Chapter 1: The Bells Of Is.
Chapter 1: The Bells Of Is.
A Birthday Reverie.
"The Bells of Is are ringing
Far down my heart to-day;
They call me to the memory
Of scenes long passed away-
Of days almost forgotten,
Of feelings long past by-
Sweet as the scent of flowers
We loved in infancy."
CLIFFORD HARRISON.
WE CAN NEVER calculate how much we owe to other people. It would be easier to count the threads of the warp which cross and interweave themselves with the woof, than to analyze and give due weight to the various influences which, from childhood upwards, have gone to make us what we are. And sometimes one falls into a kind of reverie, halting for a little on the hill of life and looking back or down; remembering the way by which one has been led, and recalling the many faces and voices, once so familiar, which have faded away, never again to be renewed. Such a reverie often befalls one on the day which, from our earliest childhood, has been invested with sacred memories as the day of birth.
Into some such reverie I fell the other day, travelling back and back. Will it be deemed too great an obtrusion of self, if I yield to the kind importunity which insists on placing my portrait in the frontispiece, and demands these broken memories of the past?
It is a great thing to give a child a sunny background to its life; as sunny as possible, so that whatever may be the shadows of after-life, it may ever have a corridor of memory, a picture-gallery, into which it may turn for refreshment and stimulus. And how wonderful is that Providence which has ordained that Time which dims the brightest colours that ever left the painter's palette, only suffices to touch the lines of early life into more lasting and vivid beauty.
Happy indeed was the setting of my early life; one of the freshest memories of which seems to be long summer days spent on Clapham Common, when the gorse covered it from side to side, and the bracken grew high enough to hide the slight childish figure that delighted to throw itself with wild abandonment into its midst. What would not one give to have days of the same length as those used to be, spent in sailing boats across those mimic seas, or in absorbing games of cricket, as exciting as any that ever drew crowds to Lord's. The deep shade of those spreading chestnuts through the sultry hours of noon; the long drives through Streatham and Dulwich, when those suburbs were uninvaded by the modern terrace or the intersecting railways; my father's home, with its long garden and paddock; and, perhaps more to me than anything else, the house at the end of the long walk, where Macaulay wrote his history, and where my maternal grandparents lived.
It is pleasant, in looking back over the years, to be unable to recall one moment's misunderstanding with those beloved parents, who are now, together with some sweet younger children, in the presence of the King. One long pathway of unclouded sunshine stretches away from the shore of the present over the ocean expanse of the past. It is impossible to be thankful enough to my gentle, lovely mother for the careful drilling in Scripture which was her habit with us all. To this is owing a familiarity with the Bible which has been of inestimable value as the basis of after study. It was her regular practice to gather us around her on each Lord's Day morning for the searching of Bible references, and for reading books bearing directly on Scripture. And how can we who shared in them ever forget the happy hours each Sunday afternoon, when we gathered around the piano, and sang hymn after hymn; our childish voices gathering strength as they were led and supported by that noble bass voice of my father, which was like an organ in the richness of its tones! It was not what they said, for they spoke very little directly to us; but what they were, and what they expected us to be, that seemed insensibly to form and mould our characters.
My grandfather was a successful city merchant, full of sound common sense; a strong man who had made for himself a position of influence and honour in the business world. But the light of that home was the saintly lady, whose daily walk has been described by one who knew her well, as one of close intercourse with God in Christ during nearly fourscore years. Her early life was spent among the Friends, a society which is remarkable for the high and noble character of its women. This early training was never lost on her; it gave a quiet dignity and charm to her character, an independence of outward formularies, a certain strength and spirituality of tone which made her unlike most others. And in her closing years it came back to her with renewed power, when, no longer able to attend the outward ordinances of God's house, she would retire into the temple of the inner life, ever open to all devout souls, and there hold fellowship with God beneath the direct teaching and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
She was not only a woman of great spirituality, but of great strength of intellect. Few could write sweeter poetry than hers, and every event in the history of the great family of children and grandchildren seemed to awake some response from her lyric muse. It was no small privilege for the young lad to be allowed to sit for long hours beside her, as she poured into his heart the noble thoughts which were ever welling up within her soul, and which especially in the early morning would be so fresh and vigorous. Besides all this, she had a special faculty of making other people's troubles her own, and of living in their lives; never thinking of self, but ever eager to say or do something to alleviate anxiety, and promote their comfort. In her heart there was a true spark of the enthusiasm of humanity.
Then came school-life. First, the daily trudge along the interminable Acre Lane to the school kept by my excellent relative, Samuel Wilkins, Esq. Then a year or two of tuition by Mr. Peto and his son, in the house which, with its observatory, is so prominent an object on entering Brighton station, But pre-eminently the Brighton College.
