sent at an early age to Eton, where he
obtained a scholarship, and, according to custom, was
promoted in due time to a Scholarship, and afterwards
to a Fellowship, in King's College, Cambridge.
As to his Eton days, we are told that he was an
active lad, delighting in feats of dexterity and strength,
and a bold and skilful rider. Of his religious condition
at that time he speaks himself in most self-condemning
terms. Yet it appears that a solemn impression was
made on his mind by a national fast which was ordered
in 1776, when he was about seventeen years of age.
His serious observance of the day was such as to bring
upon him the mockery of his companions ; and although
the religious feelings then called forth died away, his
outward life still retained so much regularity that a
S1^ Champions of the Truth
song ridiculing his strictness was in vogue among some
of his schoolfellows.
It was not, however, until after he took up his
residence at King's College in 1779 that a thorough
work of the Spirit of God was wrought in Charles
Simeon's heart.
The means employed for this purpose was a message
which he received, shortly after his arrival, from the
Provost of the College, informing him that, according
to rule, he would be expected to attend the Lord's
Supper about three weeks later. The young man was
alarmed when he thought upon his unfitness to partake
in that holy ordinance, and set himself to prepare for
it as best he could, taking for his guide a book held
in great repute at that time, The Whole Duty of Man.
" I began," he says, "to read it with great diligence,
at the same time calling my ways to remembrance,
and crying to God for mercy ; and so earnest was I in
these exercises that within the three weeks I made
myself quite ill with reading, fasting, and prayer." Nor
did his anxiety abate when the dreaded day was past ;
for he knew that on Easter Sunday he would again be
required to communicate. He showed his sincerity
by making restitution to any persons whom he thought
that he had wronged ; but the burden of guilt and
anxiety weighed so heavily upon him that he sometimes
envied the dogs their mortality.
The extremity of his distress prepared him to
appreciate God's deliverance when it came. " In pro
portion," he continues, " as I proceeded in this work,
I felt somewhat of hope springing up in my mind, but
it was an indistinct kind of hope, founded on God's
mercy to real penitents. But in Passion week, as I
was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord's Supper, I
met with an expression to this effect, that the Jews
Charles Simeon 3T9
knew what they did when they transferred their sins
to the head of their offering. The thought rushed
into my mind, What ! may I transfer all my guilt to
another ? Has God provided an offering for me, that
I may lay my sins upon His head ? Then, God willing,
I will not bear them on my own soul one moment
longer. Accordingly, I sought to lay my sins upon
the sacred head of Jesus, and on Easter Day, 4th
April, I awoke early with those words on my heart
and lips, ' Jesus Christ is risen to-day, Hallelujah.'
From that hour peace flowed in abundance into my
soul, and at the Lord's Table in our chapel I had
the sweetest access to God through my blessed
Saviour."
The Hallelujah of that Easter morning was the
beginning of a life of praise commenced on earth and
to be prolonged eternally in heaven. And the truths
which were fixed in his mind by that memorable time
of distress and deliverance became the basis of his
preaching and teaching during a ministry of more than
fifty- four years.
As will ever be the case with those who truly receive
Jesus as their Saviour, Charles Simeon henceforward
showed forth his Redeemer's praise not only with his
lips but in his life. It is true that he did not at first
perceive the inconsistency of his new position as a
child of God with the pursuit of worldly pleasures.
" When the races came," he writes, " I went to them
as I had been used to do, and attended at the race-
balls as usual, though without the pleasure which I
had formerly experienced. I felt them to be empty
vanities, but I did not see them to be sinful. I did
not then understand those words, ' Be not conformed
to this world.' " By a downfall into which he was
thus led, he was taught once for all that, if he prayed
320 Champions of the Truth
sincerely, " Lead us not into temptation," he must not
go into the way of it.
With this exception, the general tenor of his life,
from the time of his enlightenment, appears to have
been altogether worthy of the Gospel of Christ. He
began to have prayer with his college servants (a
marvellous thing at that time in a young collegian),
and he practised the strictest economy in order that
he might devote as much as possible of his income to
the service of God. This was never less than one-
third.
Having himself found a Saviour in Christ, he could
not refrain from seeking, like Andrew, to lead his own
kindred to the same happiness. He met at first with
very limited success. His aged father was greatly
displeased with the change in his son's views, and
though he was in course of time reconciled to him
personally, he retained his prejudice against his religious
principles to the last. His brothers John and Edward
also repelled his first endeavours to gain them with
scornful ridicule. But his eldest brother, Richard,
showed more sympathy, and went so far as to join
him in establishing family worship in his father's
house, which was then under Richard's management
And when he died in October 1782, Charles had
much hope in his death. And respecting the other
two he was able in after years to write : " Blessed
be God, both these brothers lived to embrace and
honour that Saviour whom I had commended to
them."
Some idea of the godless condition of Cambridge
in those days may be formed from the fact that about
three years passed after Charles Simeon's conversion
before he succeeded in making acquaintance with any
one like-minded with himself. At length he was
Charles Simeon 321
invited to tea by Mr. Atkinson, the incumbent of
St. Edward's parish, whose ministry he had for some
time attended ; and became acquainted with Mr.
Jowett, of Magdalen College, and Mr. John Venn,
of Sydney. And the latter introduced him to his
father, the Rev. Henry Venn, Rector of Yelling, near
Huntingdon.
The friendship of Henry Venn was no ordinary
acquisition. A man better fitted to act the part of a
nursing father to a young follower of Christ could
scarcely perhaps have been found. The warmest
attachment was soon formed between these kindred
spirits. Mr. Simeon writes in after years, " In this
aged minister I found a father, an instructor, and a
most bright example, and I shall have reason to
adore my God to all eternity for the benefit of his
acquaintance."
On Trinity Sunday, 26th May 1782, Simeon was
ordained by the Bishop of Ely ; and the following
Sunday he preached his first sermon in St. Edward's
Church, having been requested by his friend, Mr.
Atkinson, to take charge of the parish during the long
vacation. He fulfilled this office with zeal and diligence,
visiting the whole parish from house to house, and
calling upon Churchmen and Nonconformists alike.
It was soon evident that the hand of the Lord was
with him in his work. " In the space of a month or
six weeks, the church became crowded, the Lord's
Table was attended by three times the usual number
of communicants, and a considerable stir was made
among the dry bones."
Upon the death of his brother Richard, in October
of the same year, it was thought desirable that Charles
should take his place as the manager of his father's
household, and he was consequently on the point of
Y
322 Champions of the Truth
taking what seemed likely to be a final leave of
Cambridge, when it suddenly appeared that God had
other purposes respecting him. Little as he thought
it, King's College was to be his home for life, and its
stately chapel his burial-place.
This unexpected turn in the course of events was
brought about by the death of the Vicar of Trinity
parish. Mr. Simeon had often, as he tells us, longed
that God would give him Trinity Church, that there
he might proclaim the Gospel and be His messenger
to the University. The patronage of the living was
then in the gift of the Bishop of Ely, and Mr. Simeon's
father was acquainted with the Bishop. At his son's
desire, therefore, he wrote, requesting for him the
appointment to this charge.
The parishioners, however, were anxious to retain
the services of a Mr. Hammond, who had been curate
to their late vicar. A lectureship connected with the
church was in their gift, and independent of the living.
They therefore elected Mr. Hammond to this office,
and wrote to the Bishop informing him of the election,
and requesting him to bestow the living also upon the
new lecturer. In this they were confident of success,
for they supposed that no man would accept so poor a
living if the lectureship were separated from it.
Hearing of this, Mr. Simeon determined not to stand
in the way of their wishes. But the Bishop, offended
at the mode of proceeding which the parishioners had
adopted, wrote to Mr. Simeon, saying that the living
was his if he chose to accept it ; but that in any
case he should not offer it to Mr. Hammond. Thus
was this long-desired object placed within Mr. Simeon's
reach. He preached his first sermon in Trinity Church,
loth November 1782, and he held the living until his
death, I3th November 1836.
Charles Simeon 323
The disappointed parishioners, though destitute of
any ground of complaint against Mr. Simeon, displayed
their ill-will not only by absenting themselves from his
ministry, but also by locking up their pews. The
latter act was illegal, but for the sake of peace Mr.
Simeon forbore to stand upon his rights, and had
forms placed in vacant places for those who came
from elsewhere to hear the Gospel. " To visit the
parishioners in their own homes," he writes, " was
impracticable, for they were so embittered against me
that there was scarcely one who would admit me to
his house. In this state of things I saw no remedy
but faith and patience. The passage of Scripture
which subdued and controlled my mind was, ' The
servant of the Lord must not strive.' It was painful
to see the church, with the exception of the aisles,
almost forsaken, but I thought if God would only
give a double blessing to the congregation that did
attend, there would be on the whole as much good
done."
John Simeon was married in the summer of 1783,
and his brother was asked to perform the wedding
ceremony. His relations hoped, as he tells us, that
the accompanying festivities would draw him back into
the world. But God provided for his servant's safety
in a remarkable manner. Having arrived in London,
he was requested to conduct a burial service on behalf
of a friend, the Rector of Horsleydown. While wait
ing in the churchyard for the coming of the funeral, he
employed himself in reading the epitaphs, and came
upon the following well-known lines : —
When from the dust of death I rise
To take my mansion in the skies,
E'en then shall this be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived and died for me.
324 Champions of the Truth
Seeing a young woman not far off, he called her
and bade her read this verse, remarking that her
eternal happiness depended on her being able to say
the same. She said in reply that she was in great
distress ; and in answer to his inquiries, informed him
that she had an aged mother and two small children
dependent on her earnings and that her ruined health
would no longer allow her to support them. He
directed her to some suitable passages of Scripture,
took her address, and the next evening called upon her.
On entering the room he found things as she
had described them. " Though I was no stranger,"
he says, " to scenes of distress, at this sight I was
overcome in a very unusual manner. I desired that
they would join me in applying to the Father of
mercies and God of all consolation. We fell upon
our knees and in a moment were bathed in tears ; to
almost every petition that I uttered, Amen, Amen,
was the language both of their hearts and lips. I was
too much affected to be able to converse with them.
I therefore referred them to two or three passages of
Scripture and left them." The next evening he called
again, and his visit was much like the preceding. The
third evening the young woman told him that, when
he first spoke to her, she was on the point of going to
drown herself. " And now, sir," she said, " instead of
despairing of bread to eat, I am enabled to see that
God is my friend, that Christ has washed me from all
my sins in His own blood, and that it is my privilege
to be careful for nothing. I have hitherto laboured on
the Lord's Day for the support of my family, hence
forward, by grace, I will never work again on the
Sabbath, but devote it entirely to the service of God,
the concerns of my soul, and the instruction of my
children."
Charles Simeon - 325
It is scarcely needful to say that Mr. Simeon gave
them material help as well as spiritual comfort, and
this help he continued for years. About a year after,
hearing that the young woman was going on well, he
called upon her, and on seeing him, she was at first
unable to speak for excess of joy. When she became
composed, she told him that her mother had died
about three months before, saying, " Come, Lord Jesus,
I am ready if Thou art willing." She herself, by
patient continuance in well-doing, gave satisfactory
proof that she had " passed from death into life," by
the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. Referring
to these facts long after, Simeon declared that this one
case would have been to him an abundant recompense
for a life's labour.
The persecution which Simeon endured at Cam
bridge was not limited to his own parishioners. Young
gownsmen came to his church, not to worship God,
but to display their wickedness by profane behaviour.
And older members of the University showed in other
ways their dislike of his principles. The extent to
which this prevailed may be judged of by the fact that,
when upon one occasion a Fellow of his own college
ventured to walk up and down with him for a little
while on the grass plot adjoining Clare Hall, it was
to him quite a surprise, so accustomed was he to be
treated as an outcast. But the grace of Christ was
sufficient not only to uphold but to cheer him.
Referring to this period of his life, Simeon told the
following anecdote : — " Many years ago, when I was
the object of much contempt and derision in this
University, I strolled forth one day, buffeted and
afflicted, with my little Testament in my hand. I
prayed earnestly to my God that He would comfort
me with some cordial from His word, and that, on
326 Champions of the Truth
opening the book, I might find some text which should
sustain me. The first text which caught my eye was
this : ' They found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name :
him they compelled to bear His cross.' (You know
Simon is the same name as Simeon.) What a world
of instruction was here ! To have the cross laid upon
me that I might bear it after Jesus : what a privilege !
It was enough. Now I could leap and sing with joy
as one whom Jesus was honouring with a participation
in His sufferings."
By degrees, however, the storm abated. Towards
the close of 1786 he preached for the first time before
the University in the pulpit of St. Mary's. The
church was crowded, and there seemed at first a
disposition to annoy the preacher in a manner too
common at that time. But scarcely had he proceeded
more than a few sentences, when the lucid arrange
ment of his exordium and his serious and commanding
manner impressed the whole assembly with feelings of
deep solemnity, and he was heard to the end with
most respectful attention. Of two young men who
had come among the scoffers, one was heard to say
to the other, " Well, Simeon is no fool, however."
" Fool ! " replied his companion ; " did you ever hear
such a sermon before ? "
A friend who shared his rooms for three months at
this period gives a description of his private life which
goes far to account for his power in the pulpit. He
says : " Never did I see such consistency and reality of
devotion, such warmth of piety, such zeal and love !
Never did I see one who abounded so much in prayer."
He adds that, at this time, though it was winter,
Simeon used to rise at four o'clock, light his own fire,
and then spend four hours in private prayer and in the
devotional study of the Scriptures. He would then
Charles Simeon 327
ring his bell, and, calling in his friend, with his servant,
engaged with them in what he termed his family
prayer."
The faults to which he seems to have been naturally
the most prone were pride and irritability of temper ;
but his biography gives ample evidence of the energy
with which he contended against these indwelling
enemies, and of the victory which, by the grace of
God, he gained over them. As regards the attitude
of his soul towards God, he writes in his later days :
" There are but two objects that I have ever desired
for these forty years to behold — the one is my own
vileness, and the other is the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ ; and I have always thought that
they should be viewed together. By this I seek to
be not only humbled and thankful, but humbled in
thankfulness, before my God and Saviour continually.
This is the religion that pervades the whole Liturgy,
and particularly the Communion Service ; and this
makes the Liturgy inexpressibly sweet to me."
Nor was he less diligent in cultivating a patient
and humble spirit towards his fellow -creatures. We
have seen how that text, " The servant of the Lord
must not strive," restrained him from calling the law
to his aid against the illegal conduct of his parishioners.
"Many hundreds of times," he says, "has that one word
tied my hands." In his pocket-book for the year
1787 he wrote in two different places, in large letters,
the following rules, " Talk not about myself. Speak evil
of no man" Many years after he writes to a friend,
" Such conduct is observed towards me at this very
hour by one of the fellows of the College as, if
practised by me, would set not the College only, but
the whole town and University in a flame. But the
peace and joy which I experience from lying as clay
328 Champions of the Truth
in the potter's hands are more than I can express.
The example of our blessed Lord, who, as a lamb
before its shearers, was dumb, and without either
threatening or complaint committed Himself to Him
that judgeth righteously, appears to me most lovely."
A famine, which occurred at the close of 1788,
gave Simeon an opportunity of " adorning the doctrine
of God his Saviour " by his public conduct. A subscrip
tion was raised, to which he liberally contributed, for
the purpose of supplying the poor of Cambridge with
bread at half-price. But when he inquired what was
to become of the poor in the neighbouring villages,
the reply was, " That is more than we can answer
for." " Then," said Simeon, " that shall be my busi
ness " ; and he immediately set on foot a scheme for
the relief of twenty-four surrounding villages. In this
work he aided largely, both with his money and his
labour, riding out every Monday to visit one or more
of these villages to see that the work was duly carried
out. " This," says a friend, " made a great impression
on the University, and was one of the first things to
open their eyes to the character of the man who had
been so much ridiculed and opposed."
Trinity parish came also by degrees to a better
mind. The parish church being in possession of the
lecturer on Sunday afternoons, and the churchwardens
having refused (though without legal authority) to open
the church for a Sunday evening service, Mr. Simeon
had been constrained to hire a large room, where he
held a meeting on Sunday evenings for the sake of those
who valued his ministry. At length, in 1790, the
churchwardens gave way, and an evening service was
commenced in the church.
In 1794, the lectureship being for a third time
vacant, Simeon was elected to it without opposition,
Charles Simeon 329
and three Sunday services were held in Trinity Church
from that time to the year 1808, when, owing to
Simeon's enfeebled health, the afternoon service was
given up, and the lecture was transferred to the evening
service. Some of his enemies in the parish remained
irreconcilable, but an attempt which they made in 1 8 1 1
to revive persecution, after a long period of peace,
brought to light the fact that the great majority of
the parishioners were on Simeon's side. The com
mencement of the evening service in 1790 led, how
ever, to an aggravation of misconduct on the part of
godless undergraduates ; and Simeon, though willing
to bear injuries without resistance when his personal
interests only were concerned, felt it his duty to act
firmly when the honour of God and the welfare of the
congregation were involved. " I always," he writes,
" went down from my pulpit the moment the sermon
was finished, and stood at the great north door, ready
to apprehend any gownsman who should insult those
who had been at church. I requested those who
withstood my authority not to compel me to demand
their names ; because, if once constrained to do that,
I must proceed to further measures. This kindness
usually prevailed. Where it did not, I required the
person to call on me the next morning, nor did one
single instance occur of a person daring to refuse my
mandate."
It must not, however, be supposed that all, or even
the larger part, of the young University men who
attended Mr. Simeon's ministry came in this bad spirit.
Numbers of them came hungering and thirsting after
righteousness, and did not go empty away.
From about the year 1790 Charles Simeon's career
might be likened to the course of a river which, after
making its way through narrow gorges and obstructing
330 Champions of the Truth
rocks, reaches a wider valley and waters fertile meadows
on either side. In 1796 he made the acquaintance of
Dr. Buchanan, a Scottish minister, whom, as he says, he
" thought it one of the greatest blessings of his life ever
to have known," and went with him to Scotland, where
he officiated more than once in Presbyterian churches.
Simeon was one of the founders of the Church
Missionary Society, and, independently of that, was
instrumental in doing much for India. Missions to
India were in those days rendered peculiarly difficult
by the opposition, not of Hindu idolaters, but of the
East India Company, and of others in Parliament and
elsewhere who sided with them. It was feared that
any systematic attempt to convert the natives of India
would endanger the stability of the Company's rule,
and it was thought better that India should remain a
heathen land than that the gains of Englishmen should
be imperilled. There were, however, chaplaincies for
the benefit of the English in India, salaried by the
Company, and it was practicable for the chaplains, if
so disposed, to employ their leisure time in missionary
labours among the heathen.
It was in this way that two young men, Thomas
Thomason and Henry Martyn, whose hearts were
moved with compassion for the benighted Hindus,
were enabled to go out thither, primarily as the Com
pany's chaplains, but with the further object of doing
what they could for the heathen. The memory of
both these men of God is inseparably connected with
that of Simeon. Both of them had profited greatly
by his ministry. Both of them were attached to him
by the closest bonds of Christian affection. Both of
them served with him in the Gospel as sons with their
father. And both of them went forth to India attended
by his warmest sympathy and prayers.
Charles Simeon 33 l
A Bible Society meeting is in these days so quiet
a proceeding that one can scarcely read without a smile
Mr. Simeon's narrative of the mighty struggle which
accompanied the first public appearance of that Society
at Cambridge in 181 1.
The undertaking originated with some of the younger
members of the University, and was no sooner gener
ally talked of than the opposition arose. " A great
alarm was excited, and every person without exception
threw cold water upon it, from this principle, that if
they were allowed to proceed in this way about the
Bible, they would soon do the same about politics."
Under these circumstances Mr. Simeon persuaded the
young men to commit the matter to himself and one
or two other friends of the Society among the seniors.
He was joined by Dr. Jowett of Magdalen, Mr. John
Brown, Fellow of Trinity, and Professor Parish, and the
last-named obtained from the Vice-Chancellor a some
what reluctant consent that a meeting of the University,
Town, and County should be called.
The opposition, however, did not cease. Dr. Marsh
(Margaret Professor of Divinity, afterwards Bishop of
Peterborough) wrote a hostile pamphlet, and "with
incredible industry put it in the hands of all the great
men of the county and all the leading members of the
University. Application was made to Lord Hardwicke,
who agreed to take the chair ; but this very circum
stance augmented our difficulties. No head of a college
would come forward. Dr. Milner l was in town, and
would not come forward unless the bishop2 did. The
bishop would not, because it was in the Bishop of Ely's
diocese, and he did not like to interfere with him. We
all trembled lest Lord H., when he came to take the
1 President of Queen's College.
2 Dr. Mansel, Bishop of Bristol and Master of Trinity College.
332 Champions of the Truth
chair, should complain that he had been deceived by
us. On Tuesday we heard, however, with joy that
Lord F. Osborne would come and support Lord Hard-
wicke. Mr. Wilberforce had done all he could to get
the Chancellor (the Duke of Gloucester) to give us his
name and aid us with his presence, but in vain. At
last, however, we had joyful tidings. The Duke was
willing to be president. And then the day arrived.
But how? Truly God showed that He reigns in the
earth. The Earl of Bristol gave us his name. Dr.
Milner had come down during the night. The Dukes
of Bedford and of Rutland gave us their names. The
Bishop of Bristol permitted us to use his also. And,
to crown the whole, Mr. Nicholas Vansittart1 sent down
a printed letter to Dr. Marsh in answer to his. Dear
Mr. Steinkopff was applauded for a great length of
time, and all he said was most affecting. Mr. Owen
was brilliant beyond measure. Professor Parish, with
all his placidity, was animated and bold as a lion. Dr.
Clarke, the Professor of Mineralogy, was extremely
eloquent He was aware that, by taking an active
part, he was likely to cut himself off from all hopes of
the Mastership of Jesus College, but avowed his deter
mination to do what he thought most acceptable to
God. Dr. Milner spoke nobly and manfully, and took
shame to himself for having been so long in making
up his mind. Lord Francis also spoke well, though
short."
Another work of great consequence, to which Simeon
devoted both labour and money, a work which remains
as a monument of his zeal, was that of the trust which
he founded for the administration of the patronage of
livings purchased with money given him by his friends,
and partly also taken from his own resources. The
1 Afterwards Lord Bexley.
Charles Simeon 333
object was to secure the presentation of godly and
evangelical persons to the charge of souls.
In the charge which he left to his trustees, Simeon
most solemnly warns and beseeches them, for the Lord's
sake, in every appointment to be guided by one con
sideration only, namely, that of the welfare of the
people whose spiritual interests have been confided to
them ; to be influenced by no desire to provide for a
needy clergyman, nor by any solicitation of the great
and powerful, nor even by petitions of the parishioners,
but to appoint only "one who is a truly pious and
devoted man, a man of God in deed and in truth,
who with his piety combines a solid judgment and an
independent mind."
But of all the work which was given Charles Simeon
to do by his Heavenly Master, the greatest, if we con
sider its ultimate results, was (it can hardly be doubted)
his ministry to the young gownsmen of Cambridge.
Within three months from the beginning of his ministry
in Trinity Church, his friend Henry Venn writes : " Mr.
Simeon's ministry is likely to be blessed. We may
indeed say, ' A great door is opened ' ; for several
gownsmen hear him." And as years went on the
number of these hearers greatly increased. In 1818
he says : " As for the gownsmen, never was anything
like what they are at this day. I am forced to let
them go up into the galleries, which I never suffered
before ; and notwithstanding that, multitudes of them
are forced to stand in the aisles, for want of a place to
sit down. What thanks can I render to the Lord for
a sight of these things ! " And in his later days it was
not the younger members only of the University who
felt the influence of his preaching. Referring to a
sermon which he delivered in St. Mary's Church,
1 3th November 1831, Bishop Wilson of Calcutta says :
334 Champions of the Truth
" The writer can never forget the impression made on
his mind by the appearance of the church when Mr,
Simeon delivered one of his sermons on the Holy
Spirit before that learned University. The vast edifice
was literally crowded in every part. The Heads of
the Houses, the Doctors, the Masters of Arts, the
Bachelors, the Undergraduates, the congregation from
the town, seemed to vie with each other in eagerness
to hear the aged and venerable man."
He wisely perceived the importance of having some
private intercourse with the young men who valued his
public ministry. On this subject, Mr. Thomason writes
about the year 1793: "Mr. Simeon watches over us
as a shepherd over his sheep. He takes delight in
instructing us, and has us continually at his rooms."
And again : " Mr. Simeon has invited me to his Sunday
evening lectures.1 This I consider one of the greatest
advantages I ever received."
A narrative by the eminent Joseph John Gurney of
Earlham, of a visit paid to Cambridge in 1831, gives
the following lively picture of Simeon in his old age : —
" We sent a note to our dear friend, Charles Simeon,
to propose spending part of the evening with him.
While we were absent from the inn, there arrived a
small characteristic note written in pencil : * Yes, yes,
yes. Come immediately and dine with me.' Simeon
has the warm and eager manners of a foreigner, with
an English heart beneath them. We declined his
invitation to dinner ; but as we were walking near
King's College, we heard a loud halloo behind us, and
presently saw our aged friend, forgetful of the gout,
dancing over the lawn to meet us. He then became
our guide, and led us through several of the colleges."
Mr. Gurney then gives some copious notes of the
1 These must have been after the Sunday evening service in Trinity Church.
Charles Simeon 335
interesting conversation which passed between them
during the walk, and afterwards, when they took tea
at their friend's rooms ; and adds : —
" The hour of the evening was advancing, and these
beautiful remarks formed a happy conclusion to familiar
conversation. His elderly servants were now called in,
and I was requested to read the Scriptures. A very
precious solemnity ensued, during which the language of
prayer and praise arose — I humbly hope, with accept
ance. I believe both my dear wife and myself were
ready to acknowledge that we had seldom felt with
any one more of the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace."
The last sentence is the more notable from the fact
that, while Mr. Simeon was a loyal member of the
Church of England, Mr. Gurney belonged to the Society
of Friends.
This biographer gives the following description of
Simeon from personal recollection : —
" There was a remarkable combination of opposite
qualities in Simeon's character. For dealing with cases
requiring tenderness and sympathy, nothing could
exceed his gentleness and deep feeling ; whilst on
occasions demanding firmness and vigorous speech and
action he would employ very strong language in
rebuking error or enforcing truth. Amidst all his
thoughts about his various great works, he was very
particular about little things. Indeed, in everything
he was a pattern of neatness and punctuality. He
was an uncommonly social man, delighting in the
company of his friends ; whilst he charmed them with
his lively and original conversation, full of striking
illustrations, accompanied often with much action,
sometimes so amusing that it was almost impossible
to refrain from a smile, even when he himself was
33°" Champions of the Truth
speaking most seriously. But his striking action and
devout appearance at all times in the pulpit can never
be forgotten by those who knew him."
Charles Simeon preached his last sermon on Sunday,
1 8th September 1836, being then in good health and
spirits,and died just seven weeks later,on !3thNovember,
aged seventy-seven. Having never married, he retained
his Fellowship and his rooms in college to the last.
Through the whole of his last illness his soul was
kept in perfect peace. The following words, spoken
ten days before his death, may serve to indicate his
state of mind : " If you want to know what I am doing,
go and look in the first chapter of Ephesians, from the
third to the fourteenth verse. There you will see what
I am enjoying now."
