Kitabı oku: «The London Pulpit», sayfa 7
THE REV. J. HOWARD HINTON, M.A
In a very unaristocratic neighbourhood – in no more fashionable a locality than that of Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate Street – preaches the Rev. J. Howard Hinton, till Mr. Brock came to London the acknowledged great man of the Baptist denomination.
Nor was this title undeserved. If the possession of a powerful mind – subtle, analytic, acute – a mind fertile in the destruction of fallacies, and in the reception and exposition of great truths, gives its possessor any weight at all, Mr. Hinton must, in any rank of life, have occupied no mean place. Still more may be said in his favour, especially in his character of a Christian minister – that his language is forcible – that his own feelings are strong – that in season and out of season it is evidently his aim to expound and declare, to the utmost of his ability, Christian truth.
Yet Mr. Hinton has a very small congregation. I should think Devonshire Square Chapel cannot contain more than five hundred hearers at the very outside – a very small proportion, it must be admitted, of the intelligent frequenters of public worship in London.
The real reason of this scant attendance, I suppose, is that Mr. Hinton has no clap-trap about him – that he has none of the fascinating airs of the popular Evangelical divine – that he has long past that time of life when young ladies take an interest in their darling minister – and that, if you wish to get any good from the preacher, you must not merely listen to him, but must use your own intellectual powers as well – an exertion far from common amongst the church and chapel goers of London. Six days in the week those who have brains are working them in this crowded city, and the seventh they wish to be a day of rest. They take the Sabbath as a pleasant opiate – as a kind of spiritual Godfrey’s Cordial for the soul – that they may go back to the world with renewed energy and power. To such Mr. Hinton does not preach: with such he is no favourite. No singer of sweet songs – no player upon pleasant instruments is he. Tall, sickly with the work and study of a life, grey-haired, inelegant as all book-worms and men of thought – with the exception of Sir Bulwer Lytton – are, with a voice by no means melodious, but tremulous with emotion as it is played upon by the soul within: such is Howard Hinton. If you stay to listen – if you have sense enough to see the heart in that ungainly frame and the intellect in that capacious brain – you will hear a sermon that will repay you well. From whatever subject he is preaching on Mr. Hinton always manages to extract something new; you are really instructed by his sermons; your views become clearer and more enlarged; you understand better the Christian scheme. Mr. Hinton is more than what I have here implied. He is something more than a great reasoner or acute divine. He has a heart, and he speaks out of it to you. He excites your emotions as well as convinces your understanding. There is flame as well as light in that pulpit – flame, perhaps, all the more glowing that you did not expect to find it there. On all subjects Mr. Hinton is an independent, an original, and a fearless preacher. On some he is peculiar – on most he is far ahead of the denomination to which he belongs. This is, especially, the case with regard to the strict observance of the Sabbath. Mr. Hinton believes that it was made for man, not man for it – a fact of which the denominations which pride themselves on being Evangelical seem to have become utterly oblivious. Mr. Hinton sees in Christianity a principle at variance with the observance of set times. He sees in man’s nature abundant reason why the man who does not profess to be religious should not be chained down to a form. He sees the man of genuine religion will so shape his life that every day shall be a Sabbath, and be religiously observed; and that, if he be not religious, it is worse than mockery to ask him religiously to observe a day. It is to the credit of Mr. Hinton that he has ably and faithfully preached this doctrine – a doctrine which, if it be much longer denied by the clergy of this country, threatens to be attended with most disastrous results. It is dangerous to establish an institution which the Author of Christianity never made; and if ministers choose to say that Christianity is inconsistent with fresh air – inconsistent with the preservation of physical life – inconsistent with the laws the God of nature has ordained, the certainty is that the lower classes in ‘populous cities pent,’ who toil from morning till night six days in the week, will do as they now practically do – reject Christianity altogether.
I have said Mr. Hinton’s theology is original. A short sketch of it will soon make this clear. Thus, while he holds the doctrine of human depravity, he contends that ‘No man is subject to the wrath of God, in any sense or degree, because of Adam’s sin, but every man stands as free from the penal influences of his first parent’s crime as though Adam had never existed, or as though he himself were the first of mankind.’ Calvinism Mr. Hinton in toto explodes. He says: ‘Without being moved thereto by the Spirit of God, and without any other influence than the blessing which God always gives to the use of means, you are competent to alter your mind towards God by obeying the dictates of your own conscience, and employing the faculties of your own being. Think on your ways, and you will turn your feet to God’s testimonies. This is what God requires you to do in order to obtain deliverance from His wrath; and, except you do it without regard to any communication of His Spirit, he leaves you to perish.’ At times Mr. Hinton seems to contradict himself. But, after all, is not the theme one on which the human intellect can never be perfectly consistent and clear?
