On the 4th of April, 1875, Dr. Stoughton preached his farewell sermon as pastor at Kensington. The text was 1 Thessalonians ii. 19, 20: “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy.” The sermon concluded with these words:—
“Perhaps the strongest of all ministerial power is sympathy in sorrow. It has been my lot to visit many in affliction, to sit by many sick beds, to witness the desolation of many a hearth, to grasp the widow’s hand, to kiss the orphan’s cheek. If I have ever shed one drop of healing balm over a wounded heart, or cast one ray of light over a darkened dwelling, I thank God for it, as the fulfilment of a ministry in which angels might have been glad to share; and sure I am that the remembrance of it, and the prospect of spending eternity together with the sons and daughters of sorrow in that world where tears are wiped from off all faces, will form no small part of my joy and crown of rejoicing in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at His corning.
“And now, in the words of Edward Irving, let me say, ‘Brethren, I thank you in fine for the patience with which you have heard me on this and all other occasions. I have nothing to boast of, as St. Paul had when he parted with the Ephesian elders. I can speak of your kindness and of the Almighty’s grace, but of my own performances I cannot speak. Imperfections beset me round, which it is not my part to confess, save to the God of mercy. All these imperfections I crave you to forget. Fain would I continue to have a place in your esteem and love, as you have in mine; and besides this I have no favour to ask. Your kind remembrance and prayer, that is all.
“‘And now, God grant that while the roof-tree of this temple stands, and these walls resist the hand of all-consuming time, there may be no voice uttered from this pulpit but the voice of the Gospel of peace; that all who come up to worship here may be accepted of the Lord; and that we who have met so oft together, and joined the voice of our prayer and the notes of our praise together, may yet lift the voice of our prayer from beneath the altar of the living God, and minister our praise around His holy throne. Amen.’
“To each one I say, ‘the Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.’”
On the following Thursday evening a crowded meeting took place in Kensington Chapel, Samuel Morley, Esq., M.P., in the chair. Amongst those present were Sir Thomas Chambers, M.P.; Mr. Henry Richard, M.P.; Sir Charles Reed; Dean Stanley; Canon Freemantle; the Rev. J. P. Gell, Vicar of St. John’s, Notting Hill; the Rev. S. Minton; Dr. Morley Punshon; Dr. Angus; Dr. Allon; Principal Newth; the Rev. J. C. Harrison; the Rev. Baldwin Brown; and many other honoured brethren.
After addresses by the Rev. J. C. Harrison, the Rev. Samuel Bergne (intimate personal friends of the retiring minister), the Dean of Westminster, Sir Charles Reed, and the Rev. J. P. Gell, Incumbent of St. John’s,—Mr. Robert Freeman, an active and honoured deacon of the Church for many years, read an address in felicitous and graceful as well as truly Christian language, and then placed in the retiring pastor’s hands a purse containing £3,000. The whole assembly rose, and afterwards Dr. Stoughton spoke at considerable length, and in conclusion observed:—
“As I leave you to-night, I think of Gregory Nazianzan, when he took leave, one by one, of various familiar objects in his beloved church at Constantinople. I could speak to that pulpit from which I have often addressed you, and that communion table round which we have gathered in remembrance of the risen Saviour. I could pensively bid them, one by one, farewell, though I fully hope often to visit you again. I cannot forget Sunday mornings, when I have seen loving smiles and looks responding to my utterances, and I trust felt the presence of the Master so as to get very near to heaven. I shall carry these memories with me into the world of light and love.
“One word as to my position in reference to my theological and ecclesiastical opinions. There are different phases of Christian truth: the moral brought out by the Apostle James, the doctrinal by the Apostle Paul, the experimental by the Apostle Peter. One apostle above others blended these peculiarities in himself, harmonizing them all, like prismatic rays in ‘candid light,’ to use Bishop Warburton’s expression—the ‘candid,’ pure, perfect light of Divine love. I have striven to make him my model, to neglect no side of evangelical truth, but to go all round it; and if my poor teaching under such guidance has done any good, let God have all the praise. As to my ecclesiastical position, I have never shrank from expressing my opinion with regard to the Establishment principle. I am a thorough and earnest Nonconformist. There are many reasons why I could not conform; and I will now only mention this, that I could not surrender my liberty to preach the gospel in the pulpits of other communions, and to invite brethren of other communions to preach in mine. I have not seen it my vocation to join in certain movements of the day under the guidance of those whose practical application of Nonconformist principles in some respects differs from my own. I am not finding fault with them, and I hope they will not find fault with me. Let us agree to differ. One great object of my life has been rather to improve our own denomination, than to criticise and censure others; and also to cultivate loving relationship with other Churches, and it is my peculiar joy that my life aim in this respect has been generously recognised and reciprocated.”