The following incident of his last days affords a
striking display of his character. " When his servant,
Mrs. C, came into the room on one occasion to arrange
the fireplace, he said : * When C. is going out, tell her
to come to my bedside, and let me give her a last
look.' When she came, he looked at her most affec
tionately and said, * God Almighty bless you, my dear
C. ; now go.' Both his servants left the room over
whelmed at the sight of their dying master, from whom
they had received so many kindnesses. He then turned
his eyes towards me and said : ' Dear faithful servants !
No one ever had more faithful and kind servants than
I have had. And to have such dear creatures to
attend me when I am such a poor wretch and deserve
nothing but perdition ! ' The tears trickled down his
face, and he appeared quite overwhelmed at a sense
of God's mercies towards him."
Charles Simeon was buried in the Fellows' vault of
his College Chapel. His funeral presented a remark
able contrast with the days when he stood almost
Charles Simeon 337
alone, bearing the reproaches both of town and gown
for his Master's sake. A procession occupying nearly
all the four sides of the spacious quadrangle followed
the coffin. " Heads of Colleges, and Professors, and
men of all classes and ages from every College in the
University, came to do him this last honour. The ante-
chapel was occupied by a crowd of his parishioners,
men, women, and children, clad in mourning, and many
showing the reality of their sorrow by their sighs and
tears. And not the least interesting sight was the
assembly of young gownsmen, all in mourning, who
stood between the coffin and the communion rails."
Thus God fulfilled to His servant, even upon earth, the
promise : " Them that honour me I will honour," 1 a
promise to be fulfilled more gloriously hereafter in the
kingdom of heaven.
It may be not out of place to add a few words in
conclusion respecting the distinctive features of Mr.
Simeon's preaching and theology.
As a preacher his warmth of heart, vivacity of
manner, and command of language would almost
certainly have won for him popularity under any
circumstances. But he was something better than a
popular preacher, namely, a messenger of Christ, upon
whose services the tokens of his Master's approval
were bestowed in no ordinary degree. And the chief
reason of this may readily be found. He abounded in
faith, love, and devotion to his Redeemer's service, and
was therefore such an instrument as God loves to use
in bringing souls to Himself.
Faith and piety do not, however, supersede the use
of natural means in doing the Lord's work, and it is
not therefore superfluous to ask what natural means
1 This was the text chosen by Dr. Dealtry for the funeral sermon which
he preached in Trinity Church.
Z
338 Champions of the Truth
have been used by those who have laboured in the
Gospel with eminent success. And in Simeon's case
there can hardly be a doubt that his usefulness as a
preacher was largely due to the wise and prayerful
pains which he employed in the preparation of his
sermons. Not only did he labour in this way for the
profit of his own hearers, but he bestowed great pains
in seeking to raise up other preachers of the same sort
Lessons in the composition of sermons formed at
one time an important part of the instruction given to
his young friends who attended his private meetings.
In this he made much use of Claude's Essay on the
Composition of Sermons, a small volume written by a
refugee Huguenot pastor. In 1796 he published a
new edition of this work, with an appendix containing
one hundred skeleton sermons prepared by himself.
The same year, I3th November, he preached before
the University a sermon on Mark xvi. 15, 16, which
he afterwards published, with an appendix containing
four different skeleton sermons on the same text. No
less than five editions of this were called for before the
year's end.
Encouraged by the success of these smaller under
takings, he began another work of a magnitude which
few would attempt in these days, namely, a series of no
less than two thousand five hundred skeleton sermons
(the Horae Homileticae] contained in twenty-one volumes.
How far its influence on the preaching of the evangelical
clergy extended we have no means of knowing ; but
if we consider the spirit in which this great task was
undertaken and carried out, we may be confident that
it was " not in vain in the Lord."
Charles Simeon cannot be reckoned as a great
theologian in the ordinary sense of the word. Like
many men of the same stamp, he led too active a life
Charles Simeon 339
to have time for extensive reading. But in one depart
ment of theology, that is to say, the writings of the
prophets, apostles, and evangelists, he was well versed ;
and it would have been well for mankind if all theo
logians had resembled him in that respect.
As regards his theologian views, he may be taken
as a nearly perfect type of the Evangelical Churchman.
He was sincerely attached to his own Church, and
speaks in the warmest terms of the delight which he
took in her liturgy. Yet, as we have seen, he recognised
and loved the image of Christ in whomsoever he met
with it. Like his Divine Master, he could say, " Who
soever shall do the will of my Father which is in
heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."
DANIEL WILSON
By (1778-1858)
George Knox, M*A«
THERE is nothing very remarkable or stirring in the
incidents of the early life of Daniel Wilson. He
sprang from the middle classes of English society.
His father was a silk manufacturer in Spitalfields, in
which parish the future bishop was born. His mother
was one of a family long intimate with the Rev. George
Whitefield, her father being appointed one of the trustees
of the great preacher. Until the age of fourteen the
lad received ordinary teaching for about four years ;
he was then placed under the tuition of the Rev. John
Eyre, minister of Ram's Chapel at Homerton, near
which his father had a country house. He there
acquired some elementary knowledge of Greek, Latin,
and French, and with this slender provision of learning
was, when still a lad, bound apprentice to a maternal
uncle, Mr. William Wilson, like his father an extensive
silk manufacturer and merchant. It is said that he
had but to follow "the track marked out, and stores of
wealth lay at his feet."
Daniel Wilson's education had been partial and
incomplete. Even as a boy he seems to have been
sensible of this. When the family of his uncle had
retired to rest, two hours, taken from sleep, were de
voted to keeping up Latin and French, and to English
340
DANIEL WILSON.
Daniel Wilson 341
composition. Unconsciously to himself, the future
bishop was qualifying himself under difficulties for his
future career. Athletics were not then in vogue.
When, according to the fashion of the times, apprentices
lived in the family of their masters, there was little in
well-ordered households to distract from business and
study. Mr. William Wilson ordered his household in
the fear of God, keeping holy the Lord's Day and con
scientiously availing himself of the ordinances of the
Church of England.
Daniel Wilson was thus brought up till the age of
eighteen under genuine evangelical influences ; but he
had not yet been quickened by the Holy Spirit. His
education had been religious ; he had lived in regular
attendance on religious ordinances. " He could hear
whole sermons, but not a word belonged to him." It
is on record that he was markedly irreverent during
Divine service. His biographer says of him that
his temper was impetuous and his passions strong,
and his companions more or less like - minded.
It was understood that he was sceptical in his views,
and he admitted that he lived entirely without
prayer.
While he was still a " curious and carnal person,
lacking the Spirit of Christ," he was engaged in discus
sion with the other servants in his uncle's warehouse.
He denied the responsibility of mankind, on the sup
position of absolute election, and maintained the folly
of all human exertions where grace was held to be
irresistible. He said he had none of those feelings
towards God which one of the party, a young man
who was fond of conversing on the subject of religion,
required and approved. The young man then said,
" Well, then, pray for the feelings." That night Daniel
Wilson prayed for the "feelings." In due season his
34 2 Champions of the Truth
prayers began to be answered ; he became uneasy
about his spiritual state.
There was a great struggle in him between the new
man which was perceptibly forming in his soul, and
the old man which had so long had dominion over
him. The doctrine of election was at the time the
great stumbling-block to him. By his mother's advice
he went to old John Newton, then rector of St. Mary
Woolnoth. Newton gave him the advice to " wait
patiently on the Lord." He also reminded him that
" unbelief is a great sin," and should be prayed against.
A year passed away, but there were still dark
shadows in Daniel Wilson's soul. His intimate friend,
Mr. Vardy, had offered his services to the London
Missionary Society, and Daniel Wilson took much
interest in hearing him preach. While he was himself
still struggling in the deep waters, he suggested to his
friend as a text for a sermon the word " Christ."
" Begin with Christ, go on with Christ, and end with
Christ, and I am sure your hearers will never be tired,
for His name is like ointment poured forth." On
3rd October 1797 Daniel Wilson, for the first time,
became a communicant, " drawing near with faith."
He chronicles next day, " Yesterday and to-day have
been, I think, the happiest days I ever remember."
He had found "joy and peace in believing."
" I have never seen in any person," said Mr. Eyre
to Daniel Wilson's mother, " such deep conviction of
sin and such a view of the heart's corruption, where
God has not some great and special work for that
person to do. I should not wonder if God makes your
son an eminent minister in His Church."
At first the way to the ministry did not seem at
all open. His father's decided disapproval thwarted
all his plans. Daniel Wilson then sought an interview
Daniel Wilson 343
with Rowland Hill at the Surrey Chapel. Mr. Hill
thought him very young, and quoted the Epistle to
Timothy. He told him that his time was not his own,
that he had bound himself for a number of years, and
that that obligation was superior to any. He added,
" If you are pert and proud, and wanting to go without
the Lord, I would not give a farthing for you or for your
preaching either."
Daniel Wilson now learned to sit still. Some
months after, his father spontaneously gave his consent
to his change of career. He was then entered at St.
Edmund's Hall, Oxford. In the meantime he was
located with the Rev. Josiah Pratt in Doughty Street,
where he had (in those days) a beautiful prospect from
his room over the fields, unobstructed by any houses.
At college he was a diligent student. His original stock
of Latin and Greek would nowadays seem small, but
it was probably more than the large majority then took
to the University. Each day he added to it. By an
examination statute passed in May I 800 he had, when
taking his Bachelor's degree, to do all things required
for the degree of Master of Arts. He took up all
Latin authors ; Thucydides and Herodotus in Greek ;
also the whole Hebrew Bible, in which the examiner
confined his questions within a very narrow range.
The result was that the senior examiner proclaimed he
had done himself the highest honour. He gained the
English prize essay for "Common Sense" in 1803.
In the rostrum he was followed by Reginald Heber
with his poem on Palestine. Walter Scott was present.
Nine years after Heber and Wilson met in St. John's
Chapel, Bedford Row. Both found their graves in
India.
Daniel Wilson's first curacy was at Chobham, where
Cecil was rector. There he visited everybody, in a
344 Champions of the Truth
time when parish visiting was not what it is now. He
remained at Chobham a little over two years, and on
leaving it was married to his cousin Mary, the daughter
of Mr. William Wilson. In 1804 he was recalled to
Oxford as Tutor and Vice-Principal of St. Edmund's
Hall ; he held at the same time the curacy of Worton,
where he resided during the vacations. There the
Word of the Lord had free course and was glorified.
People flocked from all the villages round. On one
occasion more than 160 communicants assembled round
the Lord's Table. There was a great outpouring of the
Spirit. Three young men converted from irreligion
went out as missionaries to New Zealand. The good
savour of Wilson's name still remains there.
Daniel Wilson was in the prime of his vigour, bodily
and intellectual, when in 1 8 1 1 he was called upon to
succeed Cecil as minister of St. John's Chapel, Bedford
Row. The congregation was a remarkable one, needing
the exertion of all his powers. The Thorntons and the
Grants, Zachary Macaulay, with his son, the future
historian, William Wilberforce, Mr. Stephen and his
family, with very many others of note in their day, and
in the history of evangelical religion and philanthropic
activity, were among the regular attendants. Abundant
spiritual blessing accompanied the ministration of the
same Word which had been so efficacious among the
simple villagers around Worton.
iThe period of the ministry at St. John's was one of
manifold extra activity in various directions. During
it Daniel Wilson managed to get through a considerable
amount of literary labour ; but then he was as avaricious
of time as John Wesley was, who was always " obliged
to be off," and was disagreeable to Dr. Johnson, " who
loved to fold his legs and have his talk out." But
Wilson's fame must chiefly rest on his pulpit oratory,
Daniel Wilson 345
to which he consecrated his utmost powers. At length,
under accumulated labours, his health broke down.
Some rest was sought in foreign travel, but his entrance
into the vicarage of Islington, to which he was appointed,
" led," as his biographer says, " through the valley of
the shadow of death."
In 1824 Islington was still almost in the country.
Under its former vicar it had been asleep : it was now
made to awake. Even in 1824 additional church
accommodation was necessary, and Daniel Wilson had
it much on his heart to supply the deficiency by three
additional churches. In the parish church there was no
evening service ; he obtained the consent of the Vestry
to establish one, he being responsible for the extra
duty, and all sittings in the church to be free. It was
crowded. Extensive parochial machinery, especially in
the poorest parts of the parish, was set on foot.
But a great calamity now befell him personally.
In 1827 his wife died, leaving him a solitary man
after four -and -twenty years of peace, union, and
comfort. Thus a tie was loosened which might have
held him in England and prevented twenty-five years'
service to the Church in India. Two years after, his
aged mother, who had so actively promoted his early
Christian career, passed away in peace. None of these
things was permitted to arrest the full tide of work
on which Daniel Wilson was then carried forward.
The influence of this activity was not confined to
Islington. It was clearly manifest, even to the most
careless and prejudiced observers, that there was good
in Evangelicalism, and that it was not inconsistent
with the doctrine and discipline of the Church of
England.
Daniel Wilson's own estimate of himself at this
period is worth noting. "What I most lament is the
346 Champions of the Truth
remaining corruption of an evil heart, unbelief, pride,
vanity, selfishness, self-will : the masked batteries of
Satan. A few things I have always found important :
to be cautious in adopting new notions, however
plausible ; to be fearful of persisting in a course of
temptation, if entered upon ; to be much in first prin
ciples as to the heart ; to be quick in taking warning
of conscience, or of a friend, or of the falls of others ;
and to keep close to the whole Bible in its simple and
obvious meaning." His private journal is filled with
words of deep abasement, confession of indwelling sin,
devout aspirations and earnest supplications written as
in the very presence of the heart-searching God.
At the period of his conversion in 1797, Daniel
Wilson wrote to his friend Mr. Vardy, " I have felt
great desires to go or do anything to spread the name
of Jesus. I have even wished, if it were the Lord's
will, to go as a missionary to heathen lands." This
concern for the souls of the heathen was not a transient
feeling. It still influenced him in the active part he
took in furthering the interests of the Church Missionary
Society. But the way for personal effort had not for
many years been open. His course had been un
mistakably marked out in different directions. But
now he was a lone man. The silver cords of affection
which had so long bound him to a loving wife in
delicate health had been severed by death. The old
feeling of restlessness and anxiety for foreign work
sprang up again within him.
By the death of Bishop Turner, the see of Calcutta
was once again vacant. Four bishops had filled the
office in nine years. It did not seem a post to be
coveted, nor was it found easy to fill it properly. It
was offered to several eminent men in succession, but
was declined by one after the other. The risk was
Daniel Wilson 347
considerable to men somewhat advanced in years of
encountering an uncongenial climate, with the extensive
journeyings it involved. India was not then, as now,
a place easy of access. There was little to attract a
person of the age which Daniel Wilson had attained,
except a strong sense of duty. Having access to those
with whom the appointment rested, he named others
whom he deemed eligible for the post, and subsequently
he wrote that if a real emergency arose and no one else
could be found, he was ready to go.
After some delay the appointment was made. The
archbishop " could not but admire the sacrifice he was
making, and lament the loss Islington must sustain."
The experiment was indeed an anxious one ; but was
wonderfully justified by the results. To judge it
properly we have to carry ourselves backwards seventy
years, and not to contemplate it from the standpoint
of the present. It might have been viewed at the time
almost as the leading of a forlorn hope.
The consecration of the Bishop need not be dwelt
upon, nor the voyage round the Cape of Good Hope,
which was prosperous and devoid of any remarkable
incident ; but it may be noticed in passing that when
at Cape Town Daniel Wilson performed his first
episcopal act, by confirming and ordaining there, he
was in a certain sense entering upon his duties in a
portion of the unwieldy diocese of Calcutta.
Seventy years ago India was a very different place
for Englishmen from what it now is. There were of
course no railroads ; but there were moreover no roads.
Unlike the Romans in their provinces, the English in
India had not concerned themselves seriously about
roads for their troops and treasure escorts throughout
the land. From Calcutta to Cape Comorin there was
literally no road, save an occasional patch for an
348 Champions of the Truth
evening drive at a civil station and around the pre
cincts of Madras. Travellers ploughed their way
through jungles, crossing rivers on rafts or in basket
boats, as the Hindus had done from time immemorial.
In the interior, except in a few localities here and
there, it was much the same. Intercourse was diffi
cult, tedious, and expensive. Few moved from their
appointed localities, except great public functionaries
on important occasions, or troops when compelled by
the exigencies of military service.
Some years later the writer of this sketch, after a
three months' voyage, found himself appointed to a
station which by ordinary marching it would take him
two months to reach. The distance could now be
accomplished in two days. Our empire had nearly
extended to its present limit, but there were still
outlying provinces, like the Punjab, independent of
our rule, and much had to be done to repair the
devastations caused by Mahrattas and Pindarees,
disturbers of the public peace not long previously
quelled.
Missions were still in their infancy ; they could
only be said to flourish in favoured localities like
Tinnevelly and Travancore. Christianity was unknown
between Calcutta and Madras, save for some effort in
Orissa made by the Baptists. As Dr. Duff showed,
92^- out of every 100 children of school -going age
in Bengal were destitute of every kind and degree
of instruction. " Not till Dalhousie was Governor-
General was anything done for Upper India save by
the missionaries."
Some care was beginning to be shown for the
spiritual welfare of Europeans, which had been
scandalously neglected. Warren Hastings has re
corded that during his whole tenure of office as
Daniel Wilson 349
Governor-General, no doctor was found for his^body
nor chaplain for his soul. Bishop Heber mentioned
that he met a lady at Nussurabad who during seven
years had never seen a clergyman and had had no
opportunity of going to church ; also there was at
or near Tipperat a good and religious man, three
hundred miles from any place of worship, who
occasionally went to Chittagong to receive the Sacra
ment — farther from his residence than York from
London. There were instances, in those days of dark
ness and irreligion, of men calling themselves Chris
tians, and military men of high standing, becoming
Mahometans, erecting mosques, or in other cases, so
far as they could, joining the Hindus and worshipping
idols. The connection between the Government and
idolatry was sadly intimate. A writer in the Church
Missionary Intelligencer, September 1887, gives a
graphic account of how, as of old the Doge in the
Bucentaur wedded the Adriatic, the East India
Company annually married the Goddess of Madras,
even in 1838, after Bishop Wilson arrived in India.
The threat by Bishop Blomfield of circulating the
description broadcast through England brought about
a perpetual divorce from idolatry. Much good, how
ever, had been effected by faithful chaplains, such as
Buchanan, Brown, Henry Martyn, Corrie, Fisher,
Dealtry, and others, so that when Daniel Wilson
arrived there were scattered throughout India, in
cantonments and civil stations, godly men, faithful
servants of their Heavenly Master ; while in the
presidency towns men of perfervid zeal, like Duff and
Dr. John Wilson, were earnestly and mightily promoting
Christian education.
When Daniel Wilson reached India many ques
tions demanded his attention. Communication with
350 Champions of the .Truth
England took up much time ; so chaplains and
missionaries were much left to themselves. In cases
of difficulty the former had to contend as best they
could with commanding officers, often impatient and
careless of ecclesiastical scruples. Henry Martyn's
letters abound with instances of this description.
Chaplains too were far from being always judicious or
right-minded. There was much that needed to be set
in order. It was well that the new bishop had a strong
prejudice in favour of law and order. He was some
what of a martinet, as soldiers would have it. In
Lord William Bentinck, who was then Governor-
General, he found an earnest Christian gentleman,
ready to sympathise with him in every good work,
but free from all denominational peculiarities, and by
no means disposed to surrender the control of the
chaplains into episcopal hands.
After two years engaged in setting things in order
at headquarters, the Bishop proceeded on his first
Visitation. It occupied in all its extent three years.
The Visitation opened with a charge delivered by the
Bishop in what was then the cathedral. Twenty-one
clergy answered to their names. At that time, in
cluding the clergy of all descriptions belonging to the
Church of England, there were nearly one hundred and
twenty, excluding missionaries, in all India.
In reality seventy years ago a Visitation in India did
not correspond to our English ideas at all. It was
rather a journey of exploration and discovery. Vast
tracts, equal in size to European countries, were passed
through with very little halting ; for, except in some
of the towns, there were no Christians to be met with.
In some places a small handful of Europeans were
the only persons professing to be Christians. In
Daniel Wilson's time things had somewhat mended,
Daniel Wilson 35 1
but a little while previously the narrative of Bishop
Heber is necessarily rather that of a traveller in
foreign countries than of a bishop in his diocese.
Missions could not in those days be the chief object
of official peregrination. The Bishop went forth as
the head of the Ecclesiastical Department to visit
the Government servants placed officially under him,
precisely as the Commander-in-chief visited the military
servants of the Crown and Company. The inspection
of the rest of the clergy was an incident in the course
of a bishop's official duties — a work voluntarily under
taken, rather connived at than encouraged by Govern
ment. It was a duty incumbent upon him as a
Christian bishop in that separate capacity. Need it
be said that this duty was undertaken by Bishop
Wilson with hearty goodwill, and no small benefit
to the missionary cause ?
Even, however, where there were no Missions in
the stations he visited, he exerted himself vigorously
to arouse a missionary spirit in communities too often
careless and apathetic about the responsibilities de
volving on them as dwellers in a heathen land. With
a most intense desire to communicate in all directions
the Gospel which he preached, Daniel Wilson set
forth on his long and arduous journey. He first made
his way to Penang and Singapore, thence to Ceylon —
then a prey to ecclesiastical dissension. The comment
upon this portion of the Visitation is, " The Holy
Spirit loves no scenes of strife and contention, and
here they abounded." Thence the Bishop pursued
his voyage to Madras, during which he was exposed
to a great storm in an ill-found steamer. " I can do
no more," said the captain ; " tell the Bishop he had
better go to prayers." While the storm was raging,
he read to his fellow -passengers St. Paul's narrative
352 Champions of the Truth
of his shipwreck. God listened to the voice of His
servants and brought them out of their distresses.
He made "the storm a calm, so that the waves
thereof were still," but nine days had been spent in
steaming from Trincomalee to Madras. Here most
important questions, still agitating the Church of
Christ, awaited his intervention.
Much has, at various times, been written on the
subject of caste in India, and strenuous efforts have
been made to represent it as only, or mainly, a civil
distinction analogous to distinctions of rank in Europe.
It would be out of place here to enter into this
controversy, but a statement of the actual condition
of affairs when Bishop Wilson was called upon to
adjudicate upon it is indispensable. The stronghold
of it was in the Missions in Tanjore and Trichinopoly,
which had been called into existence by Schwartz
and his fellow -labourers. They had resisted and
discountenanced it, but were too few to cope with it,
and were perhaps not in all cases sufficiently alive
to its insidious developments. Repressed at first, it
had for a century gathered strength, and was now
thoroughly incorporated with the Christianity of the
district.
" Idolatrous usages were retained. Soodras and
pariahs refused to mingle in the house of God. At
the Holy Communion the higher caste first drew near,
and would not touch the cup if a low-caste man pre
ceded them. A soodra priest or catechist, whilst not
refusing to minister in a pariah village, would not live
in it. And, on the other hand, a soodra would not
allow a pariah priest or catechist to preach the Gospel
to him or to baptize his child. Even the missionaries
were accounted as unclean, and a native priest of the
higher caste has been known to refuse food and
Daniel Wilson 353
shelter to two European missionaries on their journey,
lest food and vessels should be defiled. Christians
attended at the heathen feasts ; they bore the heathen
marks upon their foreheads ; they prohibited the
marriage of widows ; they would allow no marriage
but in their own caste ; and in no less than fifty ways
they were assimilated with the heathen." It was
elicited by inquiry " that in some places it was
customary not only to administer the sacred elements
to the soodras before the pariahs were permitted to
approach, but that the concluding prayers were
required to be read, and the soodras dismissed, before
the pariahs communicated." In some places, also,
a separate cup was tolerated, the soodras using one,
the missionaries and the pariahs the other. Bishop
Heber had intended to take up the question, but was
prevented by death ; and now it was before Bishop
Wilson, who was greeted on his arrival at Madras
with the intelligence that in the previous year no
less than one hundred and sixty-eight Christians had
apostatised to heathenism, only through the retention
of caste.
The problem could not have fallen into better hands.
All the most admirable traits of Bishop Wilson had
free scope in dealing with it. He had throughout
life been prompt, fearless, resolute, and energetic.
But he was by no means deficient in a spirit of
Christian love and meekness, which tempered his
natural qualities, and qualified him to exercise con
sideration for infirmities, so enabling him to form
righteous judgments. It is singular to relate that
in this matter of discipline in the native Church,
Europeans of high rank and in high command
interfered actively in support of caste. Even the
Governor-General at one time seemed strongly inclined
2 A
354 Champions of the Truth
to interpose. When the ostentatious pertinacity with
which native Christians had been ignored by all the
authorities of the British Government is borne in
mind, probably few events in history have been more
singular and paradoxical than this interference of
Englishmen of exalted rank on behalf of those who
viewed them themselves as pariahs, with whom inter
course was defilement
The course adopted by the Bishop was clear and
decided. He declared that " those who retained their
caste were not properly and truly members of Christ's
body. They halted between two opinions." In the
strongest manner he confirmed the removal of those
who refused to renounce the distinctions of caste.
He held the removal of such offenders to be like the
separation of a diseased limb — indispensable to the
safety of the body. At the same time he urged that
those who had been overtaken in the fault should be
restored in the spirit of meekness in case any of them
began to relent ; but there must be no compromise.
To the Government he wrote, as he was most justly
entitled to do, that the matter was one for spiritual
cognisance alone, and fell under ecclesiastical authority;
that the Missions in the south were wholly inde
pendent of the Government ; that the complaints were
groundless ; the punishments for turbulence just ; and
that the missionaries were acting under his direction
in attempting to mitigate evils of long continuance by
striking at the root of them. Eventually, after long
delay, Government admitted that the matter was not
within its cognisance. Almost at personal risk the
Bishop met the malcontents in Trichinopoly and
Tanjore. His Christian manliness was not without
good effect. He did not eradicate caste : the evil was
scotched, not killed ; but the Christian Church owes
Daniel Wilson 355
him a debt of gratitude for the noble stand which he
took on this memorable occasion.
After his anxious sojourn at Madras, the Bishop
returned for a brief season to Calcutta before prose
cuting his Visitation further. On resuming it he
made his way to Travancore. He there preached in
the Syrian churches, two thousand persons on one
occasion being present, the Metran presiding. Goa
was then visited, where the Inquisition had recently
been abolished, and the entire building, dungeons and
all, destroyed five years previously to the Bishop's
visit. Bombay was afterwards reached, where, in
striking contrast to Ceylon, all " was at peace and
all that was done tended to edification." A journey
to the Himalayas had then to be undertaken. It
involved a succession of one hundred marches, through
countries in many parts unsettled and by no means
safe. Elephants, camels, hackeries, or country carts,
with their attendants, were furnished from the com
missariat stores, but horses, servants, palanquin bearers,
etc., had to be provided at no small expense by the
travellers. The great military stations of Kirkee and
Poonah, Ahmednuggur and Aurungabad, abounding
in glorious recollections of the past, were inspected.