At one time Mr. Hinton was much in public life. In the Anti-Slavery agitation he took a conspicuous part. He was also connected with the Anti-State-Church Association, and is still a great advocate of voluntary education. Within the last few months several able letters have appeared, from his pen, on this subject, in the ‘Daily News.’ But on the platform he is not often heard, as was his wont. Mr. Hinton was settled, I believe, originally, at Reading, where he won a high reputation – I am told the Rev. Mr. Milman, the poet, who resided in Reading at the time, always spoke of Mr. Hinton as by far ‘the most original-minded man among us’ – and came to London when Dr. Price resigned, on account of ill health, the pastorate of the church in Devonshire Square. Mr. Hinton then became his successor.
His publications are various. The following list will show his industry at least: ‘Athanasia,’ in four books; ‘On Immortality in 1849;’ ‘Letters written during a Tour in Germany in 1851;’ ‘Memoirs of William Knibb, the celebrated Missionary in Jamaica;’ ‘A History of the United States of North America;’ ‘Theology, or an Attempt towards a Consistent View of the Whole Counsel of God;’ ‘The Work of the Holy Spirit in Conversion Considered;’ ‘Elements of Natural History; or, an Introduction to Systematic Zoology, chiefly according to the Classification of Linnæus.’ Besides, Mr. Hinton has written pamphlets in favour of Voluntaryism in religion and education, and published sermons innumerable. In the pulpit or the press, his labours are most unremitting. He may be denied the possession of great talent, but all must admit his power of persevering toil.
The only drawback in connection with Mr. Hinton, I am told, is that his temper is rather uncontrollable – that he is rather more rugged than need be: indeed you will not attend long at Devonshire Square before you find this to be the case. It is a pity it should be so. A man should have more command over himself. Young preachers may be put out by a cough, or any other sign of indifference; but old practised hands should have long outgrown that.
SHERIDAN KNOWLES
A playwright in the pulpit seems an anomaly. The stage and the pulpit have generally been at bitter war. Jeremy Collier had the best of it in his day, and I believe would have the best of it in ours. The stage with its paint and sawdust and glaring gas – the stage as it is – is the last place to which an earnest man would turn with hope. Originally religious, it has long ceased to be such. It has become simply an amusement – if the reproduction of all that is heartless and flippant and rotten in society be considered as such. Our English Catos don’t go to the theatre at all, and when one who is not a Cato goes there, it becomes to him a sight melancholy rather than otherwise, unless he have sunk altogether into the unhappy life of that dullest of all dogs, a gay man about town. As to the stage being a school of morals, the idea is the most preposterous that ever entered the head of man. At the best, when it collects a goodly company – when it is lit up with beauty – when it resounds with merriment – when it is electrified by wit – it is a pleasant place for the consumption of an idle hour. More it is not now. More it has never been since people could read and write. More it can never be.
Yet even the stage has had its saints, as in old times the world gave up its high-spirited and gay to the cause of God. If emperors have become monks, it is not wonderful nor surpassing the bounds of probability that men should give up writing plays and take to writing sermons instead. A few years back Gerald Griffin exchanged the world for a monastery. In our own day Sheridan Knowles is an example of a still greater change, for he has left the stage for the pulpit, and has consecrated the evening of his life to the advocacy of Christian truth. I fear in this latter character he is not so successful as in his former. Well do I remember him at the Haymarket. It was the first time I ever was inside a theatre. The enjoyment of the evening, I need not add, was intense. A first visit to a theatre is always enough to bewilder the brain. You never see men of such unsullied honour – women of such gorgeous beauty – scenes of such thrilling interest in real life – and when I learned that the drama itself was the production of Knowles, my admiration of him knew no bounds. But I confess in the pulpit he did not appear to me to so great an advantage. It may be that I am older. It may be that time has robbed me, as he does every one else, of the wonder and enthusiasm which, to the eye of youth, makes everything it looks on beautiful and bright. It may be that I, as every one else does, feel daily more deeply —
‘The inhuman dearth
Of noble natures;’
but nevertheless the fact, I fear, is but clear, that Knowles does not shine in the pulpit as he did on the stage, which he has now renounced some years. Of course he has a crowd to hear him, for a player turned parson is a nine days’ wonder, and run after as such. The question is not, can he read well? not, can he convey his thoughts in elegant language? not, can he compose a lecture which, to his own satisfaction, at least, can demolish insolent popes and self-conceited Unitarians, against which classes he principally labours; but can he preach – preach so that men are awe-struck – acknowledge a divine influence, and shudder as they look back on the buried past? I fear this question must be answered in the negative.