Speeches were then delivered by Dr. Punshon, Sir Thomas Chambers, Dr. Angus, Mr. Richard (Dr. Stoughton’s fellow-student), the Rev. Guinness Rogers, and Mr. Henry Wright,—a friend who had become deacon of the Church during Dr. Stoughton’s ministry, and had been especially active in connection with the testimonial. Some playful allusions were made in the course of the evening. One was by the Dean, who said it was a custom amongst the monks at Westminster to call a brother who had been amongst them thirty years by the gentle name of playfellow, and never to do anything disagreeable in his presence. And such, he would say, was the tranquil period which their friend had reached, yet not so as to quench hope of his still using voice and pen for the good of others. Another was by Mr. Richard, who referred to a debate in college days, between him and Dr. Stoughton, on the question, “Who was the greater man, Oliver Cromwell or Napoleon Bonaparte?” Dr. Stoughton took Cromwell, and he, Mr. Richard, now the great political apostle of peace, then preferred Napoleon. He supposed his friend remained true to his idol, he himself had changed his standard of idolism. The Hon. and Rev. Canon Freemantle pronounced the benediction.
The address, elegantly illuminated and cased in morocco and silver, was afterwards transmitted to Ealing, and the names of contributors were read with much interest and gratitude. Amongst them were those of rich and poor members of the communion, and of distinguished persons outside the Kensington Church, including noblemen and dignitaries of the Establishment. Mention ought to be made of Archdeacon Sinclair, Vicar of the parish. He entered on that office about the time that Dr. Stoughton came to Kensington. The Vicar then called on him, to give a cordial welcome, and they remained on terms of friendship down to the farewell meeting. The congregation some time before sent a contribution towards building the new parish church, of about £100, through their pastor’s hands to the Vicar, who expressed the greatest delight in accepting such a pledge of Christian catholicity. After the farewell meeting, he wrote saying that he hoped soon to call upon his old friend in his new abode. But he died within a few weeks of the meeting, and the first time Dr. Stoughton occupied the pulpit at Allen Street Chapel after his retirement, was to preach a funeral sermon for his beloved and honoured neighbour.
No sooner had the vacancy occurred than the Church’s attention was directed to the Rev. G. S. Barrett, of Norwich, who had eminent qualifications for the Kensington pastorate. He was invited to preach before the end of April, and immediately after he had done so, steps were taken for calling the Church together. On the 13th of May a meeting followed, when it was resolved to invite Mr. Barrett to succeed Dr. Stoughton. The invitation was conveyed in the form of unanimous and cordial resolutions, to which Mr. Barrett replied before the end of the month, saying that if he felt it would be right to leave Norwich, Kensington would be an attractive sphere; but that after much consideration and prayer it appeared to him a duty to remain where he was.
The door being closed in that quarter, the deacons and the committee appointed to assist them turned their thoughts to the Rev. Dr. Raleigh, whom they were given to understand “might not be unwilling to remove from his present pastorate at Canonbury to that of Kensington.” The idea of securing so eminent a man animated all who became acquainted with it; and previously to laying this matter before the Church, the deacons and committee communicated with Dr. Raleigh. Delicacy and caution marked the communications on both sides, and the result was, that on hearing a report of the circumstances, the Church in August cordially invited Dr. Raleigh to accept the pastorate. Again the invitation was conveyed in the form of resolutions, and before the end of the month Dr. Raleigh returned his answer:—
“The resolutions which were passed unanimously at your meeting of the 5th of August, were presented to me on the following morning by your deacons, who also gave me in the frankest manner every explanation I could desire.