But there was only one missionary station in the
Bombay Presidency, namely, that at Nasik, where
the father of the late Dean Farrar was toiling with
no encouragement. Nasik is one of the strongest
holds of Hinduism, and is reputed a most holy place
by Brahmins. On 26th March 1836 Delhi was
reached, but the Bishop had seen much to fill his
mind with distress at the condition to which Europeans,
removed for a long period from the ordinances of
religion, had been reduced. In Simla the Bishop
found shelter and a temporary home for four months.
356 Champions of the Truth
It was on his return from Simla that Wilson first
caught sight of the Punjab, a country then scarcely
known. Rising from the deck of the vessel in which
he was sailing down the Sutlej, he exclaimed aloud,
" I take possession of this land in the name of my
Lord and Master Jesus Christ." This was in 1836.
Years later, after terrible conflicts, England annexed
the country, the Lawrences, Sir H. Edwardes, Sir D.
Macleod, Sir Robert Montgomery being its rulers.
Christianity, so persistently discouraged in other dis
tricts by Government officials, here had freedom and
the countenance of Christian example.
On his return to Delhi the Bishop consecrated the
church built by Colonel Skinner, a celebrated cavalry
officer, commander of the famous body of light horse
known by his name. The incident is a curious one,
illustrative of old Indian life led by the English in
bygone days. The Colonel, whose father had held a
command in the Mahratta army, was introduced at an
early age into that army, and saw much service of a
wild kind in those fearful days. In 1806 he entered
the English service, raising a body of irregular cavalry.
He had married a Mahometan lady, who still remained
so ; but he himself, unlike many Europeans similarly
circumstanced, had continued a Christian, and brought
up his sons in the Christian faith. Years previously,
when he had entered Delhi with a conquering army,
he had vowed that an English Church should uplift the
cross among the minarets of the Mahometans. The
vow was now fulfilled, and the aged soldier, with his
three sons, knelt before the Bishop in the church which
he had built, to dedicate himself, as he had previously
dedicated it, to the service of God.
From Delhi the Bishop made his way to Calcutta,
visiting many important stations as he passed along,
Daniel Wilson 357
and in March 1837 closed for the time the long
journeyings, in which he had traversed more than
13,000 miles by sea and land.
As in India the Episcopate might be said to be
almost a new thing, even to members of the Church of
England long separated from home associations, it is no
marvel that differences should have occasionally sprung
up among the members of his own communion when
the office was filled by so vigorous a prelate as Daniel
Wilson. Soon both clergy and laity fretted under it.
In one of his despatches the Duke of Wellington, when
he was General Wellesley, has placed it on record that
in all his intercourse with official personages he had
hardly ever come across one who could manage to avoid
giving way to irritation. The Duke attributed much
of this to the climate. Hepatitis and prickly heat
are severe trials even to the most serene Christianity.
Neither the Bishop nor those whom he came across
were exempt from human infirmities. These differences
have been passed over because they were transient in
duration, and as often as not were the result of earnest
zeal for what was deemed to be right. But the portrait
of character would be incomplete without allusion to
them.
It was about this time that the publication of the
" Tracts for the Times " took place. In the important
controversy resulting, Bishop Wilson took an active
and leading part. His opposition to the system pro
pounded in them was firm, consistent, and unwavering.
He smelt the battle afar off, and roused himself to the
struggle. In the Charge which preluded his second
Visitation he delivered his soul. None who were
privileged to hear it could so long as life lasted have
forgotten the powerful warnings he delivered : they
thrilled the inmost souls of the hearers.
358 Champions of the Truth
The second Visitation was not so extensive as the
first. It was confined mainly to what was then termed
the Presidency of Bengal, the diocese proper of Calcutta.
Again it commenced with the Straits Settlements,
but the chief incident was the visit to Krishnaghur in
1839. The Church Missionary Society had established
itself there in 1832. As is recorded in the Life of Dr.
Duff, by 1838 whole villages had sought instruction,
and hundreds of earnest men and women under purely
spiritual influences were baptized, and proved their
sincerity by suffering persecution unmoved. A native
messenger was sent by the missionaries to the Bishop,
entreating him to come over and help them. He went
from station to station, examining, preaching, encourag
ing, confirming. It is said he could hardly sleep from
agitation, joy, and anxiety to direct everything aright.
On one occasion he presided at the baptism of nine
hundred Hindus and Mahometans. This glorious dawn
was subsequently overcast. Caste crept in, and, the
sacerdotalism of Jesuit priests recognising caste, wrought
unspeakable havoc.
It was about this time that the Bishop conceived the
project of building a cathedral, and of the Additional
Clergy Society, to supplement the general lack of
chaplains, who were almost exclusively confined to the
great military stations. What was his own spiritual
frame of mind then may be gathered from the following
interesting extract from an address sent to the Islington
Clerical Meeting which was to assemble in January
1840. "There is nothing worth living for but Christ,
and He is indeed worth living for, and dying for too.
Nothing but the atonement of Christ for justification ;
nothing but the Spirit and sanctifying grace of Christ
for obedience to the will of God ; nothing but the power
of Christ for victory over every enemy ; nothing but
Daniel Wilson 359
the blessed example of Christ for the pattern of lovely
and meek holiness ; nothing but the mercy of Christ
for the hope of everlasting life at last. As I grow
older, my religion is much more simple. None but
Christ. None but Christ."
In 1839 the Bishop went forth as Metropolitan to
visit the churches in India and Ceylon. The anomaly
which had made it necessary for those who sought
episcopal ordination to travel from Australia, New
Zealand, or the Cape in days when no facilities for
travelling existed, was now at an end. In India itself
suffragan sees had been created, which left to the
Bishop of Calcutta the north of the land, Hindustan
proper, without the Deccan, as his peculiar charge.
Again in the Madras diocese Bishop Wilson had to
confront caste. In Tanjore he declared, " on its being
honestly and irrevocably abolished the life of these
Missions depends." In Tinnevelly he was delighted
with the flourishing condition of the Missions there.
After his visitation of the South and Bombay he
returned to Calcutta, and thence he made his way
again to Simla. Severe illness was the result of these
exertions, and, with a frame sorely enfeebled with jungle
fever, the Bishop set out in 1845 to recruit his strength
by a visit to England.
When Bishop Wilson landed in England a violent
ecclesiastical contest was raging. His prescience had
foretold consequences already manifesting themselves.
It was a noble feature in his character that none of these
things moved him from a straightforward course in what
he felt to be right. Credit is also due to those who
differed from him ; if they could not agree with him,
they listened respectfully to what he uttered with the
weight of age, of experience, of authority. There may
have been, as his biographer intimates, " great searchings
360 Champions of the Truth
of heart," but there was no open breach, even with those
disposed to be his adversaries.
Great kindness was shown the Bishop by Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert ; the Queen giving a superb
set of Communion plate for the new cathedral, and
sanctioning the transfer to Calcutta of an east window
which had been intended by George III. for erection in
St. George's Chapel at Windsor.
In the May of 1845 he preached the annual sermon
for the Church Missionary Society at St. Bride's.
Thirty years previously he had, when it was a day of
small things with the Society, been the anniversary
preacher. It is without example, except in his case, for
one person twice to fulfil the same office. But he had
been " true and faithful " to the great principle upheld
by the Society, and now he could testify from personal
knowledge of the great and blessed work which, by
God's grace, it had so far been permitted to accomplish.
His text on the occasion was, " They overcame by the
blood of the Lamb." ] Pleasant visits among dear old
friends, much preaching at important centres, and a
vast amount of business filled up every spare moment
of what was to have been rest and holiday ; but still a
measure of restored health and strength was granted,
and all was accomplished with cheerfulness and success.
Once again he made his way round the Cape of Good
Hope, and reached Calcutta in December 1845,
refreshed both in mind and body. On his arrival he
drove to his cathedral, and with all the clergy in and
around Calcutta, offered up thanksgiving unto God.
Between the consecration of the cathedral of Cal
cutta and the deposition of the Bishop's remains in it
a space of twelve years elapsed, the closing portion of
his career. He felt that he was not what he had been,
1 Revelation xii. n.
Daniel Wilson 361
and that, to use his own phrase, he must " go softly " ;
but the years were years of continued usefulness in
many important ways. Three more Visitations were
got through ; in one instance extending as far as the
outlying island of Borneo. His charges were carefully
prepared ; he preached incessantly with vigour and effi
ciency until within the last four or five months before
his death, and in all ways ably fulfilled the duties of
his important office, some reasonable allowance being
made for great age and considerable infirmity.
His cathedral was a project in which he took the
deepest interest. It was intended to answer a three
fold purpose. It was to be a parish church for a large
district of Calcutta. It was to be the cathedral of
the metropolitical see of Calcutta, where all episcopal
functions were to be performed. It was, furthermore,
to have been served by a body of clergy under the
designation of dean and chapter, who " were to bear a
missionary character and carry out missionary objects."
In this last respect the cathedral, like Bishop's College,
was a failure. The endowment fund for this purpose
was subsequently transferred to the great missionary
societies of the Church, with certain restrictions.
Toward the erection and endowment of this cathedral
the Bishop at various times gave between twenty and
thirty thousand pounds. His generosity was indeed
unbounded ; it proved in manifold ways a stimulus to
good works of all descriptions throughout the length
and breadth of his vast diocese. The princely charities
in which he indulged were not reserved till after his
decease, but bestowed freely as God prospered him.
He promoted heartily church building in India at a
time when places of worship were sorely needed ; but
his concern was great, and his liberality extreme, for
the living ministry, which should be efficacious for the
362 Champions of the Truth
winning of souls to Christ. His satisfaction was great
at the completion of his cathedral. About the same
time the Court of Directors had sent out " a fierce
letter " about any more churches being built. The
Bishop, noticing it, characteristically adds : " Thank
you ; I have got my cathedral." His want was " two
or three men of God to supply it."
Some years of service still remained, which were
diligently employed. But there were not wanting,
some few years before his death, indications that his
earthly tabernacle was being dissolved. His voice was
failing him ; his hearing was affected. Several times
he met with accidents, in one of which he fractured
his thigh severely. Nor were other warnings from
physical infirmity withheld. The Bishop faced all
these intimations of departure with manly and charac
teristic Christian courage. His great ambition now
was, while doing with all his might whatever had to be
done, to end well.
A glimpse of the home life of the Bishop in the
closing period of his life may not be without interest.
It was in 1855 that good Mrs. Ellerton, the mother-in-
law of Bishop Corrie of Madras, a lady universally
respected for her genuine piety, unaffected simplicity,
and extensive usefulness, came to end her days in the
Bishop's palace. She had been a resident in Bengal
for more than half a century, and could recall the time
when a lady going to the Mission-house one Sunday
morning was asked seriously, u Can you really venture
there at all without any one to protect you ? " Some
what later she had seen Lord Mornington in church,
fully dressed in his robes, with the Order of the Garter,
and all accompanying jewels. He had ordered all the
heads of offices to attend, and the church was crowded.
It turned the tide of irreligion, and this strange incident
Daniel Wilson 363
became an important era in the history of the Church
of India.
In 1857 the Indian Mutiny had begun. When the
Bishop preached at Barrackpore, General Hearsey sur
rounded the church with a guard of soldiers. " We
are all passengers together on a sinking ship," was
the feeling of the Bishop, and he invited all ministers
and missionaries of every name and denomination in
Calcutta to meet and unite with him in prayer. The
Governor -General would not interfere authoritatively,
but left him to do as he pleased. The meeting for
united prayer was held and well attended. The last
sermon publicly addressed to India by the Bishop was
preached on this day of humiliation.
The last words written by the Bishop were, " Firm
in hope." The last words he is known to have spoken
were uttered to his dear and faithful friend, Archdeacon
Pratt, who advised him to compose himself to sleep.
" Sleep ! " he replied ; " I am asleep already. I am
talking in my sleep." Death in his case was felt
without being realised. It was the sleep of death.
Without a struggle or sigh the soul left its earthly
tenement, and in that hour the Master had granted the
oft-repeated prayer that his services might " end well."
Beside him were the broken watch which he had let
fall, the unfinished letter, and the oft-read Bible.
When Daniel Wilson was a Scholar at Oxford he
gained the English Essay for "Common Sense." It
was his own special characteristic through life. Goethe
out of his death-bed darkness was asking for light —
more light. Daniel Wilson had, as Archdeacon Pratt
reminded him in his dying moments, been all his life
long " walking in the light." He had his failings and his
eccentricities, but, as was said over his lifeless body, he
was a brave and noble soldier — a wise, bold leader.
364 Champions of the Truth
In October 1857 Dr. Duff wrote of Bishop Wilson as
" a man on whom age had conferred the spiritual sagacity
of a seer, in blessed union with the mellow piety of
a ripened saint — a man in whose character a noble
lion-like fortitude in the advocacy of pure evangelical
truth was now beautifully blended and harmonised with
a lamb-like demeanour in the whole of his personal
conduct." The injunction in his last will was that a
plain mural tablet, without ornament, should be erected
in his cathedral and in St. Mary's, Islington, recording
his name, day of birth, period that he was Vicar of
Islington and Bishop of Calcutta, and nothing more,
save the words :
fO ©eo? iKavQri'ri poi rc5 a^aprwK^ (Luke xviii. I3).1
1 " God be merciful to me the sinner.
THOMAS CHALMERS.
THOMAS CHALMERS
By (1780-1847)
A* Taylor Innes, M*A*
THOMAS CHALMERS was born on i7th March 1780
in the burgh town of Anstruther, in the east of Fife ;
he was the sixth child of a large family of fourteen.
His father, John Chalmers, was a shopkeeper who had
risen to be provost or mayor of the little seaport — a
tall, genial, and even jovial man, with a good deal
of religious feeling and fervour. His mother, Elizabeth
Hall, lacked her husband's geniality and attractiveness,
being short in person and stiff and unbending in
manner ; but she was at least his equal in strength and
energy of religious principle, which as years went on
more and more mellowed her character.
Amid so large a household young Tom Chalmers
had of course very much to take his chance, and the
case was not very different after he went, at the early
age of three, to a carelessly-taught parish school. At
school and at home alike he showed no indications of
genius, and no tendencies to study. He was known
merely as one of the idlest, strongest, and merriest of
the boys of the town, with a certain impetuousness
in everything he did, and a " redundant energy of
temperament," as he afterwards described it, which
impelled him to be always doing something. There
seems to have been also an occasional abstraction of
365
366 Champions of the Truth
mind, which may have foreshadowed the more specu
lative side of his later career.
But with Chalmers, as with many young Scotsmen
of all classes, the intellectual birth-time was not till he
went to college. In his case, indeed, as he became a
student at St. Andrews at the boyish age of twelve,
the first two years of attendance there were very much
wasted. Not till his third session, and at the still
unripe age of fourteen, did the youth come under those
influences which were to mould the man. It was
mathematics, the most abstract of studies, which
originally kindled the intellect of the most practical
Scotsman of his century. For ten years from his
third session at college, this science, with the kindred
subjects of natural philosophy and chemistry, were
young Chalmers's delight, and to become a professor of
mathematics was his highest ambition.
Yet the mind, when it wakens, wakens to all
around it ; and the year he entered the mathematical
class was the great year of the Revolution — 1793.
When John Knox, three centuries before, went as a
youth to Glasgow University, he came there in contact
with that wave of Academic Liberalism which, rising
two centuries before in Paris and Bologna, was destined
not to subside till it merged in the Reformation. So
young Chalmers, in his fifteenth year, caught the distant
crash of the political and social wave that broke that
year on the Continent, and even found its ripples
rushing up to his feet in quiet St. Andrews.
The professor of mathematics, Dr. James Brown,
and his two distinguished assistants were described by
their students in after days as " ultra Whigs, keen
reformers, and what would now be called Radicals " ;
and Chalmers, the son of a Tory household, and all his
life a Conservative in political principle, was thus
Thomas Chalmers 367
brought at once in contact with that "condition of the
people question " which pressed upon him afterwards
continually. In this session he became a member of
the " Political Society " of the University ; and on its
table, or in the hands of the professors, he found a
book, published in the January of that year, which
more than any other represented in this country the
principles of the continental revolution. It was the
Political Justice of William Godwin. Its speculations
on human nature, on philosophical necessity, and on
the rights of man, the boy read with avidity, and
received with profound admiration ; and though ere
long he came to doubt the truth of Godwin's solutions
of many of these social problems, the problems them
selves remained part of the permanent horizon of his
mind. In the meantime, however, the newly-awakened
passion for demonstration, so characteristic in later
years of all the utterances of the orator and author,
expended itself in the study of mathematics.
In his fifteenth year Chalmers became a student of
divinity, but certainly without much interest in the
subject. His views now and for years to come were
simply professional. As a child he had been seen
to climb on a chair in the nursery and preach with
ardour to the one hearer below ; and his resolve to
be a minister dated from the same early time. Since
coming to college he had commenced English composi
tion, and his exercises, at first plain and severe, were
already passing into the style of exuberant amplifica
tion which he retained to the end. But in his theo
logical classes and his theological professors he took no
interest.
One memorable exception there was in the spring of
1796, when Chalmers was entering on his seventeenth
year. At that date he happened to open the stateliest
368 Champions of the Truth
work of one whom his contemporary, Robert Hall,
loved to call " the greatest of the sons of men " —
Jonathan Edwards. " He studied Edwards on Free
Will" says a class-fellow, "with such ardour that he
seemed to regard nothing else, could scarcely talk of
anything else, and one was almost afraid of his mind
losing its balance." Here again it was a book of rigid
demonstration that enchained the mind of the young
Scotsman — the demonstration, as it seemed to him,
of a universal necessity subordinating all things under
" the magnificence of the Godhead." Not a single hour
elapsed at this period, as he afterwards told a member
of his family, in which this overpoweringly impressive
imagination — " the glory of the sum of things " — did
not stand out bright before him. Yet common hours
were not enough for its contemplation. He used to
rise early in the morning, and leaving behind him the
grey towers of St. Andrews, he would stride far away
into the country, that in the bliss of solitude his new
found conception might broaden before the inward eye.
And twenty-four years afterwards, looking back on this
" twelvemonth of mental elysium " from a point of
nearer access to God, he writes : " O that He possessed
me with a sense of His holiness and love, as He at one
time possessed me with a sense of His greatness and
power and His pervading agency ! "
Such was the height of mental exaltation attained
in his seventeenth year by one who had been but three
years before an unintellectual and uneducated boy, but
who was now a student for life. Yet it does not
appear that the scientific enthusiasm — the passion for
abstract truth — was at any time the central and regula
tive principle of Chalmers's career. Perhaps, indeed, in
the case of so practical a man of his century, it could
not be so. This seems to be partly the explanation
Thomas Chalmers 369
of the ten unsatisfactory years which followed the
completion of his studies at St. Andrews. Licensed
in 1799 as a preacher, and presented in 1802 to the
parish of Kilmany, he still continued to devote himself
to mathematics and chemistry, and during successive
years actually carried on classes with immense energy
and success in the neighbouring university town of St.
Andrews. Disappointed in 1804 and 1805 as candi
date for two university chairs of science, he turned
with equal activity towards philosophy and literature,
and his first published work was An Enquiry into our
National Resources. His parish work was pursued with
the same eager but somewhat undiscriminating zeal.
The hospitality and personal friendliness of the minister
of Kilmany were acknowledged by all his parishioners.
His sermons had already assumed the style of glowing
and cumulative eloquence for which they were after
wards so well known. He occasionally broke out in
Presbytery or Assembly with a speech which startled
those around him by its fresh impetuosity ; and he
took every opportunity that offered of contributing to
the periodical literature of his profession.
How came it that with all this incessant energy of a
man now approaching his thirtieth year, Chalmers at
this time gave no sign of attaining the boundless influ
ence over others which he was very soon to exercise ?
It was not from any want of simplicity and sincerity,
of honesty and ardour, in each of these details and
fragments of his life. Now in rising manhood, as
before in his boyhood and in his college days, there
was an ardent and straightforward energy about every
thing he took up which was quite characteristic. But
what his life lacked was — a centre. It had no mean
ing as a whole, while it wasted itself in incessant and
disconnected detail. And because it had as yet no
2 B
370 Champions of the Truth
unity and no meaning, it had no influence upon others.
As long as there was no fixed point on which he could
himself rest, there was no fulcrum from which to move
those around.
The change began in the way in which it has begun
with many. That which in the case of nine-tenths of
men reminds them that life is a whole, is — death.
Chalmers was near his thirtieth year, and had been six
years a minister, when the death of one after another
of his near relatives brought him face to face with the
strange fact that in this world we do not live for ever.
And these blows were followed up, in the winter of
1809, by a prostrating illness which for six months
shut him out of his pulpit, and for four months shut
him up in his chamber, face to face with what he
believed to be the approach of death.
The effect on Chalmers's views is recorded by
himself in a striking incident of his later life. Long
after this time, in a debate in the General Assembly,
where he, as usual, was opposing all pluralities held by
a minister, an opponent skilfully quoted against him
some words from an anonymous pamphlet which he
had published during his earlier years at Kilmany. In
it the author had maintained from " the authority of
his own experience, that, after the satisfactory discharge
of his parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in
the week in uninterrupted leisure for the prosecution of
any science in which his taste may dispose him to
engage." Thus he had indeed thought, and so he had
written, in those days of his devotion to mathematics.
And now that the words came back to him from the
accusing past, he met them amid the dead silence of
the General Assembly neither with denial nor with
evasion, but with the confession of " a repentant culprit "
before its bar. " Alas, sir, so I thought in my ignorance
Thomas Chalmers 37 1
and pride, strangely blinded that I was ! What, sir,
is the object of mathematical science ? Magnitude
and the proportions of magnitude. But then, sir, I
had forgotten two magnitudes — I thought not of the
littleness of time — I recklessly thought not of the great
ness of eternity ! "
So now for the first time Chalmers came to look
at his life as a whole, in its true place and perspective
in the universe. And the immediate result was the
acknowledgment which he records on his thirtieth
birthday, that " throughout those past years my whole
conduct has been guided by the rambling impulse of
the moment, without any direction from a sense of
duty." But as in former days the impulse of the
moment spent itself honestly upon fragments and
details of his life, so now the awakened central sense
of duty seized upon it within and without, and as a
whole. Slowly month by month the pale face of death
which had looked in upon him withdrew its threaten
ing ; and in like gradations life and the complications
of life crowded back. And by God's grace the spark
of religion which had been kindled by the former
experience did not in this man's case expire when it
came to deal with the latter.
His private journal, commenced at this time, is
profoundly interesting, not as containing anything
exceptional or unique, mentally or spiritually, but, on
the contrary, as recording that most fascinating of all
experiences — the slow and honest advance of an
ordinary and imperfect man towards the light. His
biographer, Dr. William Hanna, points out how while
other men, like Loyola and Luther, have been roused
to a higher life by a similar startling experience, the
life in each had characteristic differences. Loyola
occupied himself chiefly with the question of personal
37 2 Champions of the Truth
purity and spirituality ; Luther with that of his justifi
cation and acceptance at the bar of God. " Dr.
Chalmers busies himself mainly with the state of his
affections and behaviour towards his fellow -men, with
all of whom he tried to be on terms of perfect and
cordial amity ere he passed into eternity." Yet his
first impulse to a higher life was the recollection of
another world, and his chief means of attaining it soon
came to be God's message of reconciliation through
Jesus Christ.
Chalmers had since his student days no speculative
difficulties as to the truth of Christianity. His concern
with religion was as a motive power — as a propulsive
and regulating force for the new life he felt called
upon to lead. How was he to lay hold upon God so
as to walk among God's creatures in humility and
love ? Was it even a possible thing to do ? This man
knew, of course, that a revelation had been given
expressly to supply an answer to this question. But it
would appear that among a race of beings who have
largely forgotten, not only their Maker, but the pro
portions between time and eternity, even a revelation
from heaven is apt to be misconstrued by careless
eyes. Chalmers's eyes were no longer careless, and
they had now for a year past been fixed intently on
this subject in the interest of the practical life which
had begun. Yet it was only gradually, after much
study and prayer (his chief assistance in the matter
being the recently published Practical View of Chris-
tianity^ by William Wilberforce), that the Scripture
system assumed in his mind the clear form which he
ever after preached. Nowhere is this change more
distinctly put than in a letter which he writes to his
brother in the year 1820.
" Somewhat about the year 181 1," he says, " I had
Thomas Chalmers 373
Wilberforces View put into my hands, and as I got on
in reading it, felt myself on the eve of a great revolu
tion in all my opinions as to Christianity. I am now
most thoroughly of opinion, and it is an opinion
founded on experience, that on the system of — Do
this and live, no peace, and even no true and worthy
obedience, can ever be attained. It is, Believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. When
this belief enters the heart, joy and confidence enter
along with it. The righteousness which we try to work
out for ourselves eludes our grasp, and never can a
soul arrive at true or permanent rest in pursuit of this
object. The righteousness which, by faith, we put on
secures our acceptance with God, and secures our
interest in the promises, and gives us a part in those
sanctifying influences by which we are enabled to do
with aid from on high what we can never do without
it. We look to God in a new light — we see Him as
a reconciled Father — that love to Him which terror
scares away re-enters the heart, and, with a new
principle and a new power, we become new creatures
in Jesus Christ our Lord."
This faith to which he thus attained became hence
forth the spring of the theology which Chalmers
preached. But what he ever afterwards urged upon
others came first as a revelation to himself — a revela
tion which solved the moral problem which had oppressed
him. How to cast out this and that form of sin in his
life had baffled all his efforts till the problem came to
be solved by what he called in his energetic delight
" the expulsive power of a new affection ! " For belief,
if it be genuine, always becomes affection ; and a
central and deep belief, like that of God in Christ,
necessarily becomes a commanding and controlling
power.
374 Champions of the Truth
So now the life which had formerly been dispersed
over many things had at last found a unity. And
beginning " to move altogether when it moved at all,"
it pressed outwards with tremendous power. It took
effect first in Chalmers's own parish, and in his personal
and pastoral relations to those around. In his own
house, in the houses of the sick and dying, in inter
course with the young, in correspondence with friends
whose minds were rising to spiritual things, the new
life burned and spread. But it was especially in
Kilmany church and pulpit that it found its scope, and
from this centre the fame of the new preacher soon
spread abroad. On 25th November 1814 he was
elected minister of the Tron Church in Glasgow, where
he preached his celebrated discourses on the connection
between the discoveries of astromony and the Christian
Revelation. Eager crowds listened to them, and when
published 20,000 copies were sold in one year. But
before going to this great centre of Scottish life, the
little " Church of the Valley " in northern Fife had
already seen him in possession of that amazing pulpit
power which continued during his long subsequent
career.
As early as 1816, Lord Jeffrey, the greatest critic
of the age and then editor of the Edinburgh Review,
heard Chalmers speak in Edinburgh. " It reminds
me," he said, " more of what one reads as the effect
of the eloquence of Demosthenes than anything I ever
heard."
