32. Samuel Chadwick (1860–1932)
Samuel Chadwick is not as well known as he deserves to be, and I propose to remedy that situation as best I can. I am amazed to discover that Chadwick is not named in either The Wycliffe Biographical Dictionary of the Church or the monumental New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, although the former finds room for the poet Chaucer, and the latter gives space to the English devotional writer Richard Challoner. I suspect that as an evangelist, educator, and editor, Samuel Chadwick did more to win the lost and to build the church than all the poets and devotional writers of his day.
He was born September 16, 1860, in a modest home in Burnsley, Lancashire, England. Burnsley was a mill town, and Chadwick said that “there was not a blade of grass, a tree, or a flower” in the area where he lived. “It would be difficult to imagine anything more drab, prosaic, and uninteresting than our street!”
At the age of eight he went to work in the cotton mills, and thus developed the discipline of early rising, a practice he continued throughout his life. In later years he thanked God that he grew up among the laboring people, so that he might understand their needs and minister to them. At an early age he became interested in political meetings, mainly because he enjoyed listening to the speakers. He used to read aloud the speeches of Gladstone and Disraeli as reported in the newspapers. Unconsciously, he was preparing to become one of England’s greatest preachers.
When he was ten years old, Chadwick was converted to Christ through the ministry of Samuel Coley, a guest speaker at the Sunday school anniversary meeting. From the very beginning of his spiritual life, Chadwick emphasized prayer. “I went apart three times a day,” he wrote, “and prayed in the Spirit all the time between. The habit of three times a day was not easy. The dinner hour was short, the family was large, and the house small, but I managed!”
In 1875, when he was fifteen years old, Chadwick felt a call to ministry, a decision he pondered and prayed about for a whole year. His resources were limited, his health was not good, and he had received little education. His family was poor and would not be able to send him to school. But he was determined to serve Christ; so after working twelve hours a day in the mill, he devoted five more hours to personal study at home.
The Methodist superintendent in the Burnsley Circuit, Josiah Mee, discovered Chadwick’s desire to serve Christ and encouraged him to preach. Almost every Sunday he would walk to various preaching stations in the Methodist Circuit and share the Word of God. He enjoyed preaching, but for some reason he did not see any fruit from his ministry. It would be seven years before the Lord would reveal to him the secret of spiritual fruitfulness. In 1881, Chadwick was appointed lay evangelist at nearby Stacksteads, a district saturated with open sin and opposition to the gospel. Proud of his preaching ability and his file of sermons, the young evangelist went to work—but the forces of Satan were too much for him. He desperately needed power. He banded together with a small group of burdened people and covenanted with them to pray daily for revival.
As Chadwick prayed, God dealt with him, particularly in the area of his pride. At three o’clock one Sunday morning, the young Methodist preacher burned all his sermon outhnes and made a complete surrender to the Lord. That was the beginning of revival. At the early prayer meeting, he led his first soul to Jesus Christ. Before that Lord’s Day had ended, Chadwick led seven people to the Savior.
Sensitive to the Spirit’s leading, Chadwick wisely suspended all the regular services of the church and called the congregation to prayer. Tuesday evening two women in the church, known to be enemies, patched up their differences and knelt together in prayer at the communion rail. Others joined them, and the Spirit began to move among the people. There was no excessive display of emotion, but everyone knew that God was in their midst.
The turning point came when the town drunkard, Robert Hamer, showed up at the meeting. He was known as “Bury Bob,” and there was hardly a sin or crime that he had not been involved in one way or another. People had seen him eat glass, fight rats with his teeth, break furniture, swallow knives, and fight policemen. That night, he asked for a Band of Hope pledge card, signed his X, and vowed he would never drink again. The following Sunday Bury Bob was converted, and his life and home were so transformed that it led to the salvation of many others.
What the congregation did not know was that behind the scenes their youthful pastor had been praying that God would stir things up by converting some notorious sinner. Chadwick had been studying John 11 and 12, and had noticed that the resurrection of Lazarus had led to the conversion of many people. “That’s the solution!” he said to himself. “We need a Lazarus!” God answered his prayers; Bury Bob was his Lazarus, raised from the dead and given new life in Jesus Christ. From that time on, in every church he pastored and every evangelistic crusade he conducted, Samuel Chadwick asked God to give him a Lazarus.
“If God is at work week by week raising men from the dead,” he said, “there will always be people coming to see how it is done. You cannot find an empty church that has conversion for its leading feature. Do you want to know how to fill empty chapels? Here is the answer: Get your Lazarus.”
From 1883 to 1886, Chadwick was a student at Disbury College, where he read every book he could secure and listened to the lectures as though his instructors were inspired apostles. It was his one opportunity for formal training, and he wanted to give his best to his Lord. His concern for lost souls and his unsophisticated ways bothered a few of the students and staff, but fortunately, his education did not put out the fire that God had ignited in his heart. “Passion does not compensate for ignorance,” he used to say in later years. He was indeed a balanced man.
He ministered as an assistant pastor in Edinburgh for one year following graduation, and then as minister at the Clydebank Mission in Glasgow for three years. At Clydebank, he had a new building but no congregation; so he set out to win people to Christ and build his own church. He visited in homes, preached on street corners, fought the brewers and gamblers, and quickly assembled a band of men and women who loved the Lord and their young pastor.
One classic story must be repeated from those Glasgow days. The brewers had applied for five new licenses to put up pubs in strategic places, and Chadwick went to court to oppose them. The attorney for the brewers did his best to ridicule the young pastor, ending his speech with, “I should like to ask this young-looking shepherd, what hast thou done with the few sheep in the wilderness?”