“Those resolutions constitute a call to take the pastoral oversight of you in the Lord. I have had this your desire and invitation very much in my thought since I received the intimation of them. I have had consultation with good men, whose judgment in the case is dispassionate and impartial, and I need not say that I have been asking God to ‘send forth His light and truth’ to make my way of duty plain. Nevertheless, I cannot say that the path of duty has been very easily found. The circumstances have been peculiar. The claims of the two congregations to whom it has for years been my privilege to minister have proved to be unexpectedly strong, and the mutual trial of affection in the thought of parting has been sometimes almost more than I could resist. Yet steadily, if slowly, the guiding light of God’s good providence has seemed to lead westwards. The reasons which made it possible for me to entertain the proposal from the time when it was mentioned to me have continued, as I knew they would do, and now, without specifying them particularly, it is my duty to announce to you the result to which they have led me; which is this, that I cordially accept your cordial call, and will endeavour in Divine strength to discharge, to the best of my ability, the duties of the sacred office to which I am thus called. May He who has watched over your interests as a Christian Church for many years, supplying you in successive pastorates with rich ministerial gift and grace, and who has also blessed my humble ministry thus far, make us blessings to each other, and in our associated capacity, to many around us.
“I cordially appreciate the mention of the name of Dr. Stoughton, lately your pastor, and long my friend. I do not lay claim to his many and high accomplishments as a scholar and a theologian; but I believe I agree with him pretty closely in doctrinal sentiment, in holding firmly ‘the faith once delivered to the saints,’ and in cherishing a generous and charitable temper towards all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity; and I must now make it my endeavour to emulate his practical care and zeal on your behalf in all faithfulness, diligence, watchfulness, and prayer.
“If I were only beginning the Christian ministry, I might think it necessary and appropriate to say something of the motives with which I undertake it, and of the spirit in which it ought to be conducted. But having been now for many years in the heat of the great strife, I must allow those years of toil now past to speak for me concerning what will be (‘if the Lord will’) the aims and labours of the future. May the blessing which has never been withheld from my humble ministry, attend it still, and through your prayers and co-operation be even more abundant than heretofore. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.”
A public recognition of the new pastor took place in Allen Street in the month of November, when Dr. Stoughton presided, and Dr. Allon, Dr. Punshon, Dr. Edmond, the Revs. J. C. Harrison, H. Simon, and W. Roberts, took part in the service.
Dr. Stoughton congratulated the Church on having such a pastor as they met to recognise, and the new pastor on having such a Church as was now assembled. He could testify that Dr. Raleigh would find at Kensington a united and peaceful Church, a people bound together by mutual affection, trained to work and accustomed to work, people who would never give their pastor any occasion for uneasiness, who would always respond to his appeal and co-operate with him in his work.
Mr. H. Wright laid a full statement before the congregation of circumstances which led to the proceedings of that evening, after which the chairman said, when the President of the Wesleyan Conference made way for his successor, he did so by handing over the seals of office. He had nothing of that sort to offer now, but if Dr. Raleigh would accept his predecessor’s hand, there it was, not empty, but with a heart in it. Dr. Raleigh delivered an appropriate address. Dr. Punshon, Mr. Harrison, Dr. Edmond, and Mr. Simon followed, expressing their affection for the new pastor and his flock.
An election of new deacons had repeatedly occurred under the former pastorate; and in the first year of the new administration vacancies had to be filled up by ballot. The choice of the members fell on Messrs. Cozens-Hardy, Plater, Spicer, Fordham, White, and Watson,—the last being son of the late senior deacon, whose death just before Dr. Stoughton’s retirement was a heavy loss, deeply lamented by his old friend and by the Church at large. Messrs. Fordham, Cozens-Hardy, and George White declined the office, from inability to give time for its duties. The rest accepted the Church’s request. True to the sympathy and love so often expressed, the friends at Kensington were mindful of the retired minister when he lost his beloved wife, and the following entry occurs in the Church Book:—
“On Sunday morning, 23rd November, 1879, a solemn memorial service was conducted by the pastor, Rev. A. Raleigh, D.D., suggested by the death of Mrs. Stoughton, on the 11th of November, at Ealing.
“The sermon was based on the passage (2 Cor. v. 9): ‘Willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,’ Dr. Stoughton and his family being among the worshippers. The Church wish, moreover, to record their deep sympathy with Dr. Stoughton, in his sad bereavement, and cherish the memory of Mrs. Stoughton as one who, during her husband’s long pastorate of thirty-two years at Kensington Chapel, co-operated with him in all his work for the heavenly Master, and endeared herself to many as a bright example to the flock.”