Dr. Wardlaw of Glasgow, himself one of the most
eloquent preachers of that age, has given a description,
not so much of Chalmers as of the effect on his
audience of the successive climaxes of the preacher's
style. After each " there is a pause. The moment is
embraced — there is free breathing — suppressed coughs
Thomas Chalmers 375
get vent — postures are changed — there is a universal
stir, as of persons who could not have endured the
constraint much longer — the preacher bends forward —
his hand is raised — all is again hushed. The same
stillness and strain of unrelaxed attention is repeated,
more intent still, it may be, than before, as the interest
of the subject and of the speaker advance. And so,
for perhaps four or five times in the course of a
sermon, there is the relaxation and the ' at it again '
till the final winding up." And the effect of such a
winding up of a paragraph is described by another
hearer about the same time in these words : " It was
a transcendently grand — a glorious burst. Intense
emotion beamed from his countenance. I cannot
describe the appearance of his face better than by
saying, as Foster said of Hall's, it was ' lighted up
almost into a glare.' The congregation, in so far as
the spell under which I was allowed me to observe
them, were intensely excited, leaning forward in the
pews like a forest bending under the power of the
hurricane — looking stedfastly at the preacher, and
listening in breathless wonderment."
The enthusiasm of Edinburgh and Glasgow in these
two years was almost exceeded in the following year
in London. " All the world wild about Dr. Chalmers,"
says Wilberforce, the friend of Pitt ; and going to hear
him preach at London Wall, he records in his diary
" how greatly Canning was affected : at times he was
quite melted into tears." A passage on Irish character
affected him in this way. Canning's own verdict as
he stepped out of the church was more emphatic still :
" The tartan beats us all ! "
And this overwhelming effect he produced almost
invariably, notwithstanding many things in his appear
ance and manner which did not tend to prepare for it,
376 Champions of the Truth
" His great massive head, his broad forehead, and white
necktie thrown carelessly around his neck, and as
crumpled as if he had slept in it," together with his
" broad Scotch accent, the broadest I have ever heard,"
astonished his English audiences, and did not pre
possess those even of Scotland, until his peculiarities
had become known and dear to all. Then his style
was to the last not admirable according to any rule.
It was a torrent of cumbrous and big- sounding
Latinisms, in defence of which all that his admirers can
say is that " as was the man, so was the style — not a
fine clarified liquid, but a fermentation of genius and
goodness." l And stranger even than this uncouth
manner and turbid style is the fact that the subject
of this most impressive orator's addresses was gener
ally an abstract proposition — a general truth, which he
set himself not so much to illustrate as to prove,
and to prove usually by reiterated and cumulative
demonstration !
Chalmers was not a mere popular preacher. For
the greatest part of his life the pulpit was not even
part of his professional duty. He was elected to a
Glasgow church, as we have seen, in 1814; but in
1823 he left it to become professor of moral philo
sophy in the University of St. Andrews. In 1828 he
exchanged that chair for the professorship of theology
in the University of Edinburgh. His university chair
of theology he resigned at the disruption of the Church
in 1843, m obedience to a still existing law which
restricts it to Presbyterians of the Established Church
alone. But he was at once appointed principal and
professor of theology in the Free Church College of
Edinburgh, and he held that central office till his
1 James Dodds, of London, whose Biographical Study of Dr. Chalmers is
penetrating and powerful.
Thomas Chalmers 377
death. He was thus for twenty-three years a teacher
of academic science, moral and divine.
The works which he published were very numerous ;
they fill more than thirty volumes. Among his
apologetic, theological, expository, and devotional ones
may be mentioned his Bridgewater Treatise On the
Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and
Intellectual Constitution of Man; his Lectures on
Natural Theology^ containing his masterly refutation of
Hume's objection to miracles ; his Institutes of Theology \
in which he sought to " combine into one complete and
harmonious system the varied testimonies of the Divine
Record as they lay scattered over the sacred page " ;
his Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans ; and his Daily
Bible Readings.
Whether Chalmers was a man with much scientific
faculty of construction may be doubted. None of his
many volumes indicate the power of the system-builder
in philosophy. But we should mistake if we thought
that his work does not contain high intellectual qualities.
To mention no other qualities, Dr. Chalmers had, in all
the regions of thought to which he turned, more or less
of that which John Stuart Mill ascribes to him in the
matter of economic science — he " always had the merit
of studying phenomena at first hand." This (which in
other words is originality) impressed those who met
Chalmers as characterising even his most ordinary con
verse. And it extended into all mental departments
with which he had to deal. His early enthusiasm for
chemistry and mathematics was succeeded by a like
direct and passionate contact with morals and divinity.
In the lower regions he dealt with facts — or phenomena,
as Mill calls them — rather than with mere representa
tions of them : with facts at first hand. And in the
higher regions he dealt with truth at first hand rather
3/8 Champions of the Truth
than with orthodoxy ; for orthodoxy he took to be
truth at second hand. And this admirable mental
quality was connected with a certain massiveness and
deliberation in the acquisition of his ideas, which con
trasted strongly with the impetuosity with which he
afterwards delivered them to others. What Chalmers
did as a seeker was to bare his own mind to the truth.
And then, slowly and gradually, one or two big facts
came to him " at first hand," and grew upon him till
they were accepted as the facts ruling in the region, or
called for by the time.
And it was one result of this that in dealing with
the truth which he had received, his mind moved on
it as on a hinge : it became to him for the time the
" cardinal " point of the universe. " Give me," he used
to say as each new public question came up — " give me
the one main point of the case and I will work it out :
I cannot scatter myself over a multitude of points."
So when the one great point with which he dealt was
moral or religious, it did not matter to him that it
might seem to many to be also an abstract or general
one. That such a truth was abstract often meant to
him simply that it was universal — to be received by
all, and to be urged upon all. Chalmers could not
endure the idea of any private faith of his own in
which any others — all others — might not share. " To
him," as was well said on the day of his centenary,1
" faith was passion, was vehemence, was mortal combat
— strong enough to shake kingdoms, to break up
churches, to make old things pass away and all things
become new." But his faith had these vast public
results because it had a certain public element in
its very nature. Unconsciously to himself, perhaps,
Chalmers sought truth for others as well as for him-
1 By Dr. John Cairns.
Thomas Chalmers 379
self — sought it, therefore, in that broad and simple form
which all might find and feel. He saw truth, when at
last he did come to see it, with a prophetic conscious
ness of the multitudes of his fellow-men, and especially
of his fellow-countrymen near him, whom it equally
concerned. And nothing is more characteristic of him
— from beginning to end of his course, in sermon, in
lecture, and in platform utterance — than a certain
incredulous amazement and indignation that what was
now so clear and luminous to himself should be hid
from the view of any living man whom his voice could
reach.
For the same passionate outgoing of Chalmers upon
his fellow-men which made him the greatest preacher
of Scotland in last century, made him also its greatest
statesmen and organiser. His public work, various as
its aspects from time to time became, may all be
summed up as in different ways a work of organisation
— organisation of Christian energy. Nor is this strange.
Organisation of some kind, statesmanship in some form,
was sure to result in Scotland when so great a force
was liberated. In that northern land, the religion of
the individual, it has been remarked, always results in a
religion of the community. Chalmers, too, had said of
himself as a young man, that nature intended him to
be a military engineer, and his life-work has been well
described as that of a " moral engineer." When meet
ing Guizot in Paris, in 1838, he records his delight
in the agreement expressed by the statesman with his
own view that " the solution of all the great problems
lay in the reciprocal influence of the moral and the
economical " — identifying the moral, however, with
Christian influence. We have already seen how even
in early youth he had come to share in the great
continental and revolutionary impulse as to the secular
380 Champions of the Truth
welfare of the people. And now in Christian manhood
the needs and claims of his fellow-men, the wants and
capabilities of the masses, surrounded his imagination
continually. But they still haunted him, characteristic
ally, as a problem, a question to which the Christian
mathematician must be able, and is therefore bound,
to furnish a solution.
The first great experiment which was made by Dr.
Chalmers was the attempt to solve a secular problem
— not a religious or ecclesiastical one. It was the
question of pauperism, and to it he for a time almost
devoted himself. He had come to Glasgow in 1814,
to be minister of the Tron Church. But in 1819 he
was translated to the new and therefore less fettered
church of St. John's ; the parish of which was handed
over as a fresh field in which to work out his great
theory. What was that theory ? Nothing less than
this — that throughout Scotland the Church should
support the whole destitute poor ; and that the parish
of St. John's should lead the way by the church of St.
John's supporting the whole poor of the parish.
St. John's was then not only one of the largest in
the city, having upwards of ten thousand souls, but it
was the poorest parish of all. And the proposal and
offer which on its behalf he made to the authorities
was this — u to relinquish for the future all claim upon
the fund raised by legal assessment ; to conduct this
large population, the cost of whose pauperism averaged
£1400 annually, into the condition of an unassessed
country parish, and to provide for all its indigence out
of the fund raised by voluntary contributions at the
church doors."
To this theory and experiment Chalmers was urged
by a twofold long-cherished conviction. One part of
that conviction was economical. He denied the right
Thomas Chalmers 381
of men to call upon the public to stand between them
and poverty ; and he believed that the idea of a legal
claim on the public by the poor was destructive of the
feeling of honourable independence on the one hand,
and that of natural obligation of relatives and friends
on the other. But along with this there was the other
conviction that while private charity was better than
legal claim even for him who received the charity, it
was infinitely better for those whose duty it was to
exercise the charity. What they were called upon to
exemplify in its exercise was a wise and discriminating
and individual kindliness — the only effectual form in
which that Christian and unselfish compassion which
takes up the burden not legally imposed can do its
work.
Under convictions like these, various in their origin
but convergent in their tendency, Chalmers built in his
own mind a charitable Utopia for Scotland, and began,
with his twenty-five deacons, his great experiment of
St. John's. And his experiment was a wonderful
success. At the end of four years not only had the
expense during these years of all they had undertaken
been defrayed, not only had an additional burden of
£90 a year in respect of the hospital patients of the
parish been assumed, but there was a surplus of £900
in hand; while their previous expenditure of £1400
per annum was now reduced to £280. It was done
with a vast expenditure of personal energy and dis
criminating care — with a care by which every applica
tion was sifted and every deserving applicant was
personally relieved. But it was done ; and Chalmers
looked up with the hope that what was done in St.
John's might be repeated in every parish, first in
Glasgow and then throughout Scotland.
Was that dream ever realisable ? It was, at all
382 Champions of the Truth
events, not destined to be realised. Even in Glasgow
no one of the other parishes adopted it ; and after
St. John's struggled on for eighteen years under the
disadvantages of an exceptional system for which no
provision was made around, it too gave it up. Chalmers,
now settled in the east of Scotland, still held to his
theory ; but by this time the Church, from whose
voluntary exertions in things outside her mere church
work he hoped so much, had got into difficulties with
the State about her proper and internal affairs. In
1840 Dr. Alison and others successfully urged upon
the Legislature the institution of a poor law founded
upon a legal right of relief to the aged and infirm.
But in that very year the Church, to which Dr.
Chalmers looked to show by its example a better way,
was within a short distance of disruption, and Dr.
Chalmers himself had been called off from other things
to act in that conflict as her most energetic champion.
And still more unfortunately, in 1845, when the
Poor Law Statute was actually passed, Chalmers and
his Church were already overwhelmed with the work
of providing shelter and support for its now houseless
ministers and congregations. It was hopeless to ask
for any arrest of judgment. It was not merely that
the champion was otherwise occupied. It was that
his best argument was taken away. And from that
day to this Chalmers's idea of a country in which the
Church shall undertake the whole burden of supporting
the poor has been held to be a hopeless dream.
The next chapter in Dr. Chalmers's life, which in
one view indeed occupied it till its close, was that
devoted to the important work of Church Extension.
This at least was a work which belonged to him
properly as a Christian minister. The seed had been
sown in his heart at Kilmany, and it spread and grew
Thomas Chalmers 383
into the form of Church Extension from the moment
in which he came into contact with the masses of the
great city of the west of Scotland.
As early as 1817 Dr. Chalmers had urged that
Glasgow should not be content without the erection
of twenty new parochial churches ; and though the
proposal was then generally regarded as visionary,
some of those who heard it, and who had followed
Chalmers during his eight years' ministry there, had
never lost sight of it. Now, in 1834, when Chalmers,
after a few years' unsatisfactory residence in St.
Andrews, had come as professor to Edinburgh, his
Glasgow friends put the proposal into practical form.
A committee of merchants was formed, and in a few
months £20,000 was subscribed to start with. The
Church Building Society of Glasgow thus formed set
itself to its work with the constant co-operation of the
great preacher, now at Edinburgh ; and the result
was that by the year 1841 the twentieth church was
completed. But the same year, 1834, which for the
first time gave Dr. Chalmers and the Evangelical party
a majority in the General Assembly, saw the origin of
a great Church Extension movement not in Glasgow
alone. In the Tron parish there his own personal
surveys had satisfied him that of the working-classes
generally not one-half attended church. In the village
of the Water of Leith, near which his Edinburgh house
now stood, it appeared that out of thirteen hundred
people only one hundred and forty had taken seats
in any place of worship. But facts like these were
repeated in all parts of Scotland, though of course they
were most striking in the great towns. Since the days
of the Reformation the population of Scotland had
doubled, and fourteen hundred churches should have
been added to make accommodation for the increase.
384 Champions of the Truth
Little or nothing had for a long time been attempted
by the Church established ; though the various bodies
which had formed the United Presbyterian Church
had done a great work, for the religion of the heart
and conscience, in their gradual growth from the days
of the first Secession of 1733 and the second of 1752.
Now, however, the first reforming Assembly gave
the strongest pledge of its new life by appointing Dr.
Chalmers to be convener of its Committee on Church
Accommodation, with powers co-ordinate with those of
other committees for Propagating the Gospel abroad
and for Education at home. The General Assembly
at the same time passed an Act admitting the ministers
of new congregations sanctioned by the Church to the
full status of parochial ministers — a measure at the
time supposed to be within the native powers of the
Church. Scarcely had the Assembly dissolved, when
Dr. Chalmers called his enthusiastic committee together
and addressed them. " I trust, gentlemen," he said,
" the committee will not relax in its exertions, and not
relinquish them, even though it should require the
perseverance of a whole generation, till we have made
it a sufficiently thick -set establishment and brought
it into a state of full equipment."
So amid the glow of a new day rising over Scotland
the enterprise was begun.
Dr. Chalmers was at first full of hope that funds for
the new and great enterprise of his Church might be
got from Parliament; and the King's Speech of 1835
called the Legislature to give " earnest attention to the
condition of the Church of Scotland, and to the means
by which it may be enabled to increase the opportunities
of religious worship for the poorer classes of society."
But in a short time it was clear that nothing was to be
hoped from this quarter. The justice of the Church
Thomas Chalmers 385
retaining her existing endowments was called in ques
tion in the so-called " voluntary controversy " ; and the
political result was for the time not unequally divided.
On the one hand, Dr. Chalmers's lectures, delivered in
London, in defence of Church establishments in general,
and that of his own Church in particular, excited
great enthusiasm by their eloquence and power. On
the other, it became plain that neither side of politics
was likely to propose any new or additional endow
ments, even for a Church which had now awakened to
a fresh sense of its duties and responsibilities.
In these circumstances Chalmers without hesitation
threw himself upon the people, and urged them to
co-operate with the voluntary effort of the Church.
During the six years in which he held the convenership
of this committee — years which latterly became troubled
with impending agitations of another kind — the work
went on ; not in the great towns only, but in every
locality to which his voice and the voice of the Church
could reach. It was a work closely associated with the
best interests of the people. For in these new churches,
almost without exception, the Gospel was preached
earnestly, and preached to the poor ; and the people
who gathered into them shared in the hopes of that
stirring time. When Chalmers laid down his office in
the year 1841, two hundred and twenty- two churches
had already been added by the voluntary liberality of
the Church of Scotland to the roll of its charges.
Long before that date, however, Dr. Chalmers had
entered upon the next great chapter of his career — that
in which he became the champion of his Church in the
constitutional conflict between it and the courts of law
down to the year 1843. ^ was a branch of the great
question of the rights and relations of the Church and
the State, a question which has for centuries reappeared
2 C
386 Champions of the Truth
in various forms, on which the minds of men are not
yet by any means agreed, and on which we do not go
here into details. It has been said by some that in
a purely biographical point of view this era of Dr.
Chalmers's career was more striking than any other,
and that he was himself greater, morally, than at any
other time.
It may well have been so ; for Chalmers, as we have
seen, was drawn reluctantly into the great conflict, and
as a Conservative in politics he declined to take part
in it under the first aspect in which it fascinated many
Scotsmen, as a defence of popular rights. " Non
intrusion," or abolition of patronage, though he sym
pathised with them, were local and administrative
questions in which he had little or no interest.
It was not till the later development of the struggle
seemed to him to involve what he held " a truth for all
ages, and all countries, and all churches " — the freedom
of the Church in things spiritual from the control of the
State — that he became its foremost defender. And
the moment when he committed himself to what he
believed to be a truth of this order was that in which
it was becoming plain that he and his Church must
either withdraw from their position or undergo the loss
of all emolument and endowment. In its " Claim of
Right" of 1842 that Church had pledged itself by a
large majority not to withdraw. But the question on
the morning of i8th May 1843 still was, How many,
or whether any number, would be found that day to
adhere to the unparalleled pledge ?
It was a gray and cloudy afternoon on the ridge of
the new town of Edinburgh, where masses of spectators
gathered in breathless expectation round the tall spire
of St. Andrew's Church. Into its interior, crowded
since early dawn with a like eager multitude, the
Thomas Chalmers 387
members of Assembly and the glittering cortege of
the Queen's Commissioner had just disappeared. The
doors were now shut, while Scotland waited outside.
Suddenly they seemed to be broken open, and a
roar of acclamation rent the air as the ex-Moderator
in his robes, and by his side the venerable face of
Chalmers, were seen to appear. For following these
two came the leaders of the Evangelical revival in
the Church of Scotland from Highlands and Lowlands
alike. The crowd surged in emotion around them, so
as to make the old men in front the head of an in
voluntary procession. It took a few steps westward,
and then, turning to the right, moved down the steep
brow of that long slope which connects northern
Edinburgh with the sea.
One by one the ministers then in Edinburgh who
had resolved to cast in their lot with the Church, fell
into the moving line. But after them marched a train
of young men, the " licentiates " or candidates, who had
looked forward to the benefices of the Church, but who
(like all its missionaries without exception in foreign
lands) chose now to belong to this its forlorn hope.
Together they set their faces to the long descent into
that valley of humiliation. Before them the waters of
the Firth gleamed under the blue and bitter north, and
beyond it stretched many a moor and strath, with the
manses which the old men were the next day to leave
and the young men were never to enter. Yet still the
line increased, swollen now by the accession of many
laymen, upon whom the Presbyterian constitution im
poses the duty of ruling the Church and the honour of
bearing its burdens ; until at last the procession became
a quarter of a mile long. And before even the head
of the column had reached its destination the news had
spread through Edinburgh.
388 Champions of the Truth
Lord Jeffrey was sitting far away in his room when
some one burst in with the words, " Four hundred of
them are out ! " Springing to his feet, the old judge
exclaimed, " I am proud of my country — there is not
another upon earth where such a deed could have been
done ! "
But by this time it was done in truth. More than
one half of the members of Assembly (if enumerated
according to the principles of the Church and its Claim
of Right) entered Tanfield Hall, whose broad roof rose
where the Water of Leith leaves Edinburgh for the sea.
Within its walls was completed the signing of that
" Act of Separation and Deed of Demission " by which
so many as four hundred and seventy ministers at last
separated from the State, and surrendered to it their
parishes and life interests, while protesting that they
and their people still constituted the Free Church of
Scotland. But the first thing which the first Assembly
of that Free Church did was to call upon Dr. Chalmers
to act as its President or Moderator. Three thousand
men rose to their feet as he took the chair on that
gloomy afternoon ; but even as he spoke the first words
of invocation, " O send Thy light forth and Thy truth,"
a sudden radiance flashed upon him from the southern
windows of the hall. It was the type of that light
" arising to the upright in darkness," which at this crisis
made the old man eloquent more sublime than ever,
and irradiated that whole period of storm and sacrifice
with an attractive splendour.
Yet we must remember that to Chalmers himself the
Disruption of his Church from the State had not worn
this attractive aspect. Nothing indeed could be con
ceived more baffling in some respects to him who had
been the chief builder of the house. On a Sabbath
morning in December 1841 Dr. Chalmers foresaw the
Thomas Chalmers 389
blow. He had been reading a certain chapter in
Genesis, and he took his pen and wrote (not to man,
but, as his custom was, to God) : " I too have been set
on the erection of my Babel — on the establishment of
at least two great objects, the deliverance of our empire
from pauperism, and an adequate machinery for the
Christian and general instruction of our whole popula
tion. . . . Though I cannot resign my convictions, I
must now — and surely it is good to be so taught —
I must now, under the experimental sense of my own
helplessness, acknowledge with all humility, yet with
hope in the efficacy of a blessing from on high still in
reserve for the day of God's own appointed time, that
( except the Lord build the house, the builders build in
vain.' "
But even as he so wrote, the good man was on the
verge of the crowning achievement of his life — the great
Building for which his matured powers had been reserved.
This great work, the central part of which belonged
to Dr. Chalmers, may be recalled in an aspect in which
it is of the highest value for all parts of the Christian
Church. Now, as before, the enterprise for which
Chalmers braced himself was " moral and economical " ;
but it was for the first time national. The question,
" Who is my neighbour ? " which he had originally
put within the narrow limits of a country parish and
afterwards in one great city after another, was now
forced upon him and his co-religionists as a question
for the whole of Scotland. And it was answered for
the whole of Scotland by the institution of that great
yearly treasury of the Free Church which afterwards
came to be called its Sustentation Fund — a fund for
the support of the ministry, to be contributed to by
all its congregations and to be used for division among
them all.
39° Champions of the Truth
In November 1842 Dr. Chalmers unfolded to a
celebrated assembly, called "the Convocation/' held in
view of the disruption of the following year, " no bare
unfinished outline, but a complete and detailed account
of that system of financial operation which was adopted
afterwards without a single alteration in any of its
provisions." He founded his proposal on what he
called the " mighty power of littles " when they flow
from permanent Christian feeling, and pointed out that
the annual £100,000 he demanded would be met by
" a penny a week from each family of our Scottish
population." What was needed was that the Christian
feeling should shape for itself a Christian organisation ;
and for this it was not enough to have the ordinary
Scottish Presbytery.
It needed all his genius and all his faith. It was
not only that he invited poor and rich congregations
alike to look henceforward not on their own things
but on the things of others, and to throw in their
means, small or great, into one purse ; it was that he
called upon them to do this in the midst of exceptional
difficulties and extraordinary hardships. Each of those
congregations was homeless, and some of them, to
whom sites to build on were refused, had to worship
that winter and even for years after in the open air.
The ministers had left the manses, and not incomes
only but dwellings had to be provided for them. All
the parish schoolmasters, all the professors of the
universities, and all the preachers or candidates, who
adhered to the outgoing Church, and the whole
of the foreign missionaries, without exception, were
left penniless, and had to be immediately provided
for. Even Chalmers's new churches, built during the
previous ten years by the liberality of the Church
itself, were taken away, and their places too had to
Thomas Chalmers 39 l
be supplied. Yet in the midst of this scene of desola
tion the building of the house began, and its success
astonished all except the wisely enthusiastic old man
who sat at the centre.
It was but a small part of this success that Chalmers
himself during the four remaining years of his life was
permitted to see. It was six years after his death
before the fund reached even the original minimum
aimed at of ;£ 100,000 a year. But the Moses of that
Exodus would have rejoiced still more had he been
permitted to see the results in the form he most loved
— of Church Extension. His great and crowning
success, indeed, was, as we have seen, to follow long
after he was himself gathered to his repose. But in
the meantime there remained to him some years of
a golden afternoon of life and a beautiful twilight of
advancing age.
Till his death, in his sixty-eighth year, Chalmers
remained the Principal of the most fully equipped
theological institute in theological Scotland. Year by
year young men gathering round him from all parts
of the country still shared the influence which an
honoured member of his first class, Dr. Horatius Bonar,
has described as commencing a generation before in
" that eventful year, when new life burst in upon our
divinity hall, and a new theology as well as a new
Christianity took possession of our divinity chair."
While this was his proper and professional work,
and while, as we have seen, many other public labours
were accumulated around it, his private life was spent
with his wife and daughters in a channel of unbroken
peace and love. When it overflowed its banks it was
generally in such an enterprise as that territorial
mission in the West Port of Edinburgh, not far from
his own residence, which he commenced in 1845, on
392 Champions of the Truth
the principles which he had urged now for so many
years. Its success was extraordinary. " It stands,"
says Dr. Hanna in 1852, "the only instance in which
the depths of city ignorance and vice have been
sounded to the very bottom ; nor can the possibility of
cleansing the foul basement story of our social edifice
be doubted any longer." But while still occasionally
throwing himself into such a work as this, Chalmers by
this time felt, and cheerfully welcomed, the weight of
advancing age. He moved about Edinburgh, a loved
and venerated figure, by common consent the most
illustrious of its citizens.
And as he grew in authority, he seemed still to grow
in humility and kindness, in originality and in a certain
humorous simplicity. How deeply these character
istics impressed strangers, even at a much earlier date,
came out strikingly on the centenary of Dr. Chalmers's
birth in a letter written by Mr. Gladstone to Sir Henry
Moncreiff. The statesman had one year in early youth
frequently met Dr. Chalmers in Edinburgh, and he now
declared that what had then chiefly attracted his admir
ation was his "simplicity and detachment from the
world," and the absolute impotence of lucre and lower
motives " to lay hold of his great, stately, and heavenly
mind." So, as his years wore on, they gave somewhat of
the beauty of holiness even to his external appearance,
which won those whom no other spell could bind.
In the last month of his life, the May of 1847, he
travelled to London to give evidence before the House
of Commons on the position of his Church and its
principles as to reunion ; and after doing so went
down to Chelsea to see Thomas Carlyle and his
celebrated wife. The former twice over records the
meeting, and it is interesting to note how that vener
able face at once struck from Carlyle's hand the
Thomas Chalmers 393
sarcastic knife with which he has bitten into steel the
portrait of almost every other contemporary. " I had
not seen Chalmers for five-and-twenty years. It was a
pathetic meeting. The good old man is grown white-
headed, but is otherwise wonderfully little altered —
grave, deliberate, very gentle in his deportment, but
with plenty, too, of soft energy. ... It is long since
I have spoken to so good and really pious-hearted and
beautiful an old man. ... I believe there is not in all
Scotland, or all Europe, any such Christian priest left."
He was not much longer left on earth in the priest
hood of believers. A fortnight later he arrived in
Edinburgh while the General Assembly was sitting,
and all men looked forward to Monday, when he was
to give in a report to the Free Church on one of its
Christian schemes. But a Sabbath intervened. He
went to church, and on his return wrote to his favourite
sister, saying he could form no definite plans now
on this side of the grave, but left her " with earnest
prayers for the mercy and grace of a reconciled Father
in heaven on one and all of us." Walking round his
garden a little later, he was overheard to mutter, " O
Father, my Heavenly Father ! " That evening he was
kind, cheerful, and happy almost beyond his wont, and
as he retired he waved his hand to his family with the
words, " A general good-night ! "
Next morning there was silence in his room. His
servant at last entered, and drew aside the curtains of
the bed. Chalmers, half erect, had been for some hours
dead — his head reclining gently on the pillow, and
the expression of his countenance that of fixed and
majestic repose. He was gone from the land for which
he had done so much, and a few days later in the same
city of Edinburgh " they buried him amid the tears of
a nation and with more than kingly honours."