Chadwick jumped to his feet and replied, “Don’t you trouble about my sheep! I’m after the wolf today!”
In 1890, the Methodists officially ordained Samuel Chadwick and sent him to Wesley Chapel, Leeds, where he ministered for three years. He then went to London for a year, but in 1894 he was back in Leeds, this time at the prestigious (but spiritually dead) Oxford Place Chapel. For the rest of his life, he would be known as Chad-wick of Leeds. He ministered there for thirteen years, and again saw miracles of grace in the lives of sinners as he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“I sat at the table at my first Band Meeting,” he reported, “and listened to their doleful tales of difficulty and despair, laughing at their fears. I knew no way of conducting a mission except that of getting people saved.” Within the first six months God gave him not one Lazarus but half a dozen.
There was a strong agnostic movement in Britain at that time, with Secularist Societies springing up in almost every city. One Sunday evening, the entire Secularist Society of Leeds filled the gallery of the church, hoping to disrupt the ministry. But that night, their leader was converted. And within the next few weeks, every single officer in the group was won to Christ.
After thirteen fruitful years in Leeds, Chadwick accepted a call to teach at Cliff College, the Methodist school in Sheffield, Yorkshire. He promised them five years, but even while he was teaching he was busy holding evangelistic meetings and helping to establish missions in South Yorkshire. In 1913, Chadwick was made principal of Cliff College, and embarked on a program of training young people for ministry. For nearly twenty years he taught students how to pray, depend on the Spirit, preach the gospel, and seek to win lost souls to Christ.
Chadwick was unique, and space does not permit retelling all the stories that came out of his life and ministry, but here are a few instances. There was a student who asked him for permission to smoke his pipe, even though it was against the rules. “I have been a smoker for twenty years,” he argued, “and I am just dying for a smoke!”
“Are you really dying for a smoke?” Chadwick asked.
“I am, sir,” the student replied.
“Then,” said Chadwick, “sit down in that chair and die!”
Before long, the student was on his knees beside the principal, and God answered prayer. The boy was delivered from the habit.
Then there was the time when a ministerial candidate was almost ejected because he was short of stature. Chadwick stood to his feet and protested. “The only fault the Committee had to find with this candidate,” he said, “is that his legs are short; and I want to know how long this Conference has been measuring men at the end!”
When some of the “intellectual” young pastors tried to bring a “new gospel” into the Methodist movement, Chadwick opposed them. “Go down to the South Yorkshire coalfields and try your new gospel,” he cried out at the conference, “and see what it will do. Until you have got a gospel that works—shut up! This is not an age for twiddling your thumbs!”
Chadwick used to hold large anniversary services at Cliff College, and he always prayed for generous offerings to help the college. After one morning service, a guest gave him a large check and said, “I have been blessed this morning!” Chadwick took the check, lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed aloud, “Lord, bless him again tonight!”
Chadwick made several visits to the United States and ministered at such important centers as D. L. Moody’s Northfield and Winona Lake Bible Conference. God used him to stir Christians to have a concern for the lost and a desire for holy living. For many years he was editor of Joyful News, the official publication of the Joyful News Mission, which eventually merged with the Wesleyan Home Mission Committee. His articles on prayer were published in book form in 1931 as The Path of Prayer. It is still one of the best books on the subject and has been reprinted by the Christian Literature Crusade.
The Way to Pentecost is another of Chadwick’s books that has had a wide ministry. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in London and is distributed in the United States by the Christian Literature Crusade. You need not agree with every detail of the author’s theology to benefit from the insights and impact of this book. I especially appreciate his sane approach to the delicate subject of spiritual gifts. In his own inimitable way, Chadwick writes, “The Gift of Tongues comes last on the list, and is first in controversy!”
Before I leave Samuel Chadwick, I want to point out that he was a very close friend of Dr. G. Campbell Morgan. It is worth noting that Morgan also, in his early ministry, wrestled with pride of preaching and burned his sermon outhnes. Like Chadwick, Morgan rose from obscurity to become one of England’s greatest preachers and Bible teachers. In 1904, when Morgan was considering the call to Westminster Chapel, London, he had a long talk with his friend Chad before he made his decision. Chadwick wrote to Morgan when the Morgan family moved to America in 1919:
I cannot tell all your friendship has meant to me. I am flattered when people bracket my name with yours, and though I know the distance at which I follow, it pleases me that they think of us together. The privilege of your friendship I reckon among God’s best gifts and my chiefest joy.
Chadwick served as president of the Methodist Conference in 1918 and the president of the Free Church Council in 1922. In 1927 and again in 1930 he underwent serious surgery that left him quite weak, but he carried on as best he could in the strength of the Lord.
He died on Sunday, October 16, 1932, at the age of seventy-two, but before his Homegoing, he called his colleagues to his bedside and gave them a farewell message:
Stand together for the Word of God. . . . Stand in a spirit of unity, of faith, of doctrine, according to the fourth chapter of Ephesians. . . . I have stood true to the last. I have had no doubts. I have been sure of the Living God. He knows my limitations, but I have loved Him and trusted in his mercy. My ministry has been the message of the Cross.
A Methodist through and through, Samuel Chadwick belonged to the whole evangelical world because he preached the fundamentals of the faith and sought to bring sinners to the Savior. “The qualities of powerful personality,” he said, “are courage, power, sympathy, and sanity.” He possessed all of them, and yielded to the Spirit, giving himself to the greatest work in the world—the winning of lost souls to Jesus Christ.