Let us imagine ourselves in one of the numerous Baptist chapels of the metropolis – for to that denomination of Christians does Mr. Knowles belong – while he is preaching in the pulpit. You see a shrewd, sharp-looking old gentleman, dressed in black, with a black silk-handkerchief around his neck, and with a voice clear and forcible as the conventional old sea-captain of the stage. He takes a text but remotely connected with his discourse, and begins. You listen with great interest at first. The preacher is lively and animated, and is apparently very argumentative, and nods his head at the conclusion of each sentence in a most decided manner, as if to intimate that he had very considerably the best of the argument. Now, this is all very well for five minutes, or even ten; but when you find this lasting for an hour – with no heads for you to remember – you naturally grow very weary. Knowles, I imagine from his preaching, seems to think argument is his forte; never was a man more mistaken in his life. His sermons are bundles of little bits of arguments tied up together as a heap of old sticks, and just as dry. He seems an honest, dogmatic man, certainly not a great one, and clearly but a moderate preacher after all. A man may eschew the conventionalities of the stage, and the conventionalities of the pulpit, and yet fail. Mr. Knowles is a case in point. As a lecturer, I am told he has been very successful in Scotland. He seems to suit the Scotch better than the English. He lectures against Popery, and the Scotch will always listen with kindly feelings to the man who does that. I don’t imagine that in London Mr. Knowles will do much. He is very controversial. Theology is to him a new study, and he rushes into it with all the zeal of a juvenile enthusiast. This suits the Scotch, but not the English. We are a more tolerant folk. We are all orthodox, of course, but our orthodoxy takes a milder form. We tolerate a clever George Dawson, an infliction against which Scotland rigidly rebels. We may be one nation, but we are far from being one people. We yet live on different fare.
I have already said Mr. Knowles is a Baptist. He has been connected with that sect ever since he left the stage and became a religious man. It was in Glasgow, I believe, that he, to use the common phrase of the evangelical sects, came to a knowledge of the truth. It was in consequence of his attendance on the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Innes, a Baptist minister in that city, that the change took place – and that he was led to look upon the world, and man, and his relation to them both, in a new light. It was in Glasgow that he was baptized, and became a member of the church. That he should turn preacher was natural. Accustomed to address public audiences, there was no necessity why he should give up the practice, and there were many reasons why he should not. Accordingly, every Sunday almost he is engaged in preaching, and occasionally takes lecturing engagements in the country. He is also Professor of Elocution at the Baptist College, Stepney – a teacher of deportment – a clerical Turvey-drop to the pious youth of that respectable institution. This is all very well. If art is of use – if it can make the eloquent more eloquent, and the dull less so – its aid should surely be invoked by the Christian Church.
I would only add, that Mr. Knowles is an Irishman, – that he was born in 1784, – and that his plays, especially the Hunchback, still retain possession of the stage.
THE HON. AND REV. BAPTIST NOEL
Next in estimation in this great democratic country to a real live lord is a real live lord’s relative. If you can’t shake hands with a real peer, it is something to shake hands with his brother. It is impossible to get people to believe that human nature is everywhere the same; that God has made of one blood peers and people, black and white. In this unsettled age, perhaps, faith in the peerage is as abiding a conviction as any whatever. Nor is it limited to what is called the world. The Church participates deeply in the folly; no piety is so acceptable, has so genuine an odour, as piety in high life; no homage is considered so graceful to the Lord as the religion of a lord. A lord at a Bible meeting – a lord stammering a few unconnected common-places about Missionary Societies or the conversion of the Jews – a lord writing a book on the Millennium, throws the religious world into a state of heavenly rapture.
This, I take it, is the origin of the success of the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel as a preacher in this great metropolis. If Baptist Noel is not a lord himself, he is of lordly origin. His mother was a peeress in her own right, and, as a tenth son, he must have a little blue blood in his veins. His sister is, or was, a lady in waiting to the Queen. His brother is an earl. He himself, at one time, was one of the royal chaplains. He is redolent, then, of high life: what a delightful thought for the London shopkeepers and tradesmen, who were wont to resort to St. John’s Chapel, Bedford Row! I really believe that these good people felt that by going to hear him they were killing two birds with one stone – getting into the very best society, and at the same time worshipping the God of heaven and of earth.