REGINALD HEBER
By (1783-1826)
W* M* Colles, B.A.
REGINALD HEBER was born at Malpas, Cheshire,
on 2Oth April 1783, and died at Trichinopoly on
23rd April 1826, two days after his forty-third birth
day. He was the son of the Rev. Reginald Heber,
co- Rector of Malpas and lord of the manor of Marston,
Yorkshire, and of Mary, his second wife, daughter of
the Rev. Dr. Allanson, Rector of Wrath. His father
lived just long enough to rejoice in his youthful
honours ; his mother survived to lament his early
death.
The Hebers were an old Yorkshire family. Their
name is written, as it was long pronounced, Hayber, in
some of the old papers of Bolton Abbey, and was
derived, it is said, from a hill in Craven called Hayber
or Hayburgh. But be this as it may, the rolls of
the Heralds' College show that in Elizabeth's reign
Reginald Heber of Marston was granted a certificate
of the arms acknowledged to have been borne by the
family. Reginald Heber therefore came of a good old
English stock, and, which is of far more vital moment,
of Christian parents.
Of his father, a simple country clergyman, we know
little, but that little is enough to show that he was an
earnest believer and a ripe scholar. His mother was,
394
REGINALD HEBER.
Reginald Heber 395
too, a woman of an earnest living piety, whose example
influenced her son from his cradle to his grave. As an
instance of his childish faith we are told that Reginald,
when only three years old, was travelling with his
parents across the wild and hilly country between
Ripon and Craven, and that during the journey a storm
broke of such extreme violence that his mother, who
was greatly alarmed, proposed to leave the carriage
and walk. Reginald, who was sitting on her knee,
hereupon exclaimed, " Do not be afraid, mamma, God
will take care of us ! "
The beginnings of the Christian life must, in the
case of Reginald Heber, be dated from his infancy.
We are told that he could read the Bible with ease and
fluency before he was five years old ; so that it might
be said of him as of Timothy, " From a child hast thou
known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make
thee wise unto salvation." His singular sweetness of
disposition, too, was such as gave rise to a saying
among the servants of the family that " Master
Reginald never was in a passion." Nature and art
vied with each other in fascinating his opening mind.
His youthful sketches, some of which are still treasured
by his family, bear evident, if rough, indications of
artistic ability. Entomology, zoology, ornithology in a
practical form possessed attractions for him as for most
boys.
Reginald, we are told, always showed great kindness
of heart. In spite of his keen interest in animals of all
kinds, he never could bear to keep them in confine
ment. Once, when his little sister had a squirrel given
her, he persuaded her to set it at liberty, taking her to
the tree up which it climbed that she might see the
little creature's joy at being restored to freedom. A
practical study in the habits of bulls, which he made
Champions of the Truth
some years later, was near having a tragic termination.
Seeing a bull grazing in a field, he resolved to try the
effect of sundry gesticulations with which an African
traveller had lately narrated how he had successfully
parried the attack of a wild ox. Instead of taking
fright at the apparition, the bull charged him furiously,
and Reginald only escaped by the fact that the animal,
in the heat of pursuit, floundered into a pool of water
and stuck fast in the mud.
His splendid memory, which lasted all his life,
enabled him to recall anything he had once carefully
read, so that it would be difficult to exaggerate, in
his case, as in most, the value of early impressions.
An extreme delicacy of constitution placed his life
in jeopardy with almost every infantine ailment, and
indeed he never was in really robust health, but was
nevertheless always a diligent student.
"Reginald," his elder half-brother used to say,
" does not read books, he devours them." When he
was six years old, he had a severe attack of typhus
fever, and when convalescent he asked as a special
favour that he might be " permitted to learn the Latin
grammar." Since he had translated Phaedrus into
English verse before he was eight years old, Latin
clearly possessed no terrors for him. He went to
Whitchurch Grammar School, then under the care of
Dr. Kent, in 1791, and remained there until 1796,
when he became a pupil of the Rev. Dr. Bristovv at
Neasdon.
There are many stories of his school-days. Instead
of joining in games, he took long walks with a book
as his only companion. Laughed at by his school
fellows, he won their hearts by telling them stories and
anecdotes. His vivid imagination made him famous as
a story-teller. Nor was his popularity diminished by his
Reginald Heber 397
unswerving rectitude, which gave a tone to the school.
He was generous also to a fault.
" Of his own money," says his widow, " he was so
liberal that it was found necessary to sew the bank
notes given him for his half-year's pocket-money within
the lining of his pockets, that he might not give them
away in charity on the road."
The variety of his youthful studies was remarkable.
Nothing seems to have come amiss to his omnivorous
mind. For the exact sciences he had perhaps less
taste than for any other branch of knowledge, but his
letters to his life-long friend John Thornton show that
he was nevertheless very anxious to be proficient in
mathematics. Longinus, ^Eschylus, Homer, Guicciar-
dini, Machiavelli, Locke, and his favourite Hooker are
casually alluded to in his letters in 1799 and 1800,
and this was the literature of a boy of sixteen.
Poetry had already claimed him for a disciple.
Bonaparte's " Battle of the Nile " was the subject given
at the time of the French invasion of Egypt for a school
exercise, and Reginald, who was then fifteen, wrote his
first piece, " The Prophecy of Ishmael," which, with all
its crudities, contains indications of that promise that
was afterwards so abundantly fulfilled. Spenser was
already his favourite poet ; and even in later life he
seldom travelled without a volume of his school edition
of the Faerie Queene.
It was in November 1800 that Heber was entered
at Brasenose, Oxford, of which college his father had
been, and his eldest brother was then, a Fellow.
Privately educated, he had, of course, few acquaint
ances at Oxford ; but his friendship with Hugh
Cholmondeley, afterwards Dean of Chester, and his
brother's friends, combined with his literary abilities and
brilliant conversational powers, soon made him widely
398 Champions of the Truth
popular. There was even some danger that the social
attractions of the University would endanger his future
career, for we read of his sitting with the traditional
wet towel round his forehead to make up for time lost
in amusement. He formed, however, a habit of early
rising, and of reading for a couple of hours before
chapel, which stood him in good stead. In his first
year he achieved distinction by gaining the University
prize for Latin Verse by his " Carmen Saeculare," a
bright poem on the commencement of the nineteenth
century, which gave promise of future excellence. Heber
was soon known as a " man of mark," and pointed out
as certain of his Fellowship, a distinction upon which
he had set his heart. In 1802 he was, according to
his friend Sir C. E. Grey, " beyond all question or com
parison the most distinguished student of his time."
It was towards the close of Heber's University
career that " Palestine " was given out for the subject of
an English poem as a prize extraordinary. He decided
to compete. The spring of 1803 was largely devoted
to its composition, which was hindered by a violent
attack of influenza. Sir Walter Scott happened to
visit Oxford at this time, and at a breakfast party, at
which Heber was one of the guests, the poem was
mentioned, and, at Sir Walter's cordial entreaty, pro
duced and read. Sir Walter, who himself told the
story to Heber's widow, praised the piece, but remarked,
" You have omitted one striking circumstance in
your account of the building of the temple, that no
tools were used in its construction." Reginald at once
acted upon the suggestion, and improvised off-hand the
striking lines : —
No hammer fell, no ponderous axes swung,
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung,
Majestic silence
Reginald Hebcr 399
It was a memorable day in his life when he mounted
the rostrum to recite the already famous poem. He
had so far overcome his natural timidity that his recita
tion was a striking success, and the poem was received
with a burst of admiration. His father, then in his
seventy-fifth year, had come up to Oxford for the
occasion, and we can well believe the pride which he
must have felt in his son's success. But there was no
foundation for the statement that the excitement had
shortened his life, or, as the story runs in some of the
books, that he died at Oxford. He had long been in
failing health, and when eight months later he fell
asleep at Malpas, the blow was mercifully tempered by
the monitions which had preceded it.
Heber graduated in 1804, and in November of that
year he was elected a Fellow of All Souls. In the
following year his English essay on the " Sense of
Honour " was easily successful in taking the University
Bachelor's Prize.
His tour, in company with his friend John Thornton,
through such parts of Europe as were then accessible
was a great event in those days. It included Norway
and Sweden, Russia, the Crimea, the country of the
Don Cossacks, Poland, Hungary, etc. Some idea of
the contemporary value of the journal of his journey-
ings may be gathered from the fact that Dr. Clarke
gladly availed himself of the leave given him to extract
notes for his famous Travels. These not only greatly
enrich the latter book, but have been classed with the
labours of Burckhardt, the celebrated Syrian traveller.
His tour also bore fruit in a History of the Cossacks,
upon which he was engaged for a considerable time,
which, although never completed, and not published
until after his death, was acknowledged to be a work of
no ordinary value.
400 Champions of the Truth
Upon his return to England, Heber went into resid
ence at All Souls, and entered solemnly upon prepara
tion for holy orders. We are given a glimpse of his
earnest convictions in a letter written at this time to
his friend John Thornton, congratulating him upon his
approaching marriage.
" I trust," he says, " that amid your feelings of
happiness, feelings of gratitude will always keep a
place, united with a sense of your total dependence on
the Hand which has given so largely to you, and which
may, even now, in a moment deprive you of all you
value most. . . . The more pain the idea gives, the
more reason we have to examine and amend our hearts,
lest we impose a necessity on Divine mercy to take
away from His thoughtless children the blessings they
are perverting to their own destruction."
It was in the summer of 1807 that Heber was
ordained, and was immediately presented by his elder
half-brother Richard to the family living of Hodnet,
Salop. He settled down at once to the duties of his
new position. To his parishioners he was from the
first a " guide, philosopher, and friend," not only acces
sible at all times, but seeking them out and studying
their wants and interests with unselfish devotion.
His parochial work was scarcely interrupted by his
marriage, in April 1809, with Amelia, the youngest
daughter of Dr. Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph. Perhaps
he was never happier than while he was living in his
rural rectory, " seeing God's blessings spring out of his
mother earth, and eating his own bread in peace and
privacy." In order to devote himself to his parish
work, he had now withdrawn almost entirely from those
pleasures of intellectual companionship which were open
to him. He started a school in his village, and it is
related as an instance of his influence that a notorious
Reginald Heber 401
character, who, after a life of drunkenness and depravity,
had settled down into an irreligious old age, sent his
only companion, a little grandson, to the rector's school.
Some one expressed surprise at this, and the old man
replied, " Why not ? Do you think I wish Philip to be
as bad as myself? I am black enough, God knows."
It is pleasant to know that at the old man's death-bed
he listened to his pastor's ministrations with intense
anxiety, and died, it is believed, in peace. Among
Heber's letters, too, are those addressed to a Roman
Catholic parishioner, and another who was a victim to
the vice of drunkenness, which are models of style and
kindly tact, while they show us a faithful pastor among
his flock.
In his charities Heber was prodigal ; many a good
deed done by him in secret only came to light when
he had been removed far away, and but for that removal
would probably have been for ever hid. Such was his
delicate attention towards those of a humble rank in
life, that he would never keep poor persons waiting.
He was so liberal that he often forgave his just dues
to an extent which seriously crippled his own resources.
And he did all this without ostentation, and in a spirit
of the deepest humility.
He was very anxious to teach his parishioners by
example as well as by precept. One Sunday morning,
when he was riding to preach at Marston, his horse
cast a shoe. Seeing the village blacksmith standing at
the door of his forge, he requested him to replace it.
The man immediately set about blowing at the embers
of his Saturday night's fire, on seeing which the rector
said, " On second thoughts, John, it does not signify ;
I can walk my mare ; it will not lame her, and I do
not like to disturb your day of rest.'
Here, again, is a story which illustrates the sweet
2 D
402 Champions of the Truth
simplicity of his mind. A child by her mother's request
had been repeating her lesson to him ; after listening to
the little girl, he gradually began to talk to her on the
subject it related to ; and when she was asked how she
liked saying her lesson to Mr. Reginald Heber, she
answered, " Oh ! very much, and he told me a great
many things, but I do not think he knows much more
than I do."
In the midst of his parish work Heber found his
chief recreation in the amenities of letters. The welcome
with which " Palestine " was received was renewed when
it was set to music by Dr. Crotch. Meanwhile his
" Lines on the present War " had appeared under the
title "Europe" in 1809. The opening stanza was
written at Dresden during a sleepless night, when he
heard the ceaseless jar,
The rattling wagons, and the wheels of war ;
The sounding lash, the march's mingled hum,
And lost and heard by fits the languid drum.
The piece, though not equal to " Palestine," has
many passages of extreme beauty. It was at this time,
too, that he became a contributor to the Quarterly Review^
then first established as a rival to the Edinburgh. His
review of some obscure translations of Pindar, which
appeared in 1811, was designed to introduce some of
those exquisite renderings of his own which were after
wards published with other poems.
But more interesting far than these efforts are
the hymns which have permanently enriched our
national psalmody. These were, it is interesting to
know, mainly due to Heber's desire to improve the
services at his parish church in this respect. In 1809
we find him inquiring for, amongst others, a copy of
Cowper's Olney Hymns with the music. But he seems
to have failed to meet with any collection which pleased
Reginald Hebcr 403
him, and he entertained strong objections to the garbled
versions of the psalms then in use. The first efforts of
his own sacred muse appeared in the Christian Remem
brancer for i 8 1 1- 12, with a modest preface, in which
he compared the advantages of a series appropriate to
the Sundays and holy days throughout the year, and
connected in some degree with their particular collects
and gospels. It is almost superfluous to dwell upon
the hallowed charms of many of these spiritual songs,
and their peculiar appropriateness to time and season.
Those grand Advent hymns, " Hosanna to the living
Lord " and " The Lord will come, the earth shall quake,"
are not unworthy memorials of the Christian triumph.
There is a really martial ring of victory in the hymn
for St. Stephen's day, which is almost startling as a
commemoration of the death of the proto-martyr. The
popular version, it may be added, differs from the
original, which we give here as printed from his MS. : —
The Son of God is gone to war,
A kingly crown to gain,
His blood-red banner streams afar,
Who follows in His train ?
Who best can drink His cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain ?
Who boldest bears His cross below?
He follows in His train,
The Martyr first, whose eagle eye
Could pierce beyond the grave,
Who saw his Master in the sky,
And called on Him to save ;
Like Him, with pardon on his tongue
In midst of mortal pain,
He prayed for them that did the wrong.
Who follows in his train ?
A glorious band, the chosen few,
On whom the Spirit came,
404 Champions of the Truth
Twelve valiant saints, the truth they knew,
And braved the cross and flame ;
They met the tyrant's brandished steel,
The lion's gory mane,
They bow'd their necks the death to feel.
Who follows in their train ?
A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around their Saviour's throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the dizzy steep of heaven,
Through peril, toil, and pain —
O God ! to us may grace be given
To follow in their train !
And there is a reverent joyousness in his Epiphany
hymn-
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning !
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid !
which reaches its zenith in the grand truth that it is
not the gift but the giver that is acceptable —
Richer by far is the heart's adoration ;
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.
Mark the lovely imagery in the hymn for the first
Sunday after Epiphany —
By cool Siloam's shady rill
How sweet the lily grows !
His bright Trinity hymn again — " Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God Almighty," has a soul-stirring ring of praise ;
and many a broken-hearted mourner has been com
forted by his funeral hymn, which breathes the very
spirit of Christian resignation : —
Thou art gone to the grave ! but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb ;
Thy Saviour has passed through its portal before thee,
And the lamp of His love is thy guide through the gloom !
Reginald Hebcr 405
Thou art gone to the grave ! we no longer behold thee,
Nor tread the rough parts of the world by thy side ;
But the wide arms of mercy are spread to enfold thee,
And sinners may die, for the Sinless has died.
Thou art gone to the grave ! and its mansion forsaking,
Perchance thy weak spirit in fear lingered long ;
But the mild rays of Paradise beamed on thy waking,
And the sound which thou heardst was the Seraphim's song.
Thou art gone to the grave ! but we will not deplore thee,
Whose God was thy ransom, thy guardian and guide ;
He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee,
And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died !
This hymn possesses, moreover, a sad meaning, since it
was written after the death, on Christmas Eve 1 8 1 8, of
his first child, then only a few months old. This sad
bereavement was so keenly felt by Heber that for
months he never heard the child's name mentioned
without tears.
It is of curious interest to know that the sweetest of
all Heber's hymns, " From Greenland's icy mountains,"
the first-fruits of that missionary zeal which was after
wards to bear such rich fruit, was composed impromptu
at Wrexham, North Wales, in 1 8 1 9, on the occasion of
a visit to his father-in-law, the Dean of St. Asaph, who
preached next day in support of missionary operations
in the East. It is not generally known that the original
MS. of this poem was found on the printer's file at
Wrexham by the late Dr. Raffles of Liverpool many
years afterwards.
Before publishing his hymns, Heber consulted Dr.
Howley, then Bishop of London, as to their receiv
ing the "sanction of the Archbishop of Canterbury
for general use in churches." Dr. Howley, how
ever, although writing in the kindest terms and mak
ing valuable hints and suggestions, did not think it
4o6 Champions of the Truth
advisable for the hymns to be officially patronised, but
advised him to persevere in his undertaking and to
publish the hymns on their merits. The services of,
amongst others, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Southey,
then Poet Laureate, were enlisted, and Heber wrote to
the Rev. H. H. Milman, whose beautiful poem, the
Siege of Jerusalem, he had reviewed with keen appreci
ation for the Quarterly in 1816, and who gladly con
tributed many valuable and beautiful pieces. The
collected publication was, however, delayed, and the
volume did not appear until after Heber's decease.
Heber was not musical, but he had a good ear, and
many of his hymns were composed to Welsh and
Scotch airs, which he had heard and admired, and this
circumstance accounts for the exquisite charm of their
melody.
The small volume of collected poems which was
published in 1812 had become widely popular, but
with the exception of a few sweet trifles, of which he
wrote some while on his travels in India, he had by
this time withdrawn altogether from these compositions.
His " Morte d'Arthur," which was written in 1812, was
never finished, and is one of the least satisfactory of
his poetical attempts. The unfinished " Masque of
Gwendolen," which is taken from Chaucer's " Wife of
Bath's Tale," is also perhaps deficient in ease and
lightness. As examples of his versatility, we have his
poetic rendering of the Oriental stories of II Bondocani
and Blue Beard, as well as some passages of the " Shah
Nameh of Ferdusi " and the " Moallakah of Hareth " ;
but other duties diverted his mind from these graceful
recreations, and he voluntarily renounced a poet's
highest meed and praise.
But chief, perhaps, amongst the literary labours of
his life was a Dictionary of the Bible, designed to
Reginald Heber 407
"supply the defects of Calmet" This, however, although
continued down to his early death, was never completed.
So from " grave to gay, from lively to severe," we may
range at will over Heber's literary work, and find
reflected in it the natural versatility of his mind.
The story of Heber's last years in England is more
than a mere record of parish work and intellectual
recreation. It was impossible that a man of such rare
promise should be confined to labouring, however use
fully, only within the limits of a little country parish ;
although had this been his portion we do not doubt
that he would have cheerfully acquiesced in the sphere
allotted to him by the good providence of God, in the
same spirit of devout thankfulness that he embraced
those wider opportunities which were now thrown open
to him. His appointment as Bampton Lecturer in
1814 gave him an opportunity of establishing his
reputation as a theologian. Different views were, and,
of course, always will be, entertained of his treatment of
the subject he selected for his sermons, " The Divinity,
Personality, and Office of the Holy Spirit," but their
critical value as an exposure of the Arian, Sabellian.
Pelagian, and Socinian systems has never been disputed,
The lectures enabled Heber to do more justice to
his undoubted abilities than the addresses suitable to
his village congregation, which were plain statements
of the doctrines of revelation drawn simply from Holy
Writ.
Heber had, in 1814, declined the offer of a prebend
of Durham in exchange for Hodnet, but in 1817 he
accepted a stall in St. Asaph Cathedral offered him by
Dr. Luxmore. He generally performed the frequent
journeys he had to make into Wales on horseback,
beguiling the time the while by composing light fugitive
pieces. Some of his hymns, too, were first composed
4o 8 Champions of the Truth
on these occasions and committed to memory to be
written down afterwards.
A vacancy occurred in the Preachership of Lincoln's
Inn in 1819, and Heber became a candidate, but
Dr. Lloyd, who was strongly supported by Peel, was
elected. This was a great disappointment, although
he bravely laughs it off, saying that his " talents in
the eloquential line are not likely to be displayed at
Lincoln's Inn."
An offer of the editorship of a collected edition of
Jeremy Taylor's works which was made him about this
time was too tempting to be refused. Heber had long
been an ardent admirer of the Bishop's character, with
which, indeed, his own had much in common. In his
poetical temperament, hatred of intolerance, simplicity,
practical piety, and vivid faith he was a not unworthy
disciple of the great divine. The Life which he wrote
for this edition is one of the most pleasing biographies
in our language, and the author's style is perhaps seen
at its best in its pages.
The crisis through which the country was now
passing naturally did not fail to impress Heber's mind
even in his country rectory. In November 1816 he
wrote to a friend suggesting a pamphlet on " Popular
Discontent," designed to remove prevalent misunder
standings. It is almost startling nowadays to find him
advocating nearly ninety years ago " a paraenesis to
the gentry of England to exert themselves in recover
ing their lost popularity ; pointing out the necessity in
particular of relaxing the game laws, of residence on
their property, and improving the condition of the
cottagers." And if any further proof of his prescient
acumen were required, we have his trenchant con
demnation of impure literature, which was then,
as now, being carefully disseminated throughout the
Reginald Heber 409
country, and his far-seeing suggestion that " an abridg
ment of some historical books, of the ' Lives of
Admirals,' Southey's Nelson, Hume's History, etc.,
would be of advantage if a society could be instituted
to print them in numbers so cheap as to make it more
worth the while of the hawkers to sell them than
Paine's Age of Reason"
Heber's election as Preacher at Lincoln's Inn in
1822 was the more gratifying from his former disap
pointment, and from the eminence of his unsuccessful
competitor, Dr. Maltby. His Lincoln's Inn sermons
were remarkable for high finish and elaborate erudition,
and show that their gifted author was admirably fitted
for this distinguished appointment. The society which
welcomed him in London was very congenial to his
tastes, numbering as it did many old college friends,
from whom he had been separated for many years.
He also embraced the opportunity of taking a more
active share in Christian effort outside his own im
mediate sphere. We find him, for instance, defending
the Bible Society from ill-timed attacks, and advancing
the claims of other great Christian societies with voice
and pen. As a controversialist, too, he always pre
served the greatest respect towards those who differed
from him.
We now stand at the parting of the ways in Heber's
life. Little by little his mind had been attracted to
those vast fields of Christian work which lay waiting
for the labourers in heathen countries. The Life of
Henry Martyn was one of his favourite books. Martyn's
heroic labours, undaunted zeal, and martyr's death had
then lately kindled a profound missionary enthusiasm.
It is of rare interest to read how Heber and his wife,
in their peaceful country rectory, long before they had
any expectation of following in his footsteps, traced
4*0 Champions of the Truth
Martyn's Eastern journeyings, and especially those
through the almost unknown Indian Empire. Heber,
we know, believed that many of the difficulties which
Martyn encountered so nobly might be lessened, if not
avoided, if opposition were disarmed at home. He
had followed with the keenest anxiety the progress of
Christianity in the East, and the appointment of Dr.
Middleton to the episcopal see of Calcutta excited his
highest hopes of increased Christian activity. It was
because he hoped that the cause would thus be furthered
that he had advocated the union of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel and the Church Missionary
Society, a scheme which he always cherished. These
thoughts were still largely in his mind when the un
expected death of Dr. Middleton placed the appointment
of his successor in the hands of the Right Honourable
C. W. Williams Wynn, then President of the Board of
Commissioners for the Affairs of India.
The nine years during which Bishop Middleton had
laboured in that vast field had seen great changes.
Martyn durst not even introduce into his schools his
version of the parables, and found himself everywhere
regarded with suspicion. But now these difficulties
were greatly lessened ; and there was a much wider
knowledge of those mystic cults which made up the
religion of the Hindus. Caste still remained, as it
does to-day, the great obstacle to the conversion of the
East, but the missionary schools were even then over
coming these prejudices. Children of different castes
in many settlements mixed freely together. The spirit
of piety which had influenced Dr. Middleton was
combined with a practical wisdom that had enabled
him to overcome many of those difficulties which
threatened the progress of Christian effort, and had
more than justified the appointment of a bishop, which
Reginald Heber 411
had been considered by many as an experiment
threatening a revolution ; but the opposition on this
and other grounds was still strong enough to prevent
the episcopal authority being extended. The privilege
of ordaining native Christians, for instance, was alto
gether withheld from Dr. Middleton, although both
teaching and experience had established the truth that
it was vain to expect that a knowledge of Christianity
could be diffused on any great scale over such a country
as India without a native ministry. There were still
grievous dissensions, which caused the profoundest
anxiety and greatly added to the cares of the vast
diocese.
When therefore, in December 1822, Heber received
an intimation that the appointment was in his offer, he
was under no illusions as to its attractions. Yet he
did not hesitate to express what great pleasure it
would give him, if the way were made plain, to under
take the work. At the same time he strongly recom
mended the propriety of appointing some one of the
archdeacons or chaplains already in India ; and sug
gested that the unwieldy diocese should be divided
into three, the Bishop of Calcutta to be the primate.
Mr. Wynn pressed him to accept the nomination in
the most complimentary terms ; but Heber, with the
greatest reluctance, declined the offer in consideration
of the advanced age of his mother and the probable
effects of the climate upon his own little daughter.
But his conscience moved him to withdraw his refusal,
and after much searching of heart and earnest prayer
to God for guidance, he " cheerfully and gratefully "
accepted it.
His letters to his wife, who was away from home at
this time, reflect the workings of his mind at this
momentous time, and show us with what holy zeal he
412 Champions of the Truth
was filled. The decision once made, he was deaf to
the arguments of friends who did their utmost to shake
his resolution. One of them, for instance, even went
so far as to declare, "Yours is the very quixotism of
religion ; I suppose you are going in search of the lost
ten tribes of Israel." To which he calmly replied,
" I think I can be of use among the natives ; such will
at least be my earnest endeavour, and I am very
zealous in the cause ; and if I am permitted to rescue
one miserable Brahmin from his wretched superstition
I shall think myself amply rewarded for the sacrifice."
He had the assurance of a higher approval than that
of any earthly adviser. Thus he says, " In making this
decision, I hope and believe that I have been guided
by conscientious feelings. I can at least most truly
say that I have prayed to God most heartily to show
me the path of duty and to give me grace to follow it ;
and the tranquillity of mind which I now feel (only
different from that which I experienced after having
declined it) induces me to hope that I have His blessing
and approbation."
The preparations for his long voyage were actively
pushed forward. Very touching were his leave-takings.
"I often," he declares, "feel very heart -sick when I
recollect the sacrifices I must make of friends such as
few, very few, have been blest with " ; but he took
comfort in the beautiful thought that " prayer can
traverse sea and land." The high esteem in which
he was held at home was shown by the alacrity with
which the University of Oxford conferred upon him
the degrees of B.D. and D.D., while his college had
his portrait painted for their hall. His departure was
hurried by the sudden death of Dr. Loring, Arch
deacon of Calcutta. Next, perhaps, to his taking
leave of his beloved mother he felt most keenly his
Reginald Heber 413
final farewell of his beloved Hodnet, where he had
" hung a thought on every thorn." He had laboured
here for sixteen years, and here his mother and sister
still lived. The place was to him full of tender
associations, and the depth of his feelings found touch
ing expression in his last sermon in the village church.