We were living at Brighton then, having removed for the benefit of my sister's health; my father making the daily journey to London. It was therefore possible for me to sleep at home, and so combine the holy influences of the home with the public spirit, the esprit de corps, the inspiration and stimulus of a great public school. At first the tenderly nurtured lad shrank from association with so many strong and boisterous spirits. But, ah, how can we overestimate the influence of our public schools in enlarging the mind, in rubbing off ugly corners, in giving a sense of independence and self-reliance to the youth of England? Even now as I write, I recall the excitement of the great cricket matches; the frays with roughs and other school boys, with whom we had perpetual feud, culminating in the uproarious proceedings of November 5th; the paper-chases over the downs; the athletic sports, and the prodigious training that preceded them; the postage-stamp fever; the fossil furore; the expeditions with choice spirits over the rocks and along the cliffs when the tide was down; the opening of the chapel and the daily service. Oh, happy, happy days, whose traces will linger ever, as the ripple marks of ocean wave upon the soft marl, which is now stamped with them for ever!
But, amid all this boyish life, there was rising up within the heart, like a fountain from unknown depths, the steady resolve, as yet hardly realized, and never breathed, that the life was to be inspired by the one absorbing purpose of the ministry of Jesus Christ. Amongst my mother's papers I found recently some early attempts at sermons, and each Sunday night my proclivities found expression in the little service at which the servants attended. The hands that reach down out of heaven, moulding men, had already commenced to form a vessel, which in after days He was going in marvellous condescension to use.
When yet about the age of fifteen, my father's losses in business necessitated our leaving the beautiful home in which we lived, and returning to London; but this was perhaps one of the most important factors in my life. It brought out all the lad's self-restraint in order to save needless expense; it took away the temptation to expect from others a deference due rather to wealth than worth; it threw me into close society with my beloved relatives, Mr. and Mrs. George Gladstone, and the cultivated circle which gathered round their home. The beloved Baldwin Brown was for months an occupant of that same house; Dr. Gladstone, with his wide knowledge of the scientific world, and his own researches into the worlds of chemistry and light, and many others, came and went, and opened up new and wider thoughts of the great world around. Those visits to the meetings of the British Association; those evenings at the concerts of the Sacred Harmonic Society; those talks of books, and experiments, and fossils, and science. How invaluable all these influences! That surely is the true method of education, which seeks not to destroy but to fulfil; and which so awakens the interest of the young expanding mind to the beautiful and true, that there is little foothold left for the false and hateful.
At last the choice must be made for the coming life, and there was but one answer from the young heart; but it was yet further tested, under the advice of Dr. Brock, whose ministry we had attended during our former stay at Clapham, and who had not a little to do with giving the first direction towards the formation of the earliest life-purpose in the little boy, who sat on the book-box of the great corner pew. And so more than two years were passed in a city counting-house, in sampling tea, in learning book-keeping, and in acquiring habits of punctuality, exact attention to details, and a knowledge of the life of young men. Should any read these words who are contemplating the service of the ministry, let them by all means graduate in the college of city life, and study attentively the great book of human nature. It is impossible to preach to men, unless you know men.
But all this time, the one desire of the city clerk was to know the will of God. Biographies were eagerly read, and experiences compared with his own. The mind constantly offered to the Divine Spirit that He would impress it with His will. Repeated conferences were held with the late thoughtful and devoted David Jones, pastor of the
church at Streatham, and with younger men. And ever and again the opportunities of public service would be greedily caught at, whether to address the assembled. Sunday-school, or to exhort a few old women crowded in some narrow cottage, whose blessings were sweeter than the fragrance of spring-flowers to the young evangelist.
At last the probation time was over, and Regent's Park College entered, with inestimable advantage from the accurate scholarship of Dr. Angus, and the course of study prescribed for the graduates of the London University-attending the ministry of Rev. Thomas Jones-and generally preaching once or twice each Lord's day.
My first charge was at Richmond, Surrey, where during the latter part of my college course, I reared the church, afterwards housed in a permanent building. Then, on leaving college, I was permitted to become the assistant-minister of my dearly-loved and venerated friend, the late Rev. C. M. Birrell, of Pembroke Chapel, Liverpool, whose heart and home were freely opened to me. To have known Mr. Birrell is to have known one of the sweetest, holiest, most catholic, and most cultured men of his time. He was richly endowed by nature in his erect and elegant figure, his intellectual face, with its flashing, expressive eye, and noble expanse of forehead, surmounted by the abundance of raven hair. His preaching was deeply spiritual, full of cultured thought, expressed in polished and classic phrase. But it was in his conversational powers that he was facile princeps. It was a rich treat to sit with him in the evening after supper, and let him talk of men he had known, of places he had visited, books he had read, and ceremonials which he had witnessed. Oh, rare and glorious man, will it ever be my lot again to be admitted into thy inner friendship! Surely thou wilt be too much sought after in that world where such as thou art take the first rank among their peers!
Then came the brief bright pastorate at York, memorable for the visit of D. L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey, who began their English tour in 1873, by the series of services held in my chapel. Then I caught a glimpse of a wider, larger life, in which mere denominationalism could have no place, and in which there was but one standard by which to measure men, namely, their devotion to, and knowledge of, the Son of God. Thank God, I have never receded from that position, and I hope that I never shall. Whilst willing to devote my energies to those with whom my belief on one great subject necessarily allies me, yet I refuse to be a mere denominationalist, and I glory most in being a member of the one Catholic Church, and the brother of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.