But this is not Baptist Noel’s only claim. His position has done much for him; but his real merits have done much more. It is something to find a man who is brought up to the Church, honestly devoting himself to his sacred calling; scorning the pomps and allurements of the world; in season and out of season a faithful minister of Christ. With his high rank, with his family influence and the family livings – for to suppose that the family has not such, is to deny that it is a respectable family at all – though a younger son, Baptist Noel might have led a haughty and luxurious life – a life of sensual indulgence or lettered ease. For such a course he could have quoted precedents enough. But religious truth had sunk deeply into his heart. His creed was no scholastic dogma, but a living faith. With his inner eye he had seen the vanities of this world, and the awful realities of the next; that all men were guilty before God; and that it was only by faith in the atonement that the guilt could be wiped away. Hence his perseverance, his single-mindedness, his zeal, He preached, not to please men’s fancies, but to save men’s souls – not to lull them into a deceitful peace, but to induce them to fly for mercy from the wrath to come. True to this unvaried theme, Baptist Noel leaves to others gorgeously to declaim, or learnedly to define, or coldly to moralize. Evidently with him, for such matters, life is too short and eternity too long.
Hence he is one of the plainest preachers of the metropolis. He aims at your heart, not at your head. He touches your affections, if he cannot master your understanding. He may win you over by his gentleness, though he fail to convince you by his power.
Such, as a preacher, is Baptist Noel. Immediately he rises in the pulpit you feel that you have that undefinable mystery, a gentleman, before you. Few, indeed, are the gentlemen who surpass him in elegance of appearance, or urbanity of manner. He is about fifty-five years of age, tall, and of a fine figure; his hair is of a light brown colour, his complexion is fair and pale, his face long, and his features handsome. He has a high forehead, deep-set blue eyes, a long and rather aquiline nose, and an expressive mouth. His voice is rich and silvery, not ‘harsh and crabbed,’ but
‘Musical as is Apollo’s lute;’
and so indeed it ought, for Baptist Noel rarely concludes his sermons within an hour. If his eloquence be compared to that of a stream, it must be that of no mountain country, but of peaceful plains, of one of which it may be said that
‘through delicious meads
The murmuring stream its winding water leads.’
He is remarkably fluent; his sentences are particularly smooth and well constructed, and his voice gently modulated: of action, he can be said scarcely to have any. Baptist Noel is a thorough Englishman in this respect.
As a thinker, he has been more remarkable for his freedom and candour than for his consistency and depth. He has always held, in the main, what are called Evangelical views, but his views have not always been on all matters the same. At one time he was an opponent of Millenarian views – he then became strenuous in their favour – now he has returned to his original opinions, and opposes them as warmly as before. He acted a similar part with reference to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and his amiable little tract, on the Unity of the Church, was considered very inconsistent, by Churchmen and Dissenters alike, with his position as a minister of the Establishment.
As a writer Mr. Noel’s principal work has been that on the Union of Church and State, in which he justified, at considerable length, his secession from the Establishment. He has also published an account of a tour in Ireland, to which he was sent on a visit of inspection by the Whigs a few years since; and he has also written a little poetry, some of which has found its way into print. It is hardly necessary to say that it is of that common character which it is said neither gods nor men allow.
To many, Mr. Noel’s whole career as a Churchman was very offensive. They had no idea of a clergyman of the Church of England standing on the same platform with a Dissenting brother. I believe, by his conduct, Baptist Noel drew down upon himself more than one Episcopal rebuke; and, therefore, few were surprised when the time came when he burst the bonds that had long held him, and became the minister of the Baptist church, John Street, Bedford Row – a church formed by the Rev. John Harrington Evans, like Mr. Noel, originally a clergyman of the Establishment. Still the effort was a bold one. By such a step he had nothing to gain, and much to lose. Worldly considerations would have prompted him to remain where he was. I honour him that he obeyed the dictates of conscience. Men do so rarely, and, when they do so, they are but rarely honoured. The religious world made much more of Baptist Noel when he was in the Church than now. Scarcely a religious public meeting was held in the metropolis without Mr. Noel being put down in the bills as one of the speakers: now his voice is rarely heard.
This is strange, but true. Regret it as we may, such is the fact. It was when Baptist Noel preached at St. John’s that he was run after. What crowds filled that dreary place! How difficult it was to get a seat there! The dingy, dirty old building itself was enough to draw a crowd. It was built for that fiery, foolish priest, Sacheverell. Scott, famed for his Commentary on the Bible, was a curate there. There also preached the scarcely less celebrated Cecil. In his steps followed Daniel Wilson, the Bishop of Calcutta. Wilberforce had worshipped there. The building itself was a fact and a sermon as well. The place had a religion of its own. The neighbouring pulpit in which Baptist Noel now officiates has nothing of the kind. Perhaps, however, the less Dissent is encumbered with tradition or history the better. As it is, the soul is sluggish enough. Leaden custom lies too heavy on us all.