He was deeply touched by the presentation of a piece
of plate by his parishioners, largely subscribed for
in pence, but more by the tears and prayers with
which his homely parishioners wished him farewell.
On 22nd April 1823, when passing over the high
ground near Newport, he turned round to take the
last view of that endeared spot, and, overcome with
emotion, prayed that God would bless the people,
exclaiming with prophetic prescience, " I shall never
again see my Hodnet."
Heber was consecrated on "1st June, and on
the 8th he preached at St. Paul's for the benefit of
the charity school. On the i6th he went down
the Thames in the Ramsgate steam -packet, and
embarked on board the Sir Thomas Grenville^ then
lying at Gravesend ready to sail. Contrary winds
prevented them from getting beyond the Downs until
1 8th June, when they put to sea, and Heber bade
farewell to his native country for ever.
After a tedious voyage, largely spent in studying
Hindustani, Heber reached India on 3rd October
1823, when the Sir Thomas Grenville anchored in
Saugor roads. Three days later the good ship reached
Diamond Harbour, where the East India Company
had their first settlement, and Heber, accompanied by
his wife and daughter, went up the Ganges in the
Government yacht. At Calcutta, where he was warmly
welcomed by the Governor, Lord Amherst, he found
immense arrears of business awaiting him, much of
4J4 Champions of the Truth
it of a most perplexing and anxious nature. But with
characteristic energy — an energy which he never allowed
the enervating influences of the climate to lessen — he
applied himself to his new duties. No one who reads his
Journals or his widow's exhaustive Life can help being
struck with the tact and discernment which he showed
in dealing with nice matters affecting his episcopal
authority, when an arrogant ecclesiastic would have
widened, not narrowed, the existing breaches and
endangered the whole Christian cause. A good illus
tration of the kindly tact with which he healed dis
sensions is shown in his letters to Archdeacon Barnes
and the Rev. Mr. Davis, who objected to the arch
deacon occupying his pulpit at Bombay. Nothing
could have been more wise than his appeal to Mr.
Davis no longer to offer to the heathen the " spectacle
of a divided clergy." And it is gratifying to know
that the advice was followed, and that both ministers
united cordially in the common cause of Christianity.
Not only did Heber identify himself heart and soul
with the needs of his vast diocese, which extended
at this time over the whole of India, embracing
likewise Ceylon, the Mauritius, and Australasia, but
he was indefatigable in his efforts to relieve by his own
exertions the pressure put upon the other ministers of
the English Church in Bengal owing to their deficient
numbers. All agencies that made for good found him
at all times ready and willing to give them his un
grudging help. We see him preaching more frequently
even than in England, helping in school work and
administration (the poor little children seated on the
ground writing in sand, or on " palmyra leaves," exciting
his profound compassion), and instant in season and out
of season in his Master's service. " Often," his widow
tells, " have I earnestly requested him to spare himself,
Reginald Heber 415
when, on descending from the pulpit, I have sometimes
seen him almost unable to speak from exhaustion ;
or when, after a few hours' rest at night, he would rise
at four the next morning, to attend a meeting or visit
a school, and then pass the whole day in mental labour,
without allowing himself the hour's mid-day sleep in
which the most active generally indulge."
He had only been a few months in the country
before the lamentable scarcity of chaplains in Ceylon
led to his admitting into holy orders Christian David,
a pious native schoolmaster, who had as a boy been a
pupil of Schwartz.
He had already made a few journeys to towns
within reach of Calcutta, and had for a time moved to
Tityghur, near Barrackpoor, where his wife was safely
delivered of a little girl ; but he was not able to bring
the affairs of his diocese in and around Calcutta into
a sufficiently manageable condition to make arrange
ments for his first visitation of the Upper Provinces
until the spring was far advanced. He decided to
travel by water, although more tedious than by road,
in order to escape the rains, when Bengal was at its
worst. We have in the Narrative of his journeys,
much of which was written by the Bishop in the form
of letters to his wife, a most faithful and graphic
account of his travels. The sensation created when
the volumes first appeared in 1827 can in these days
of redundant literature hardly be credited. Even Lord
Jeffrey said of it, " Independently of its moral attrac
tion, we are induced to think it the most instructive
and important publication that has ever been given to
the world on the actual state and condition of our
Indian Empire," and it came as a revelation of a new
world to hundreds of readers.
Much, of course, of the detail of his experiences is
4I(5 Champions of the Truth
now out of date. Eighty years have witnessed changes
in India more sweeping even than those in our own
country. But the human interest of these pages can
never pall. As we follow their writer in his eleven
months' journeyings through the Upper Provinces —
journeyings full of privation, adventure, and danger, as
well as the first impressions of one who possessed
the eye of the painter and the pen of the poet
—we see reflected as in a mirror his lofty purity of
purpose and burning zeal for the spread of the good
tidings of salvation among the myriads of heathens.
Heber now realised his own beautiful idea that
they " call us to deliver their land from error's chain."
He writes as if speaking his thoughts aloud. The
horrors of suttee thrilled him to the core ; and very
interesting is it to find him, later, exchanging his
views upon this frightful custom with the venerable
Carey and Marshman of the Baptist Mission.
The terrible climate and his indefatigable exertions
told slowly but surely upon Heber's health. He
always suffered much from the heat, although he
discarded episcopal dress, and travelled in a broad-
brimmed white pith hat, and always wore, and urged
his clergy to wear, white trousers. At Lucknow he
was seized with an attack of cholera, and at Delhi with
fever, from both of which, although without medical
assistance, he mercifully recovered. The " iron clime "
of Guzerat, too, had shaken his constitution. When he
reached Bombay, he looked harassed and worn, and
was much thinner. His unswerving assiduity in his
work would have had injurious effects in any country,
but in India these could hardly be exaggerated. Yet
such was his conception of his duty that he never
" spared himself," but to the last fought against
lassitude.
Reginald Heber
When he reached Trichinopoly, where the mission
founded by Schwartz in 1762 was in a poor and
neglected state, on 1st April 1826, his forty -third
birthday, he was much jaded and worn with travel
in the intense heat. On the next day, however, he
preached at St. John's Church in the morning, and
held a confirmation in the evening, and on the 3rd
rode to Schwartz's church and held another confirma
tion. On his return home he endorsed his " Address on
Confirmation," according to his custom, " Trichinopoly,
3rd April 1826." It was his last act. Immediately
afterwards he went to the large bath, which was in
a building a few doors from his house, and, as he
had done with benefit on the two preceding mornings,
plunged in. Half an hour later his native servant,
alarmed at his lengthened stay, found his lifeless
body in the water. All attempts at resuscitation
proved vain. The " spirit had returned to the God
who gave it."
The memory of that national bereavement for many
years remained fresh. East and West met in mourning
over Heber's grave. The tribute of respect and
reverence and love was universal, and it took the
remarkable form of realising at once many of those
projects which he had so much at heart.
In the cathedral at Calcutta, and in St. George's
Church, Madras, masterpieces by Chantrey were erected
to his memory, and we have his monument at St.
Paul's. Some years ago a movement to restore the
bath at Trichinopoly was seconded by the Government,
and the bath was protected by an iron railing.
Mr. Grant Duff also directed the following inscrip
tion, drawn up by the Bishop of Madras, to be carved
on a slab erected on the side wall : — " In memory of
the devoted, accomplished, beloved, and universally
2 E
4i 8 Champions of the Truth
honoured servant of God, Reginald Heber, third
Bishop of Calcutta, and one of India's truest and
most loving benefactors, this stone was erected in the
year 1882, at the expense of Government, on the
margin of the bath in which he was drowned while
bathing, 3rd April 1826. His body was laid under
the Chancel of the Church of St. John, Trichinopoly,
in the hope of the Resurrection of the just to Eternal
Life through Jesus Christ."
RICHARD WHATELY.
RICHARD WHATELY
By (1787-1863)
T. Hamilton, D.D.
ON Candlemas Day, 1787, a child was born in Caven
dish Square, London, to the Rev. Joseph Whately,
D.D., Vicar of Widford, which did not seem likely
to live long, much less to play any great part in the
world. The infant seemed as puny and feeble as it
was small. As it grew, there was no improvement,
and people half pityingly, half contemptuously, said
that the boy would never be of any use to anybody.
So unpromisingly began the life of Richard Whately,
afterwards Archbishop of Dublin.
He came of a stock not a few members of which
had risen to more or less eminence. There was
William, of Puritan times, "the painful preacher of
Banbury," on whose tomb stands the quaint but
significant epitaph : —
It's William Whately that here lies,
Who swam to 's tomb in his people's eyes.
Then, last century, there was Thomas, private secretary
to George Grenville, and afterwards " Keeper of His
Majesty's Private Roads and Guide to the Royal
Person in all Progresses." Another Thomas was
author of several medical works which attained note
in their day.
419
420 Champions of the Truth
Richard by and by began to give evidence that he
was no degenerate scion of this Whately ^tree. He
learned to read and write at an unusually early age.
But his great passion was for arithmetic. At six he
astonished an old gentleman who lived near his father's
house by telling him with perfect accuracy how many
minutes old he was. Treating of this period of his
life, he afterwards wrote, " I was engaged either in
calculation or in castle-building, which I was also very
fond of, morning, noon and night, and was so absorbed
as to run against people in the street, with all the other
accidents of absent people." Strange to say, his talent
for figures disappeared as remarkably as it had come,
and when he was sent to school he was found to be
such a dunce at arithmetic, that it was with great
difficulty he was taught its ordinary processes.
At nine Whately was sent to the school of a Mr.
Phillips, near Bristol, whom he afterwards described as
having a wonderful influence over his boys, though
neither an able man nor skilful in imparting know
ledge.
In 1805 Whately entered Oriel College, Oxford,
where, if his peculiarities provoked comment and
sometimes occasioned ridicule, his ability soon com
manded respect. He became known among the
students as " The White Bear," from his blunt, gruff
manner, combined with a habit which he had of
attiring himself in a white coat and a white hat, and
being usually attended by a huge white dog. For the
unwritten laws which regulated university life he cared
little. But to the work of the college he applied
himself with unremitting assiduity. He was usually
at his books by five in the morning. After spending
a couple of hours at them he would sally out for a
country walk, from which he would be seen returning
Richard Whately 421
fresh and in exuberant spirits as the late risers hurried
from their rooms to eight o'clock chapel.
His tutor in Oriel was Dr. Copleston, afterwards
Bishop of Llandaff. A strong attachment sprang up
between the two, which only death severed. Whately
always averred that he owed more to Copleston than
to any other man. The young undergraduate was
as original in his methods of work as in other things.
When hard pressed for time he had, for example, a
unique recipe for making two days out of one. Rising
at 3 A.M., he would conclude his first day at noon,
having thus enjoyed a good working day nine hours in
length ; he then went to bed in a darkened room, and
slept till 2 or 3 o'clock, when he rose again and set to
work once more, ending his second day at 10 P.M.,
when he retired to rest. For all working purposes
he said that he thus found his time doubled. Most
constitutions, however, instead of finding an advantage
in this method of lengthening the days, would soon
discover that it was an effectual mode of shortening
them. Even Whately could not have stood it often or
long. That his work was done with a continual sense
of the great Taskmaster's eye is proved by the motto
which he inscribed on the title-page of a " Common
place Book " which he began keeping at an early stage
of his college career — " Let the words of my mouth
and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy
sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer ! "
At his degree examination Whately took a double
second, and in 1 8 1 1 he was elected a fellow of his
college.
Oriel common-room was about this period the daily
meeting-place of as remarkable a group of men as
any college ever brought together. Among them, in
addition to Whately, were Arnold, Copleston, Keble,
422 Champions of the Truth
John Henry Newman, and Pusey. It would be out of
place to trace here the interaction of these master
minds on each other. Curiously enough, Newman
declares that he owed Whately a great deal. " While
I was still awkward and timid," he says, " he took me
by the hand and acted the part to me of a gentle and
encouraging instructor. He, emphatically, opened my
mind and taught me to think and to use my reason."
After drifting asunder farther and farther, the two
former fellow-students came, in the lapse of time, to
be near neighbours again in Dublin, the one being
in the Palace, and the other in the Roman Catholic
University in Stephen's Green ; but the old college
intercourse was never renewed.
Whately now became one of the tutors of Oriel, and
a most admirable tutor he made. Amongst his first
pupils was Nassau William Senior, who, to his great
mortification, had been plucked at the examination for
his degree. After reading a while under Whately, he
took a first-class. Tutor and pupil became fast friends,
and constantly corresponded till the death of the
former. Whately's style of lecturing was not, indeed,
overburdened with dignity. Another of his pupils,
afterwards Bishop Hinds, tells us : " His apartment was
a small one, and the little room in it much reduced by
an enormous sofa, on which I found him stretched at
length, with a pipe in his mouth, the atmosphere becom
ing denser and denser as he puffed." But, no matter
what his surroundings or mode of work, he succeeded
in drawing out of his scholars all that was in them worth
the process. In truth he was a born teacher, and all
his life was never happier than when exercising the art.
In 1825 Whately was appointed Principal of St.
Alban's Hall, Oxford. He found the place much dis
organised, the discipline lax, and the reputation of the
Richard Whately 423
Hall in every respect low. Before long, in his vigorous
hands, everything assumed a different aspect.
It was about this time that he wrote some of his
best-known works, among others the Logic, which was
first published in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, his
Rhetoric, the Bampton Lectures on The Use and Abuse
of Party Feeling in Religion, his essays on Some of the
Peculiarities of the Christian Religion, and on Some of
the Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul, and that
curious little volume entitled Historic Doubts regarding
Napoleon Buonaparte.
By his treatise on Logic, as Professor Seth wrote,
" which gave a great impetus to the study, not only in
Oxford but throughout Great Britain, Whately has been
known to after generations of students. . . . Whately
swept away the webs of scholasticism from the subject,
and raised the study to a new level."
His Historic Doubts, which he published under the
odd nom de plume of " Konx Ompax," is the more inter
esting from some modern developments of criticism. It
had for its object to show that it is as possible to give
a philosophic denial to the most notable and best-
authenticated facts of history as to the statements of
Revelation. The author most ingeniously shows that
the history of Buonaparte is full of apparent contra
dictions and absurdities. One example of his method
of procedure may suffice. He says : " The principal
Parisian journal, the Moniteur, in the number published
on the very day in the year 1814 on which the allied
armies are said to have entered Paris as conquerors,
makes no mention of any such event, nor alludes at all
to any military transactions, but is entirely occupied with
criticisms on some theatrical performances. Now this
may be considered as equivalent to a positive contra
diction of the received accounts."
424 Champions of the Truth
In 1814 Whately had been ordained deacon. His
first sermon was preached at Knowle in Warwickshire,
the occasion being made memorable to himself by the
fact that, with his usual absence of mind, he went to
church without noting down his text, and had at the
last moment to summon the clerk to his aid before he
could proceed with his discourse. It might have been
supposed that his natural shyness would have made
preaching painful to him. It was not so, however. To
a friend who asked him whether he was not very nervous
on the occasion of his first effort in the pulpit, he made
the excellent reply : " I dared not be. To think of
myself at such a time would be in my eyes not only a
weakness, but a sin."
In 1822 he was presented to the living of Hales-
worth in Suffolk. As might be expected, he threw the
same heart and energy into his work here as made his
teaching in Oxford so successful. He had been married
the previous year to Miss Elizabeth Pope, daughter of
William Pope, of Hillingdon, Middlesex, a lady who
proved a true yoke-fellow to him all her life, and who
especially rendered him the most essential help in the
management of his parish. In Halesworth he delivered,
as a series of week-day addresses, his lectures on
Scripture Revelations concerning a Future State. To
this fascinating subject he had given much attention,
and on it, as usual, he formed very independent views.
In his country parish he led a quietly busy life. His
pulpit style was that for which he argues so strenu
ously in his Rhetoric, and which he was never weary
of inculcating on clergymen, a natural style, without
straining the vocal organs to their hurt, and to the
defeat of the end aimed at. On one occasion he put
this favourite view of his more pointedly than pleasantly
to a clerical friend who had officiated in his hearing
Richard Whatcly 425
and insisted on having his opinion as to his rendering
of the service. " Well," said Whately, " if you really
wish to know what I think of your reading, I should
say there are only two parts of the service you read
well, and these you read unexceptionably."
" And what are those ? " said his friend.
" They are * Here endeth the first lesson,' and ' Here
endeth the second lesson/ " he replied.
" What do you mean, Whately ? " was the astonished
parson's rejoinder.
" I mean," said Whately, " that these parts you read
in your own natural voice and manner, which are very
good ; the rest is all artificial and assumed."
The fearless, straightforward character of his minis
trations at Halesworth may be gathered from an
anecdote which he used to tell. " I remember one of
my parishioners," he said, " telling me that he thought
a person should not go to church to be made uncom
fortable. I replied that I thought so too ; but whether
it should be the sermons or the man's life that should
be altered, so as to avoid the discomfort, must depend
on whether the doctrine was right or wrong."
In September 1831, Earl Grey offered Whately the
archbishopric of Dublin, then vacant by the death of
Dr. Magee, author of Discourses and Dissertations on
the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice.
The mode in which the news of his election was
received was characteristic. Whately was on a visit
to Arnold at Rugby when the letter containing the
offer was put into his hands at the breakfast table.
After glancing at the contents of the missive, he
quietly put it into his pocket and continued his break
fast, talking the while of indifferent subjects as if
nothing*unusual had happened. When they rose from
table he told Arnold, and then a visitor having
426 Champions of the Truth
arrived, Whately entered into conversation with him
and asked him out to see the feats of his climbing
dog, of which he was singularly proud.
The position of Archbishop of Dublin, high though
it was, was surrounded at that time by perils and
difficulties which might well have made the bravest
pause before accepting it. Ireland was passing
through an acute phase of her too usual excited and
turbulent condition. O'Connell was in the full height
of the popularity to which his efforts for Roman
Catholic Emancipation, granted two years before, had
raised him. The chronic struggle between Govern
ment and the populace was raging fiercely. " I never,"
wrote a correspondent of Lord Cloncurry in the year
in which Whately received his appointment, " witnessed
anything so turbulent and angry as the populace were
in Dublin this day — not even in the height of '98."
Then the Established Church, of which Whately was
to be one of the heads, was in dire straits. The
tithe war was at its height, and in connection with
it scenes of the most appalling violence were being
enacted. To add to the sad confusion, a new system
of national education was in the act of being launched,
which was destined to divide Protestantism itself into
two hostile camps. It spoke much for the reputation
which Whately had acquired, that, at such a crisis in
the affairs of the country, Earl Grey should send him
to Dublin, especially when it is remembered that there
had been no previous personal acquaintance between
the two. But Whately might be excused for cherish
ing some serious misgivings about accepting an offer so
fraught with peril and difficulty — " a call," as he him
self put it, " to the helm of a crazy ship in a storm."
It was only a sense of duty which made him consent
to the elevation.
Richard Whately 427
The same forgetfulness which left him textless
when he rose to preach his first sermon, made him
neglect to resign his living at Halesworth before
coming over to Ireland to be consecrated, and the
ceremony had to be postponed. It took place at
last on 23rd October 1831.
Whately set about the work of his new office with
his usual earnestness. There were many difficulties
to contend with. For various reasons, some political,
some theological, his appointment to the see of Dublin
was not generally popular, so that, in addition to the
troubles with which he was beset, owing to the state
of the country and the Church, he was further heavily
handicapped by having to live down prejudices which
came to Ireland before him. But, true to his character,
he took no pains to conciliate any one. He kept on
his own path, regardless alike of smiles and frowns,
intent on one thing only, the doing of what he regarded
as his duty.
The new system of National Education, which came
to Ireland in the same year as Whately, found in him
one of its most strenuous supporters. Its object was
to provide for the efficient education of Irish children
under the supervision of the State, and its distinctive
principle was combined secular and separate religious
instruction. Whately believed such a plan to be
admirably suited to the peculiar circumstances of
Ireland, and threw his whole strength into the working
of it out He gave special attention to the preparation
of school-books for the new schools, writing several of
them himself. One such deserves particular mention
here, not only for its own sake, but on account of the
issues to which it led — a small manual of the Evidences
of Christianity, suited to the capacity of children, on
which he spent no little time and care. When it was
428 Champions of the Truth
laid on the table of the Board, its use was unanimously
sanctioned, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin,
Dr. Murray, thoroughly approving of it along with the
other members.
Of course, in Dublin, he was necessarily brought
face to face with the Roman Catholic controversy, in
which, however, he had taken a deep interest long
before his elevation to the episcopate. An anecdote
related by his friend, Bishop Hinds, gives us an idea
of the characteristic mode, decided and uncompromising,
yet kindly and considerate, in which he was in the
habit of conversing with persons who differed from
him on religious matters. " Whately and I," says the
bishop, " started from Oxford early one morning in the
winter of 1813, by a Birmingham coach, to visit our
friends the Boultbees at Springfield. Our travelling
companions inside the coach were two strangers, a man
and a woman. The man was full of fun and frolic, and
for some time made himself merry at the expense of the
woman, having detected her in the act of slyly putting
to her lips a bottle of some comforting drink with
which she had provided herself. From her he turned
upon Whately, observing, as the daylight increased,
that he had the appearance of being clerical or
academical. ' I suppose, sir,1 said he, ' that you are
one of the gentlemen who teach at Oxford ? ' Whately
nodded assent. 'I don't care,' he continued, 'who
knows it, but I am a Catholic.' No reply. * Well, sir,
I'll tell you what my religious principle is. My wife
is one of you, and I have a servant who is a Dissenter.
When Sunday comes round, I see that my wife goes
to her place of worship, my servant to hers, and I go
to mine. Is not that the right religious principle ? '
" Whately. ( Yes, but I do not mean by that that
you are right in being a Roman Catholic.'
Richard Whately 429
" Stranger. ' Ay, you don't like our praying to the
Virgin Mary and to the saints.'
" Whately. ' That is one thing ; but I must own
that there is something to be said for your doing
so.'
" Stranger. ' To be sure there is ! '
" Whately. ( You, I guess, are a farmer ? '
" Stranger. ' Yes, sir, and no farm is in better order
than mine in all Oxfordshire.'
" Whately. ' If your lease was nearly run out, and
you wanted to have it renewed on good terms, I daresay
you would ask any friend of your landlord, any of his
family, or even his servants — any one, in short, to say
a good word for you ? '
" Stranger. ' You have hit it : our praying to the
Virgin and to the saints to intercede for us is the same
thing — it is but natural and reasonable.'
" Whately. ' Now suppose your landlord had one
only son, a favourite, and he gave out that whoever
expected any favour from him must ask that son, and
no one else, to intercede for him — what then ? '
" Stranger. ' Oh, that would alter the case. But
what do you mean by that ? '
" Whately. ' I mean that God has declared to us by
His word, the Bible, that there is one Mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus.'
" Stranger. ' And is that in the Bible ? '
" Whately. 'It is ; and when you go home, if you
have a Bible, you may look into it yourself and see.'
" After a pause the farmer said, ' Well, sir, I'll think
over that ; but '
" The discussion lasted until we were near Banbury,
where we parted company. The farmer, on quitting,
having noticed that Whately had a fowling-piece with
him, held out his hand to him and said, ' I am so-and-
43° Champions of the Truth
so, and live at such-and-such a place, not far from this ;
if you will come and spend a few days with me, I will
get you some capital shooting, and I'll be right glad to
see you. Now you'll come, won't you ? ' They never
met again."
The terrible Irish famine of course could not fail to
touch a man of Whately's great heart to the core. He
gave munificently to the relief of the starving people.
It is believed that his contributions amounted to some
thing like £8000. He saved nothing out of the large
income of the archbishopric, and died none the richer
for having held it.
Between the work of his see, the constant employ
ment of his pen, the business of the National Board of
Education, and other public concerns, Whately's hands
were kept constantly full. But by his rigid economy of
time and systematic mode of doing everything, he was
able to get through an enormous amount of business.
He was always up early, and even while dressing was
busy planning his work for the day. An hour before
breakfast was usually given to the garden. Sometimes
he would be seen digging, with his coat off, sometimes
grafting or budding or inarching, operations in which
he took great delight. One of his special pleasures was
the combination of one species of plant with another
by " approach -grafting." His grounds were full of
specimens of his skill in this operation. During the
busiest day he would snatch an occasional half-hour for
his outdoor work. An amusing story is told illustrative
of his enthusiasm for it.
One day a doctor was called in to consult with the
family medical attendant, in consequence of the illness
of some member of the archbishop's household. It was
the dead of winter, and the ground was covered deeply
with snow. Knowing Whately's character for humanity,
Richard Whately 43 l
the stranger expressed much surprise, as he drove up
the avenue in the dusk, at seeing an old labouring man
stripped to his shirt felling a tree in the demesne, while
a heavy shower of sleet drifted pitilessly in his wrinkled
face.
" That labourer," said the family physician, " whom
you think the victim of prelatical despotism, is no other
than the archbishop curing himself of a headache.
When he has been reading or writing more than usual,
and finds any pain or confusion about the cerebral
organisation, he rushes out with an axe and slashes
away at some ponderous trunk. As soon as he finds
himself in a profuse perspiration, he gets into bed,
wraps himself in Limerick blankets, falls into a sound
sleep, and gets up buoyant."
As yet we have scarcely mentioned what was one
of the archbishop's best -known characteristics — his
unbounded love of fun. There was nothing which he
enjoyed more than indulging in witticisms of all kinds,
not unfrequently making a jest the vehicle of inculcating
wholesome truth. It is well to caution the reader,
however, against receiving, as genuine ebullitions of his
genius, all that has been attributed to him. His
reputation for wit made him a constant peg for hang
ing all sorts of jokes upon, good, bad, and indifferent.
With a charming air of pathetic resignation he used to
say, " I ought to walk about with my back chalked
' Rubbish shot here.' "
Very frequently he at once gratified his own love of
pleasantry and taught a wholesome lesson by assuming
for the nonce the character of an advocate of some
cause with which he had no sympathy, but with the
arguments in favour of which he wished his clergy to
be thoroughly conversant, and then calling on them to
reply to his reasoning. The usual result was that his
432 Champions of the Truth
hearers begged him to relieve their minds by answering
himself.
At times, too, he amused himself by suggesting
characteristic plans for the rectification of abuses. This
practice began early with him. When living at Oxford,
and obliged to travel frequently between that city and
Bath, where his mother resided, there was an inn nearly
midway on the journey, where the coach usually stopped,
and the landlord was in the habit of so delaying the
passengers' breakfast or luncheon that usually they had
to go on their way leaving the repast they had paid
for untasted. We shall allow Whately to tell the
story of how he redressed this most annoying grievance.
He says, " I determined at last that I would not suffer
this. As soon as the coach stopped to change horses,
I ran across to a small inn on the opposite side, and
engaged the people to prepare some refreshment as
quickly as possible. Seeing that the change might
benefit them, they were wonderfully prompt. Next
time we passed, I spoke of this to my companions, and
persuaded one or two to come with me and get break
fast where it could be had in time. Each journey
brought more and more of the passengers to my side,
and at last, one memorable day, the whole party of
travellers, insides and outsides, repaired to the opposi
tion inn. The victory was gained, the coach thence
forth put up there, and the rival house was effectually
put down."
On 25th April 1860, Whately sustained a great
blow by the death of his wife. For thirty-eight years
she had been his inseparable companion and busy
helper. The two were each other's complementaries,
for Mrs. Whately had qualities in which the arch
bishop was deficient, as he had talents which she
lacked. One of his wise sayings was, " Two people
Richard Whately 433
who are each of an unyielding temper will not act
well together, and people who are both of them of
a very yielding temper will be likely to resolve on
nothing, just as stones without mortar make a loose
wall, and mortar alone no wall. So says the proverb :
Hard upon hard makes a bad stone wall,
But soft upon soft makes none at all."
In this case, if Whately supplied the stones, his
wife certainly furnished the cement to bind the whole
domestic edifice beautifully and firmly together. His
grief at her death was extreme. While the end was
coming, we are told that he sat on the stairs outside
her bedroom door, quite unmanned and weeping like
a child. The trouble was all the more keenly felt
because, like most troubles, it did not come singly.
His youngest daughter, a bride of scarcely four months,
was carried to the grave a month before her mother.
Two years later Whately's own health gave way.
An affection of the leg, which had annoyed him for
some time, made serious progress, notwithstanding all
efforts to keep it in check. He was a firm believer in
homoeopathy, and was treated for his ailment according
to its principles. For a time he recovered, but in 1863
another bad attack came on. The pain which he
suffered at intervals was excruciating. To use his own
description, it was as if " red-hot gimlets were being put
into the leg." One day he said, with tears in his eyes,
to a clergyman who called to see him, " Have you ever
preached a sermon on the text — ' Thy will be done ' ? "
On receiving an affirmative reply, he answered, " How
did you expound it ? " An account of the explanation
having been given — " Just so," said Whately, " that is
the meaning." But, in a voice choked with tears, he
added, " It is hard, very hard, sometimes to say it."
2 F
434 Champions of the Truth
It soon became evident that no efforts could save
his life, and, indeed, he was not anxious that it should
be saved. As is often the case, his sickness mellowed
him greatly. " We had not known," one tells us who
knew him well, " all his claims on our affectionate regard
until his tedious and painful illness revealed many a
gentler grace for the display of which there had been
no opportunity before." It revealed, too, something
far more valuable, a simplicity of faith in his Redeemer
as sincere as it was strong.
" Well, your Grace," said one of his clergy to him
one day, " it is a great mercy that though your body
is so weak your intellect is vigorous still."
" Talk to me no more about intellect," was the
reply, " there is nothing for me now but Christ."
On another day he asked his domestic chaplain to
read to him the eighth chapter of Romans. After
doing so, the chaplain said, " Shall I read any more ? "
" No," he replied, " that is enough at a time. There
is a great deal for the mind to dwell on in that."
This was a favourite chapter with him, as it is with
most earnest souls. He found special comfort in the
32nd verse — "He that spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with
Him also freely give us all things ? " But, indeed, no
matter what part of the Bible was read to him, he enjoyed
it, saying frequently, "Every chapter you read seems
as if it had been written on purpose for me." The fear
of death was quite taken away from him. One day,
when there was a fresh hemorrhage from the leg, the
doctor, who had been hastily summoned, said — " I
think we can stop it, my lord." " I am afraid so," was
the unexpected reply. On another occasion, when he
was asked if there was anything he wished for, " I wish
for nothing," he replied, " but death." Happily, great
Richard Whately 435
as was the agony he endured, his mind continued clear
and calm as ever. One night the beautiful words in
Philippians iii. 2 1 were quoted to him, " Who shall
change our vile body so that it may be fashioned like
unto His own glorious body." " Read the words," said
Whately. They were read to him from the Authorised
Version, but he repeated — " Read His own words."
The literal translation of the verse was given him,
which has since been embodied in the Revised Version
— " Who shall fashion anew the body of our humilia
tion." " That's right," said the sufferer, " nothing that
He made is vile."
At length, on the morning of 8th October 1863,
the end came. With the members of his family round
his bed, his eldest daughter kneeling by his side and
whispering appropriate passages of Scripture in his ear,
Whately drew his last breath. The remains were
buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, amid deep
and general lamentation.
Undoubtedly, when Whately died, one of the
greatest intellects of the century passed from us.
Ireland especially lost in him one of the truest friends
she ever had. She gave him a cold greeting when he
landed on her shores. For long, many of her people
regarded him with scarce -concealed suspicion and
heaped obloquy upon his head ; yet, for thirty-two
years, her interests were uppermost in his thoughts.
In some things which he devised and did on her
behalf he may have been mistaken. But his allegiance
to what he believed to be the truth, and his devotion
to the cause of Ireland, were alike unquestionable. A
man of wide grasp of thought, generous, conscientious,
deeply anxious to serve his generation, honest to a
fault, liberal-minded, a man of strong convictions,
which he was never ashamed nor afraid to avow, no
436 Champions of the Truth
matter what the cost, if his manner was sometimes
brusque and his speech abrupt, if his views on some
points, such as the Sabbath and some other questions,
dear to many Christian hearts, were objectionable, and
excited keen opposition, as they did, he was at all
events an honest lover of the truth for the truth's
sake, and one who, according to the light that was in
him, tried to serve faithfully God and man during
his sojourn on earth. The sentiment embodied in
a remark which he once made about himself is as
Whateleian as the terse, epigrammatic style in which
it was put — " Any man who tries to imitate me is sure
to be unlike me in the important circumstance of being
an imitator, and no one can think as I do who does
not think for himself."
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
By (1834-1892)
F* B. Meyer, B,A.
KELVEDON is a quiet village in Essex, possessing a
picturesque appearance, because of the quaintness of
its houses and the calm routine of its ordinary life.
When the present writer passed through it one after
noon, the whole population appeared to have deserted
it ; and the presence of two or three in the principal
thoroughfare threatened to create an unusual crowd.
There, on iQth June 1834, in a cottage which is now
used as a lodging-house for travellers, was born one
who was destined to invest this old-world place with
the fascination which life always casts around the
material abodes of men. People often turn aside
from the highways of the world to visit the birthplace
of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
His father, John Spurgeon, who was equally efficient
at conducting his business during the week and minister
ing regularly to a stated congregation of villagers on
the Lord's Day, was a man of strong character and un
impeachable integrity. In after years he was brought
into considerable prominence by the success of his
brilliant son, gave up his business and became minister
at Fetter Lane, Holborn, and afterwards of the Inde
pendent Church worshipping in the Upper Street,
Islington.
437
43$ Champions of the Truth
But it was to his mother that the great preacher
owed most of the influences that made him what he
was. This was admitted to an American minister by
the Rev. John Spurgeon himself. " I had been from
home a great deal," he said, "trying to build up weak
congregations, and felt that I was neglecting the
religious training of my own children while I toiled
for the good of others. As I returned home with these
feelings, I opened the door, and was surprised to find
none of the children about the hall. Going quietly up
the stairs, I heard my wife's voice. She was engaged
in prayer with the children around her. I heard her
pray for them one by one by name. She came to
Charles, and specially prayed for him, for he was of
high spirit and daring temper. I listened until she
had finished her prayer, and I felt and said, ' Lord, I
will go on with Thy work. The children will be
cared for.' "
How much of his after success may be attributable
to the influence of his mother's prayers ! They are
referred to in at least one amusing passage of arms
between mother and son, in which she said, "Ah,
Charlie, I have often prayed that you might be saved,
but never that you should become a Baptist." To
which he replied, " God has answered your prayer,
mother, with His usual bounty, and given you more
than you asked." Thrift, self-denial, contentment with
a frugal lot, the touch of a quaint humour, and a
godly training, were among the earliest impressions
which the family of ten children received in that quiet
home at Kelvedon.
When old enough to leave home, Charles was
removed to the manse at Stambourne, the residence of
his grandfather, the Rev. James Spurgeon, who had
ministered to the Independent Church there since
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 439
May 1 8 1 1 . There must be something specially health-
giving in that Essex air, for ministers at least, since
the church had only had four pastors in the course of
two hundred years.
The house itself has been replaced by a more
modern dwelling, but the vivid memory of what it was
lived unimpaired in that mind whose earliest impres
sions were set in these surroundings, as a picture in a
frame : the spacious hall, innocent of carpet, with its
fireplace and painting of David and Goliath ; the
brick floor carefully sprinkled with fresh sand ; the
best parlour with roses growing about its windows, and
thrusting their buds between wall and window-frame,
the portraits of ancestors around the room, and, on
the mantelpiece, the famous bottle with its apple
inside, to furnish in after days so fresh an illustration
of the value of early training ; the dairy at the back
of the house ; the sitting-room with its pleasant out
look down the garden paths, its commodious fireplace,
and its mysterious kitchen - jack ; the upper rooms
with their uneven floors, the old chintz bed furniture,
and the chirp of birds who built their nests in the
eaves, and found their way into the rooms ; and last,
but most, the study, dark enough as to the light of
day, but full of books, the Puritans, the Martyrs,
Bunyan, and many others worthy to be classed
amongst those enumerated in Hebrews xi., appro
priate indeed to mould the life and thought of the
growing boy.
The garden of the manse contained a tall thick yew
hedge which formed two sides of a square, eighty-six
yards in length, and sheltering a broad grass walk
which furnished the occupant of the manse with a still
retreat for prayer. In front of the house the garden
was bounded by a laurel hedge, within which stood two
440 Champions of the Truth
large antique yew trees, each cut into a fantastic shape
and so trimmed as to make arbours. It was beneath
the shelter of one of these trees that an incident
occurred which must have exercised a strong influence
on the lad, then quite young.
The Rev. R. Knill, a saintly man, had come to
preach at Stambourne for the London Missionary
Society at the Sunday services. He was especially
attracted by children, and when he heard the grand
child of his host read the Bible with charming emphasis,
his heart went out to the boy, and an agreement was
made that they should go round the garden together
on the following morning before breakfast. They
talked together much of Christ and of His service, and
presently they knelt together in the great yew arbour,
and the man of God poured out a stream of intercession
for his youthful friend as they knelt together, arms
intertwined.
Before he left the manse, Mr. Knill uttered a re
markable prophecy destined to be literally fulfilled.
Calling the family together, he drew the child to his
knee and said, " I do not know how it is, but I feel a
solemn presentiment that this child will preach the
Gospel to thousands, and God will bless him to many
souls. So sure am I of this, that when my little man
preaches in Rowland Hill's Chapel, as he will do one
day, I should like him to promise me that he will give
out the hymn commencing —
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform."
That declaration was fulfilled, and the hymn was
afterwards sung on Mr. Spurgeon's first visit to Surrey
Chapel and to Mr. Hill's first chapel at Wootton-under-
Edge. The time of conversion was not yet, but the
Charles Haddon Spurgcon 441
prayer and the prophecy were germs destined to bear
a hundredfold.
Mr. Spurgeon's grandfather was remarkable as a man
and as a preacher of the Gospel. He was educated
at Hoxton Academy, and continued to preach till his
death in February 1 864, in the eighty-eighth year of
his age. He was very devoted to his grandson, and
the two must have made a remarkable pair. " It was
his custom to allow him to read the Scriptures at
family worship ; and strangers who were occasionally
present were wont to remark on the unerring correct
ness with which the youthful reader went through the
exercise."
The days must have passed away interestingly
enough. Sometimes the grandfather and the lad would
meet the vicar of the parish at the squire's ; or the
fox -hounds and huntsmen would come down by
Stambourne woods ; or the Sunday-school festival came
round, with its milder excitement. There was the
week-day school, kept by old Mrs. Burleigh, and the
prayer -meeting with its one tune set by the old
minister, and stretched or shortened as the metre of
the hymn might need ; Watts's Catechism, Janeway's
Token for Children, the Evangelical Magazine^ given to
still " the child," with its portrait of a divine and its
picture of a mission station ; the little shelf by the
kneading trough, on which would be placed a bit of
pastry by the hands of the affectionate grandmother, as
something for " the child," as he was always described ;
the talks between the village farmers and their pastor
on farming operations — all these had no doubt much
to do with the formation of after years of ministry.
His father's unmarried sister Ann had most to do
with " the child " during the first six years of his life, and
her influence seems to have been as beneficial as it was
44 2 Champions of the Truth
deep. He grew up a model of truthfulness : " I do not
remember ever hearing of his speaking anything but
the truth," so wrote his grandfather in after days. He
was remarkable also for his force of character and
precocity ; one instance of which has thus been given :
<( When he was six years old he overheard his grand
father deploring the habits of one of his flock, who was
accustomed to go to a public-house for a mug of beer
and a quiet pipe. Little Charles said, ' I will kill
him ! ' and shortly afterwards told his grandfather that
he had done the deed. ' I've killed old Rhodes. He
will never grieve my poor grandfather any more.'
' What do you mean, my child ? ' asked the minister.
( I have not been doing any harm, grandfather/ was the
reply. ' I've been about the Lord's work, that is all ! '
" The mystery was explained presently by old Rhodes
himself. He told Mr. Spurgeon that the lad had come
to him in the public-house and said to him : ' What
doest thou here, Elijah ? sitting with the ungodly, you
a member of a church, and break your pastor's heart !
I'm ashamed of you ! I would not break my pastor's
heart, I am sure.' Old Rhodes was angry for a
moment, but came to the conclusion that the child was
in the right, and went no more to the tap-room."
To be quite alone, he says, was his boyish heaven,
and he used to make himself a bed of leaves, so com
pletely covering himself that no one could find him ;
and when there were no leaves he would remove the
side stone from a sort of altar-tomb, and creep inside,
setting the slab of stone back again, so that he was
completely enclosed in a sort of chamber, where no
one would dream of looking for him. The secret of
his hiding-place was never discovered until long years
after he revealed it to his aunt, who was bent on solving
the mystery.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 443
At the age of seven the boy was removed to
Colchester, because of its superior educational ad
vantages, and went to a school conducted by Mr.
Henry Lewis. There he acquired some knowledge of
Latin, Greek, and French. After this he spent a few
months in an agricultural college in Maidstone con
ducted by one of his relatives.
Before leaving Colchester, however, he passed through
the greatest change of his life, which he described in
after years in the following words : — " I will tell you
how I myself was brought to the knowledge of this
truth. It may happen the telling of that will bring
some one else to Christ. It pleased God in my child
hood to convince me of sin. I lived a miserable
creature, finding no hope, no comfort, thinking that
surely God would never save me. At last the worst
came to the worst. I was miserable ; I could do
scarcely anything. My heart was broken in pieces.
Six months did I pray — prayed agonisingly with all
my heart, and never had an answer. I resolved that,
in the town where I lived, I would visit every place of
worship in order to find out the way of salvation. I
felt I was willing to do anything and be anything if
God would only forgive me. I set off, determined to
go round to all the chapels, and I went to all the
places of worship ; and though I dearly venerate the
men that occupy those pulpits now, and did so then, I
am bound to say that I never heard them once fully
preach the Gospel. I mean by that — they preached
truth, great truths, many good truths that were fitting
to many of their congregation — spiritually -minded
people ; but what I wanted to know was — How can I
get my sins forgiven ? And they never once told me
that. I wanted to hear how a poor sinner, under a
sense of sin, might find peace with God ; and when
444 Champions of the Truth
I went I heard a sermon on ' Be not deceived ; God
is not mocked,' which cut me up worse, but did not
say how I might escape. I went again another day,
and the text was something about the glories of the
righteous ; nothing for poor me. I was something like
a dog under the table not allowed to eat of the children's
food. I went time after time, and I can honestly say,
I don't know that I ever went without prayer to God,
and I am sure there was not a more attentive hearer in
all the place than myself; for I panted and longed to
understand how I might be saved.
" At last, one snowy day, — it snowed so much, I
could not go to the place I had determined to go to,
and I was obliged to stop on the road, and it was a
blessed stop to me, — I found rather an obscure street,
and turned down a court, and there was a little chapel.
I wanted to go somewhere, but I did not know this
place. It was the Primitive Methodist Chapel. I had
heard of these people from many, and how they sang
so loudly that they made people's heads ache ; but that
did not matter. I wanted to know how I might be
saved, and if they made my head ache ever so much I
did not care. So, sitting down, the service went on,
but no minister came. At last a very thin-looking
man came into the pulpit and opened his Bible, and
read these words — ( Look unto Me, and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth.' Just setting his eyes upon
me, as if he knew me all by heart, he said, ' Young
man, you are in trouble.' Well, I was, sure enough.
Says he, ' You will never get out of it unless you look
to Christ.' And then, lifting up his hands, he cried
out, as only I think a Primitive Methodist could do,
' Look, look, look ! It is only look,' said he. I saw
at once the way of salvation. Oh, how I did leap for
joy at that moment ! I know not what else he said :
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 445
I did not take much notice of it, — I was so possessed
with that one thought ; like as when the brazen serpent
was lifted up, they only looked and were healed. I
had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard
this word, ' Look ! ' what a charming word it seemed to
me ! Oh, I looked until I could almost have looked
my eyes away, and in heaven I will look on still in my
joy unutterable." And he adds, " I now think I am
bound never to preach a sermon without preaching to
sinners. I do think that a minister who can preach a
sermon without addressing sinners does not know how
to preach."
On nth October 1864 he further alluded to the
same event, when preaching to five hundred hearers in
the chapel at Colchester (in which he was converted),
on the occasion of the anniversary of that place of
worship. He took for his text the memorable words,
Isaiah xlv. 22, " Look unto Me, and be ye saved," and,
said the preacher, " that I heard preached from in this
chapel when the Lord converted me." And, pointing
to a seat on the left hand, under the gallery, he said,
" / was sitting in that pew when I was converted" The
Bible that lay on Mr. Spurgeon's coffin was opened at
this text.
Though brought up amongst the Independents he
was led, during a brief stay at Newmarket, by his
studies in the New Testament to change his views on
the subject of baptism, and on 3rd May 1850 he was
publicly baptized in the river Lark at the village of
Isleham, by Rev. W. W. Cantlow, the Baptist minister
there. In a letter to his father, he said, " It is very
pleasing to me that the day on which I shall openly
profess the name of Jesus is my mother's birthday.
May it be to both of us a foretaste of many glorious
and happy days yet to come."
446 Champions of the Truth
After a short sojourn at Newmarket he removed to
Cambridge in 1851, and became usher with Mr. Henry
Leeding, who had been one of his teachers at Col
chester. He at once became a member of the Baptist
Church in St. Andrew's Street, formerly ministered to
by the Rev. Robert Hall, and joined the " Lay Preachers'
Association."
The following account is given of his first sermon : —
" We had one Saturday finished morning school, and
the boys were all going home, when the superintendent
of the association came to ask me to go over to Fevers-
ham on the next Sunday evening, for a young man
was to preach there who was not much used to services,
and very likely would be glad of company. That was
a cunningly devised sentence, if we remember it rightly,
and we think we do ; for at the time, in the light of
the Sunday evening's revelation, we turned it over and
vastly admired its ingenuity. A request to go and
preach would have met with a decided negative ; but
merely to act as company to a good brother who did
not like to be lonely, and perhaps might ask us to give
out a hymn, or to pray, was not at all a difficult
matter, and the request, understood in that fashion,
was cheerfully complied with. Little did the lad know
what Jonathan and David were doing when he was
made to run for the arrow, and as little knew we when
we were cajoled into accompanying a young man to
Feversham.
" Our Sunday-school work was over, and tea had
been taken, and we set off through Barnwell, and away
along the Newmarket Road, with a gentleman some
few years our senior. We talked of good things, and
at last we expressed our hope that he would feel the
presence of God while preaching. He seemed to start,
and assured us that he had never preached in his life,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 447
and could not attempt such a thing ; he was looking
to his young friend, Mr. Spurgeon, for that. This was
a new view of the situation, and I could only reply that
I was no minister, and that even if I had been, I was
quite unprepared. My companion repeated that he,
even in a more emphatic sense, was not a preacher,
that he would help me in any other part of the service,
but there would be no sermon unless I gave them one.
He told me that if I repeated one of my Sunday-school
addresses it would just suit the poor people, and would
probably give them more satisfaction than the studied
subject of a learned divine. I felt that I was fairly
committed to do my best. I walked along quietly,
lifting up my soul to God, and it seemed to me that I
could surely tell a few poor cottagers of the sweetness
and love of Jesus, for I felt them in my own soul.
Praying for Divine help I resolved to make an attempt.
My text should be, ' Unto you, therefore, which believe,
He is precious,' and I would trust the Lord to open
my mouth in honour of His dear Son. It seemed a
great risk and a serious trial ; but depending on the
power of the Holy Ghost, I would at least tell out the
story of the Cross, and not allow the people to go home
without a word.
"We entered the low-pitched room of the old
thatched cottage, where a few simple-minded farm-
labourers and their wives were gathered together ; we
sang and prayed, and read the Scriptures, and then
came our first sermon. How long or how short it was
we cannot now remember. It was not half such a
task as we had feared it would be, but we were glad to
see our way to a fair conclusion, and to the giving out
of the last hymn. To our own delight we had not
broken down, stopped short in the middle, nor been
destitute of ideas, and the desired haven was in view.
448 Champions of the Truth
We made a finish and took up the book, but to our
astonishment an aged voice cried out, ' Bless your dear
heart, how old are you ? ' Our very solemn reply was,
1 You must wait till the service is over before making
any such inquiries ! Let us now sing.' We did sing,
and the young preacher pronounced the benediction,
and there began a dialogue which led to a warm
friendly talk, in which everybody appeared to take
part. * How old are you ? ' was the leading question.
' I am under sixty,' was the reply. ' Yes, and under
sixteen,' was the old lady's rejoinder. ' Never mind my
age, think of the Lord Jesus and His preciousness,' was
all that I could say, after promising to come again if
the gentlemen at Cambridge thought me fit to do so.
Very great and profound was our awe of those gentle
men at Cambridge in those days."
From that day he began to devote all his evenings
to preaching in the village stations around Cambridge,
after his school work was over. In 1852, when eighteen
years of age, he received an invitation to become
minister of the little church at Waterbeach, six miles
distant from Cambridge, to which he looked back
afterwards as his Garden of Eden. The congregation
soon crowded the old thatched chapel to its utmost
extent ; and as the result of his ministry, a great
revival broke out and spread throughout the neigh
bourhood, the poor people became devotedly attached
to him, and the boy-preacher was in great request for
conducting special services in all parts of the county.
The way in which he missed receiving a collegiate
education was remarkable. Dr. Angus had appointed
to meet him at the house of Mr. Macmillan the
publisher, with a view to consider the wisdom of his
entering college. Each was shown into a separate
room and waited patiently for the other. At the end
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 449
of two hours the servant informed the young preacher
that the doctor, unable to wait longer, had taken the
next train to London. At first this was a severe dis
appointment, but that afternoon, whilst walking thought
fully over Midsummer Common, he was startled as by
what seemed to be a voice saying, " Seekest thou great
things for thyself? seek them not." This he inter
preted as meaning that God was directing him to
stay with " the poor but loving people to whom he
ministered, and the souls which had been given him in
his humble charge."
Writing of this decision to his mother in the follow
ing November he says : " I am more and more glad
that I never went to college. God sends such sunshine
on my path, such smiles of grace, that I cannot regret
if I have forfeited all my prospects for it. I am
conscious I held back from love to God and His cause;
and I had rather be poor in His service than rich in
my own. I have all that heart could wish for ; yea,
God giveth more than my desire. My congregation is
as great and loving as ever. During all the time I
have been at Waterbeach, I have had a different house
for my home every Sunday. Fifty-two families have
thus taken me in ; and I have still six other invitations
not yet accepted. Talk about the people not caring for
me because they give me so little ! I dare tell anybody
under heaven 'tis false ! They do all they can. Our
anniversary passed off grandly ; six were baptized ;
crowds on crowds stood by the river, and the chapel
afterwards was crammed to the tea and sermon."
The stipend, however, was totally inadequate to
support the young preacher. That of his predecessor
had been only £20 a year, and thus, as he admitted in
his letter to the church at New Park Street, he was
obliged to consider his engagement as temporary.
2 G
450 Champions of the Truth
About this time he thought of starting a school of
his own, but all such plans were summarily laid aside
in view of the great life-work which suddenly opened
before him. The following advertisement, however, is
very interesting : —
"No. 60 Upper Park Street, Cambridge. Mr.
C. H. Spurgeon begs to inform his numerous friends
that, after Christmas, he intends taking six or seven
young gentlemen as day pupils. He will endeavour to
the utmost to impart a good commercial education.
The ordinary routine will include arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, and mensuration ; grammar and composi
tion ; ancient and modern history ; geography, natural
history, astronomy, Scripture and drawing. Latin and
the elements of Greek and French if required. Terms
£5 per annum."
New Park Street Chapel was one of the oldest
Baptist churches in London. Founded two centuries
ago by Puritan Baptists, its roll of ministers contained
such names as those of William Rider ; of Benjamin
Keach, well known for his metaphors ; of Dr. Gill, the
noted commentator, and of Dr. Rippon. But of late
years the cause had seriously declined, and the deacons
were almost in despair. Mr. Gould of Loughton,
early in 1853, happened to hear the young Waterbeach
pastor give an address at the Cambridge Union of
Sunday Schools, and mentioned him as likely to be
the very man for reviving the glories of the ancient
but decayed church. As the result of these consulta
tions, he received an invitation to occupy the pulpit
which, to his eyes, was " covered with awe unspeak
able." At first he thought the letter must have been
meant for some one else, and returned an evasive
answer ; but this was followed by so urgent a request
that he complied.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 451
His arrival in London on a Saturday evening
(December 1853) was vividly remembered and recalled
by him in after years. He must have presented a
striking appearance to the occupants of the boarding-
house in Queen Square where he lodged, " with his huge
black satin stock and blue handkerchief with white spots."
The talk that evening turned on the great preachers of
the Metropolis, the labour with which they composed
their sermons, the indefatigable work demanded by their
congregations, and matchless oratory which they ex
hibited on all occasions ; and the effect on the country
lad, as he was shown to his bed in a cupboard over the
front door, on that dark December night was most
depressing.
On the Sunday morning he found his way to New
Park Street Chapel, a very cathedral as compared with
the country chapel of his wont. There were but 200
persons in the spacious building which had sitting-room
for 1 200 people. He preached from James i. 17. In
the evening the congregation was much larger, drawn
partly by curiosity, partly by the youthfulness of the
young preacher, and partly by his unusual style. This
first Sunday led to an engagement for three months, at
the wish of the young minister, who sagely remarked
that " enthusiasm and popularity are often the crackling
of thorns, and soon expire."
Long before the limit of this period of probation,
London was ringing with his name, the chapel was
thronged an hour before the time of service, and multi
tudes of conversions began to flood the church with
new members. In every circle in London the question
was being asked, " Have you heard Spurgeon ? " News
paper writers were eagerly discussing the sources of his
phenomenal power and success, and the very severity
of many of the criticisms made upon him only stirred
45 2 Champions of the Truth
to an intenser glow the popular eagerness to hear
him.
In after years Mr. Spurgeon made a book of the
various caricatures which from time to time appeared,
and was fond of showing it to his friends. Writing
about these adventures he says : " Remarks of no very
flattering character appeared in various journals, and
the multitude thereby increased. Caricatures, such as
'Brimstone and Treacle,' adorned the print-sellers'
windows ; the most ridiculous stories were circulated,
and the most cruel falsehoods invented ; but all things
worked together for good."
Shortly after the opening of his ministry in London
there was a terrible outbreak of Asiatic cholera. On
all hands were anxiety, sorrow, and bereavement. The
black flag could be seen stretched across the streets to
warn strangers of the close proximity of plague-stricken
dwellings. His services were eagerly sought for, and
his time and strength were taxed to their utmost ; but
he discharged the duties of the emergency with a true
and manly courage. A paragraph from his Treasury
of David, on Psa. xci., most graphically describes this
trying period : —
"In the year 1854, when I had scarcely been in
London twelve months, the neighbourhood in which I
laboured was visited by Asiatic cholera, and my con
gregation suffered from its inroads. Family after
family summoned me to the bedsides of the smitten,
and almost every day I was called to visit the grave.
I gave myself up with youthful ardour to the visitation
of the sick, and was sent for from all corners of the
district by persons of all ranks and religions. I became
weary in body and sick at heart. My friends seemed
falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that I was
sickening like those around me. A little more work
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 453
and weeping would have laid me low among the rest.
I felt that my burden was heavier than I could bear,
and I was ready to sink under it. As God would have
it, I was returning mournfully home from a funeral,
when my curiosity led me to read a paper which was
wafered up in a shoemaker's window in the Dover
Road. It did not look like a trade announcement, nor
was it, for it bore in a good bold handwriting these
words : ' Because thou hast made the Lord, which is
my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there
shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come
nigh thy dwelling.' The effect upon my heart was
immediate. Faith appropriated the passage as her
own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality.
I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm
and peaceful spirit ; I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered
no harm. The providence which moved the trades
man to place those verses in his window I gratefully
acknowledge, and in the remembrance of its marvellous
power I adore the Lord my God."
From i ith February to 27th May 1855, during the
enlargement of New Park Street Chapel, Exeter Hall
was taken, and was rilled to overflowing each Sunday
morning. The Strand was blocked week after week
with the crowds that were eager to attend his ministra
tions, and obviously this had a large effect in increasing
his popularity and bringing him under the notice of
the newspaper press. Every critic of those early days
speaks of his boyishness, " the round-faced country
youth, who addressed himself to his onerous duties with
a gravity, self-possession, and vigour that proved him
well fitted for the task." The round and beardless face ;
the low forehead, surmounted by the dark hair parted in
the centre ; the heavy face lighted up by the thought
which he expressed ; the bright eyes twinkling with
454 Champions of the Truth
humour ; and the action in complete union with the
sentiments — all are successively noticed ; and all unite
in eulogium of that wonderful voice, so full and sweet
and musical as to awaken a response in every soul that
could be touched by sound. That voice stood nearly
forty years of incessant use with very little loss to
either its music or its power. It was sweet as a flute
and powerful as an organ ; it could whisper and
thunder, it was pleasant in a chamber, and could
easily command congregations of 20,000 people.
He spoke to as many as 24,000 in the Crystal Palace
on the occasion of the National Fast. Twelve
thousand have distinctly heard every sentence uttered
in the open air, and for five successive Sundays he
filled the vast Agricultural Hall at Islington.
In the summer the congregation returned from
Exeter Hall to New Park Street Chapel, which had
been enlarged to the utmost capacity of its site. But
it was hardly more capable than before of accommodat
ing the immense audiences that thronged to hear him.
A year later he resumed his services at Exeter Hall,
but only for a time, as the proprietors declined to allow
the use of it for continuous religious services, and the
deacons were obliged to take the largest available
building in London, the Royal Surrey Gardens Music
Hall, where from October 1856 Mr. Spurgeon con
tinued to preach till within fifteen months of the
Metropolitan Tabernacle being opened.
The services, however, were nearly brought to a ter
mination by a panic, which occurred there as the result
of a false cry of fire ; this caused a fearful rush to the
doors, many persons were thrown down on the stone
steps, and several were trampled to death by the
crowd. The shock to Mr. Spurgeon's nervous system
was so great that for some time he was unable to
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 455
preach. His father once told the present writer that
he had to be conveyed away in a prostrate condition
to the house of a friend, and that it seemed as if
reason itself would desert her throne, until, one day
walking in the garden, the text flashed upon his mind,
" Him hath God highly exalted." And in his concep
tion of the ultimate supremacy of Christ he found the
restorative which turned the tide of the current of his
sorrowful thoughts and enabled him to resume his
work.
The following account was given in the Times in
reference to the ordinary doings at the Royal Surrey
Gardens : — " Fancy a congregation consisting of 10,000
souls streaming into the hall, mounting the galleries,
humming, buzzing, and swarming — a mighty hive of
bees — eager to secure at first the best places, and at
last any place at all. After waiting more than half an
hour — for if you wish to have a seat you must be there
at least that space of time in advance — Mr. Spurgeon
ascended his tribune. To the hum and rush and
trampling of men succeeded a low, concentrated thrill
and murmur of devotion, which seemed to run at once,
like an electric current, through the breast of every one
present, and by the magnetic charm the preacher held
us fast bound for about two hours."
The service attracted large numbers of the highest
and noblest in the land.
Dr. Livingstone, after hearing him on one occasion,
remarked that no religious service he ever remembered
had so deeply impressed his own mind as that he had
witnessed and participated in that morning, and added
that when he had retired again into the solitudes of
Africa, no scene he had ever witnessed would afford
him more consolation than to recall the recollection
that there was one man God had raised up who could so
456 Champions of the Truth
effectively and impressively preach to congregated
thousands, whilst he should have to content himself by
preaching to units, or at most tens, under the tropical
sky of Africa. He implied at the same time that Mr.
Spurgeon's sphere of religious influence was a hundred
times greater than that which had been entrusted to
him. A sermon of his own, discovered among the last
effects of Dr. Livingstone, and marked " Very good,
D. L.," was greatly treasured by Mr. Spurgeon, to whom
the relatives of the great explorer returned it.
In 1856 Mr. Spurgeon married Miss Susanna
Thompson, daughter of Mr. Robert Thompson, of
Falcon Square, London, so honoured by all as his most
devoted and efficient helpmeet.
We have no right to invade the sanctities of
domestic privacy, it is enough to quote the language of
one who has a right to speak, that Mr. Spurgeon's
home life was ideal ; no one could be an hour under
his roof without perceiving the fragrance of domestic
affection that pervaded the house.
It is impossible to reproduce the brightness which,
when he was in good health, Mr. Spurgeon threw
around him. He had an inexhaustible store of in
cidents in his memory, and an irrepressible fund of
good -humour and wit. There were times when he
suffered from terrible depression, the result of nervous
overstrain, and perhaps the premonitory symptom of
the disease from which he died. But when his heart
was at leisure from itself he was a most delightful com
panion. His humour was like summer lightning that
illumines but does not injure, or like the genial sunshine
that sparkles on the waves far out at sea, tipping them
with light. He never needed to make jokes ; they
bubbled naturally from his strong, happy, humorous souL
It was this that made his conferences so refresh-
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 457
ing. " The dominant and generous personality of the
president " was diffused like a fresh breeze over the
whole assembly ; whilst his merriment at the social
meals, and his cheery welcome to his guests, contri
buted to make the gathering so attractive that no one
was willingly absent.
In October 1856 the first meeting was held to
start a fund for the erection of a place of worship
sufficiently large to accommodate the vast church and
congregation, which had now acquired a certain amount
of stability. Many regarded it as very unwise to
provide sittings for a permanent congregation of 5000
persons, but the result thoroughly justified the outlay
of ,£31,000 which was required, and was largely raised
by Mr. Spurgeon himself, who preached in all parts of
England, taking half of every collection for the great
purpose he had at heart. The site, near the Elephant
and Castle, cost ^5000. The memorial stone was laid
by Sir S. M. Peto, on i6th August 1859, and the
building was opened free from debt in March 1861.
From the commencement of his ministry till his death
the Tabernacle was thronged, aisles, passages, doorways,
with a multitude, which often amounted to 5500 or
even 6000 people. None who was privileged to be
present at one of those services can ever forget the
spectacle.
For more than half an hour before the time of com
mencing, the seatholders, and those who contributed to
special boxes placed at the side gates, were entering the
building by various doors, and taking their places, so
that at five minutes before the time for service the
huge place would seem two-thirds full. Then at a
given signal the great front doors, at which a crowd
had been gathering that sometimes reached down the
steps to the street, were thrown open, and the people
45$ Champions of the Truth
surged in, rapidly filling first every seat, and then every
square foot of standing room.
The service always opened with a short prayer ; the
singing was led by a precentor, and often would be
guided or corrected as to time by the pastor's words ;
the reading was accompanied by a number of striking
comments, which some of his hearers appreciated as
much as any part of the service ; and the sermon
generally lasted about fifty minutes.
Mr. Spurgeon's method of preparing for the pulpit
was a remarkable one. It was his habit for many
years to spend Saturday afternoon with his friends in
bright and cheery intercourse. The present writer will
never forget one memorable afternoon which he spent
alone with him at his beautiful home, Westwood.
First, the quiet talk in the study, then the ramble over
the farm and garden, the prayer in the summer-house,
and the quiet saunter back to tea in the summer after
noon. Prayers always followed the evening meal, after
which visitors left, and the great preacher set himself
to prepare for his morning discourse. The text had
already been steeping in his mind, and his secretary
had been finding and opening up his favourite com
mentators, placing them on a ledge attached to his
bookcases, where he could easily pass round the room
and read them, culling from one and another any
thought likely to help. The divisions of the sermon
were then jotted down, in earlier days on the back of
an envelope, in later ones on half a sheet of paper. It
was a favourite motto with him that " the memory loved
to be trusted." The choice of words was left to the
moment ; but they never failed him. He has been
compared with Mr. John Bright for his flow of clear
and crystal eloquence, his command of our Anglo-
Saxon mother-tongue, and for speaking a language
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 459
" understanded of the common people." He used to
say, " It is a sin to use fine language when souls are
perishing " ; but constantly his unpremeditated words
rose to a high pitch of unstudied eloquence.
About six months after he had become a settled
-minister at New Park Street, at the commencement of
1855, appeared the New Park Street Pulpit, published
by his friend, Mr. Passmore, containing a weekly
sermon ; and from that time each week has seen its
issue with an ever-increasing circulation. For many
years it was Mr. Spurgeon's habit to devote the large
part of Tuesday in each week for the careful revision
of the notes taken by the shorthand writer, and he was
accustomed to say that this exercise was a most valu
able corrective to the dangers of impromptu speaking,
and did for him what careful writing did for others.
Time would fail to tell of all the agencies that grew
up around Mr. Spurgeon. But we must find space for
a word or two on the College, inaugurated to train for
the ministry the many earnest young men who were
springing up around him, and who felt an irresistible
impulse to preach the Gospel. It is said to have been
started by the pastor and his friend Mr. Olney, while
the two were riding in a cab together, and they con
tributed the first twenty guineas to its funds. It was
afterwards warmly supported by his people, and the
yearly expenditure of £6000 was provided in part by
the gifts at an annual supper, and in part by the weekly
offerings at the Tabernacle, which were made to cor
respond annually with the number of the years of our
era. This institution lay very near its founder's heart.
On one occasion he proposed to sell his horse and
carnage, although these were almost absolute necessaries
to him ; but his friend, the Rev. George Rogers, the vener
able tutor, to whose earnest labours for twenty-three
460 Champions of the Truth
years the College owed much of its success, would not
hear of it, and offered to be the loser rather than that
the pastor should make so great a sacrifice. Once,
when he was brought to his last pound, a letter came
from a banker saying that a lady, whose name never
transpired, had deposited a considerable sum to be used
for the education of young men for the ministry, which
greatly encouraged him.
In the autumn of 1866 Mrs. Hillyard, a clergyman's
widow, offered Mr. Spurgeon £20,000 for the object of
establishing an Orphanage for fatherless boys. Further
sums came in, to augment this nest-egg, and in the
summer of 1867 the memorial stones of the houses
were laid on a spacious site, which has since become
covered with the buildings forming a handsome quad
rangle in the vicinity of the Clapham Road. The
united sums laid on the stone by the collectors that day
amounted to £2200, contributed by people of nearly
all the religious denominations. In Mr. Spurgeon's
interest in these philanthropic agencies we have another
instance of the close connection between the doctrines
of grace and the maintenance of good works.
As a preacher, Mr. Spurgeon might have done
nothing else than preach, and his life-work had been
worthy of the highest eulogiums that have been passed
upon it ; but as an author he contributed nearly one
hundred books to the literature of his day. His first
work was The Saint and his Saviour, the copyright of
which was sold for £50. His greatest work, that on
the Psalms, which occupied him for twenty years, filled
seven large octavo volumes. Some of his books will
last as long as the English language, and be of constant
interest and value. They are distinguished by the
clearness of their style, their terse proverbs, their
sparkling epigrams, their homely references, and their
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 461
clear evangelical teaching. Christ ! Christ ! it was
always Christ ; and eternity alone will reveal the
millions of souls that have been quickened, directed,
saved, by the words of one whom they were never
permitted to see or hear.
He himself says of his published sermons : — " It is
a great trial to be unable to preach in the pulpit, but
it is no small comfort to be able to preach through
the press."
" It is my life to proclaim the everlasting Gospel of
the grace of God, and it is a happy reflection to me,
that through my printed sermons I shall live and speak
long after I am dead. It is so many years since these
sermons began to be issued (thirty-seven years, nearly),
that I cannot but look back with gratitude, and forward
with hope. Better days may yet come. It may be we
shall live to see a reaction in favour of the old Gospel ;
if not, we will many of us die contending for it."
The following are the closing sentences of one of his
sermons sent from Mentone during his last illness : —
" Let me very briefly tell once more ' the old, old
story, of Jesus and His love.' Jesus Christ died in the
stead of sinners. We deserved to be punished for our
sins. Under the law of Moses there was no pardon
for sin except through the blood of a sacrifice. Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, is the one Sacrifice for sins for
ever, of which the thousands of bullocks and lambs
slain under the law were but types. Every man who
trusts to the death of the Lamb of God, may know
that Jesus Christ was punished in his stead ; so that
God can be just, and yet forgive the guilty ; He can,
without violating His justice, remit sin and pardon
iniquity, because a Substitute has been found, whose
death has an infinite value because of the Divine nature
of the Sufferer. He has borne the iniquities of all who
462 Champions of the Truth
trust Him. * He that believeth on the Son hath ever
lasting life.1 "
Thus for nearly forty years that voice, which had
been compared to the Inchcape Bell, tolling highest
and deepest when winds and waves are loudest, was
heard amid the murmur of London, proclaiming the
unsearchable riches of Christ ; whilst that clear-sighted
mind, directing the many agencies which had sprung
up at its summons ; that humour, bubbling over with
sunny wit ; that hand, that strong, deft hand, prepar
ing article, sermon, booklet, or commentary for the
press, seemed to be fed from an inexhaustible source of
energy and vigour.
Long spells of enforced quiet sometimes disabled
him from his much-loved work, but they were borne
with exemplary courage and patience, and often
furnished him with topics, and thoughts that qualified
him above most others to minister to the sorrowful.
Throughout these years the vast crowd still surged
in and out of the Tabernacle. The Colportage Society,
the Book Fund, and the press poured his contributions
over all the world ; the popular estimate of him as a
representative Englishman grew continually ; the public
press, which had entirely changed its tone, quoted his
opinions on all subjects with respect, whilst rumour,
only too glad to damage the character of the noblest
and purest, was not able to sully or blot his fair fame.
Thus he became one of the two or three Englishmen
whose name has belted the world, and is spoken in the
language of every intelligent community.
It is gratifying to remark how the grace of God
was manifest in his being so little spoiled by the
extraordinary popularity which he enjoyed. It is
stated that he rarely allowed an hour of his waking
time to pass without prayer to his heavenly Father*
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 463
This will account in some measure for his success and
his humility under it.
The last years of his life were saddened by a
controversy which originated in his belief that there
was on the part of very many a growing toleration of
heresy and error. The climax was reached when Mr.
Spurgeon finally retired from the Baptist Union, giving
his reasons in very trenchant and unsparing terms. In
the nature of the case these excited replies, and for
some time the war of words threatened to be unseemly,,
but those who knew him best were sure of the complete
unselfishness of the attitude which he had assumed,
and fully believed him to be animated by the loftiest
motives. He did not love his brethren less, but truth
more. This will account for the strong expressions of
which he made use, though in his general mode of
controversy his manner was greatly softened from that
in which he conducted it in his earlier days. His
action in this particular matter, while strongly objected
to by some, was warmly approved by others.
These controversies had no doubt an effect upon
his health. For years he had been a martyr to a
troublesome disease aggravated by his incessant labours.
In the summer of 1891 he became dangerously ill,
and for weeks lay at the door of death. All the nation
watched around that sick couch ; royalty telegraphed
for the last bulletin ; the highest ecclesiastics called at
his house ; daily prayer-meetings, thronged with people,
were held at the Tabernacle for his recovery ; and his
health was a daily item on the newspaper notice bills.
He regained sufficient health to travel with his wife to
the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, where for twenty
years he had recruited his exhausted energies by one
or two months' sojourn, and took up his old quarters
in the Hotel de Beau Rivage, where he was accustomed
464 Champions of the Truth
to occupy a little bedroom, with its single iron bed and
simple furniture, opening into a small sitting-room. At
first it seemed as if he were going to recover, but all
hopes were dashed with disappointment as tidings came
of the re-development of the disease ; and at length,
as Sunday, 3ist January 1892, was passing away, he
gently " fell on sleep, and was gathered to his fathers."
The body was embalmed and brought to London,
and the coffin was placed below the platform where he
had so often stood, bearing an open Bible, and the
text inscribed : — " I have fought a good fight ; I have
finished my course ; I have kept the faith." On the
first day, Tuesday, Qth February, 60,000 persons passed
reverently and quietly* through the building to wish
their last farewell to the great preacher and philan
thropist to whom they were, in many cases, under
so deep an obligation. On the next, 4000 clergy
men and ministers assembled to pay their last tribute
of love to one of the most brotherly of ministers, the
most warm-hearted of friends, one of the greatest
preachers of the age; and on the Thursday, iith
February, the body was borne through throngs of people
to its last resting-place, followed by representatives of
all kinds of religious bodies, societies, and charities,
among those present being Dr. Randall T. Davidson,
then Bishop of Rochester, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, who pronounced the benediction at the
close of the service.
THE END
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BURKITT, M.A. Illustrated from Photographs taken by the
Author. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 33. 6d.
"The scholarly enthusiasm which attracted Professor Bensly to Mount Sinai, and
the perennial fascinations of oriental travel are well reflected in Mrs. Bensly's pages,
and a concluding chapter by Mr. Burkitt, containing a part of the account of the
Sinai Palimpsest which he gave at the Church Congress, adds not a little to the value
and interest of the volume."— The Times.
Among the Tibetans.
By ISABELLA BIRD BISHOP, F.R.G.S.
With Illustrations by EDWARD WHYMPER. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d.
With her power of vivid description Mrs. Bishop enables the reader to realise much
of the daily life and many of the strange scenes to be witnessed in that far-off land.
LONDON : THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
STANDARD MISSIONARY WORKS
James Chalmers: His Autobiography
and Letters.
NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION.
Large Crown 8vo. With 2 Maps and 8 Portraits and other
Illustrations. 35. 6d.
" Mr. Lovett's book, the only authorised and complete Life, is based largely on an
autobiography written by Chalmers shortly before his death." — Times.
"It is the best missionary biography that has appeared during the last twenty
years. It is a book that will live and take rank as a missionary classic. It is full of
thrills, tremulous with pathos, glowing in its passion, and sublime in its tragic ending.
A book to be read and re-read when the enthusiasm of humanity wanes, and we are
tempted to let fireside heroics take the place of action." — Daily News.
"Altogether, no brighter or more skilful narrative of missionary life — from the
subjective as well as from the objective point of view — has ever been published
than this." — Spectator.
" It is a book that should rivet the attention and fire the zeal of all who already
care for Foreign Missions." — Record.
" Will henceforth be a classic in missionary literature." — Baptist Times.
Pioneering in New Guinea.
By JAMES CHALMERS.
Revised Edition, with additional chapters. Large Crown 8vo.
With 7 Illustrations. Cloth gilt, 35. 6d.
" It is an astounding story of Christian pluck, tact, and patience. The situations
are sparklingly dramatic, and yet the story is told simply, modestly, manfully. This
is a book for all."— Christian World.
" We have nothing but the deepest admiration and the warmest praise for the
work." — Life of Faith.
" It is a plain and simple narrative of most startling facts." — Record.
Work and Adventure in New Guinea.
By JAMES CHALMERS.
New Edition. Revised, and with much new and important matter,
and 7 Illustrations. Large Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt, 35. 6d.
This book describes seven years of work along the south-eastern coast of New
Guinea. It abounds in interesting and thrilling incidents.
LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
MISSIONARY WORKS—
Pioneering: on the Congo,
By the Rev. W. HOLMAN BENTLEY, Chevalier de 1'Ordre Royal
du Lion, Author of "The Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo
Language."
With a Map and 205 Illustrations. 2 vols. Demy 8vo.
Cloth gilt, gilt top, i6s. net.
"So crammed with interesting information that, apart altogether from the missionary
element, it should be one of the most popular books. To those, however, who follow
the progress of missions with sympathy, it will be simply fascinating." — Christian
World.
By the Rivers of Africa;
Or, From Cape Town to Uganda. A Story of Missionary
Enterprise in Africa.
By ANNIE R. BUTLER, Author of "The Promised King,"
" Stories Jrom Genesis," etc.
Fcap. 4to. With a Map and 58 Illustrations. Cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.
" Delightfully written and exquisitely illustrated." — Rock.
" A capital book for children." — Christian.
For His Sake.
A Record of a Life consecrated to God, and devoted to China.
Extracts from the Letters of ELSIE MARSHALL, martyred
at Hwa-Sang, China, August I, 1895.
With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt, 2s.
"A more fitting title could not well have been chosen for the intensely interesting
volume of letters of Miss Elsie Marshall. They breathe a deep devotional spirit,
and it is impossible to read them without reverently thanking God for her life and
work." — Record.
Among the Mongols.
By the late Rev. JAMES GILMOUR, M.A., of Pekin.
With Map and numerous Engravings. Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt, 33. 6d.
Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.
" No one who begins this book will leave it till the narrative ends, or doubt for an
instant that he has been enchained by something separate and distinct in literature,
something almost uncanny in the way it has gripped him, and made him see for ever
a scene he never expected to see." — Spectator.
LONDON : THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
MISSIONARY WORKS—
Across India at the Dawn of the
Twentieth Century.
By LUCY E. GUINNESS.
With over 250 Illustrations, Figures, Diagrams, etc. Crown 4to.
In paper boards, 35. 6d. ; in cloth gilt, 53.
" Forceful, bright, and entertaining, yet, withal, solemn in the earnestness of its
purpose and pathos of its appeal. It will repay careful reading." — Christian.
The Ainu and their Folk- Lore.
By the Rev. JOHN BATCHELOR, F.R.G.S.
With 137 Illustrations from Photographs, and from Sketches by the
Author. 632 pages. Demy 8vo. Cloth gilt, gilt top, IDS. 6d. net.
This is an important work from the pen of the Rev. John Batchelor, who has spent
nearly twenty-five years in close and friendly intercourse with the Ainu. Consequently
he knows the people, their language, their customs, and modes of thought better, in
all probability, than any other European. He has also paid great attention to the
collection and exposition of their Legends and Folk-Lore, and has sought to put these
on record in an attractive form. The book contains 137 illustrations from photographs
and sketches ; it will prove of exceptional interest on the one hand to the ethnologist,
and on the other hand to all interested in the spread of Christianity and civilisation.
From Darkness to Light in Polynesia.
With Illustrative Clan Songs.
By the Rev. W. WYATT GILL, LL.D., Author of
"Jottings from the Pacific," etc.
With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt, 6s.
In his thirty years' residence Dr. Gill had ample opportunity of seeing how
Christianity affected the natives. To the ethnologist, to the man of science, and to
the upholder of Christian Missions alike this volume is full of the most varied and
useful information.
Old Samoa;
Or, Flotsam and Jetsam from the Pacific Ocean.
By the Rev. J. B. STAIR.
With an Introduction by the BISHOP OF BALLARAT.
Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt, 53.
" The unique interest of this book consists in minute personal recollections of the
country and people at a time when the Islands were only gradually becoming known
to Europeans."— Journal of the Royal Colonial Institute.
LONDON : THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
By the BISHOP OF DURHAM.
Thoughts for the Sundays of
the Year.
By the Right Rev. HANDLEY C. G. MOULE, D.D.,
Bishop of Durham.
With a Photogravure Portrait of the Author. Crown 8vo. Cloth
gilt, 33. 6d. Presentation Edition, padded paste grain, 6s. net.
"It is an interesting coincidence that when Dr. Moule's appointment is being
hailed with satisfaction by all sections of the community, there should issue from his
pen a book — prepared before there was any thought of his preferment — in which his
true sympathy with all who are in Christ is frankly expressed. If we assume that
unconsciously to himself Dr. Moule was preparing a manifesto of the spirit in which
he enters on his new sphere, ' Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year ' may be hailed
as a cause for almost national congratulation." — Christian.
"There is not a chapter in the book which does not yield some wise direction,
some searching or some bracing thought." — Record.
"There is no living theologian who is better qualified to write such a work than
Dr. Moule." — Spectator.
"Most helpful meditations, characterised by fine exposition, wedded to an
admirable style, and saturated with a beautiful spirit of devotion." — Examiner.
By BISHOP WELLDON.
Youth and Duty.
Sermons to Harrow Schoolboys.
By the Right Rev. J. E. C. WELLDON, D.D., Canon of West
minster, sometime Bishop of Calcutta. Author of " I Believe,"
etc. With a Photogravure Portrait. Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt, 33. 6d.
Many old Harrow boys will! be glad to see, in a permanent form, a careful
selection of the Sermons preached there by Bishop Welldon while Headmaster of the
great School.
By the late BISHOP OF LONDON.
The Story of some English Shires.
By the late MANDELL CREIGHTON, D.D., Lord Bishop of London
Author of " Queen Elizabeth," " A History of the Papacy," etc.
Demy Svo. Cloth gilt, 6s. net.
" Few historians have paid more attention than Dr. Creighton to local history in its
larger aspects. Few possess a happier gift of exhibiting the particular history of each
county or district alike in its local characteristics and its organic relation to the large
history of England. He never forgets the relation of part to whole, nor overlooks
the individuality which belongs to the part." — Times.
" There is not a superfluous phrase, each paragraph is pregnant with information,
and the whole is well balanced." — Literature.
"Fine scholarship, adequate knowledge, and an easy style of writing are rarely
combined. All these qualities were conspicuous in the late Dr. Creighton's work,
and we therefore welcome this re-issue." — Athenteum.
LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
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