I shall be pardoned for the insertion of a single paragraph from the beautiful sermon delivered by Dr. Raleigh on that affecting occasion. It is no less true than beautiful:—
“Fitted by education and culture for any place in social life, it might have been thought by some that she would be among the foremost always in visible activities and good works. She was indeed always active, and was always engaged in doing good; but always as much as possible in silent and unseen ways. She was not one who could say, in view of the many things that might be done by one in her position, of a more or less public kind, ‘therefore being always confident.’ Rather she loved and sought the shade; if a sweet and calm and all-helpful domestic life may be called the shade, to a lady of deep piety and high culture. She strove to make home good and happy, and succeeded; every child following father and mother in Divine ways, and into the Church of God; and then she strove to extend the blessedness to as many other homes as possible. I know not that we could have a much nobler ideal and pattern of a woman’s life. I have it on the best authority, that of a ministerial friend who was like a brother in the house, that many and many a poor minister’s home in the country was made warmer and brighter, and more what home ought to be, by her generous persistence of care for them, and by the gentle importunity of her letters to others on their behalf. Her power of letter-writing was unique; all who were privileged to receive these letters, on any subject, but especially on Divine and spiritual subjects, felt the charm, and valued the more the friendship of one who could write so for God and for men. Her last years were weighted with deepening affliction; yet were they calm and peaceful years to the last. For months she waited on the border land, looking heavenwards, thinking often no doubt of the loved ones who had gone before, and who, as I have been told by one who well knows, often seemed very near to her. The few who saw her felt that they had been nearer heaven by only looking on her face and listening to the few words she might say. These words were words of thankfulness for all past mercies, of humble but firm faith in the Saviour, and of calm, confident hope as to the future.
“These words were found afterwards in her own handwriting:
‘Father, take my hand; quickly and straight
Lead to heaven’s gate Thy child.’‘Quickly and straight,’ even as she desired, the gate was opened; and the Father’s child went in, went home.”
With regard to Dr. Raleigh’s ministry at Kensington, I cannot do better than quote the following words of his beloved wife:—
“There is little to record of the years at Kensington. Like those of his first ministry at Rotherham, they flowed evenly and sweetly; but many hearts hold them as a sacred memory, and to himself they were years of much happiness. He was able to work with vigour, and his people came around him with growing affection. To none was his ministry more dear than to those engaged in direct Christian work. He clasped hands with them as fellow-workers; the fervour of his zeal kindled theirs, and as he spoke of the great harvest to come, earthly honours seemed to grow poor compared with the honour of bearing and sowing the precious seed of God. ‘By kindness, by love unfeigned,’ he won his way to the affections of his people. And he gave them as he had promised, ‘good work,’ work which cost him laborious days, and to which he brought all the treasures of his long experience. His sermons were less ornate, perhaps, than those of an earlier time, but they were more definite in aim, more unencumbered in utterance, as if knowing that his time was short, he had laid ‘aside every weight,’ that the simple truth might have free course. His teaching began to be regarded with quick appreciation, and some of his hearers, men in busy life, acknowledged that ‘the whole week was different and better because of the thoughts with which it was begun.’
“‘These Sundays at Kensington,’ writes one of his people, ‘were times of refreshment from the presence of the Lord. The sound of his fervid utterances of heavenly truth seem still to linger on the ear. We bless God that He sent him to us, and for all the messages of love He enabled him to declare, and for the glimpses of heaven he seemed to open to our sight.’
“Throughout his teaching and in his own heart, the mystic attraction of heaven was always strong. But especially was this a very pronounced feature of his latest ministry. He hardly preached a sermon in which he did not lift up his eyes to the ‘everlasting hills.’
“It is a blessed thing that sin has never effaced the deep home-longings of human hearts, and no words were more welcome than those in which he told of that world, ‘where prayer is answered, and toil is recompensed, and love claims her own.’ Or of ‘the open pathway, stretching upward and afar, for home-going saints and holy angels.’ Or of ‘the banquet’ where, ‘in its earthly beginning we may wet our bread with tears as we eat it, but whence we shall go to the higher and better, God has in reserve, as we pass along to meet all the good of every age, and to see Him in His glory at the banquet, and in the fellowship of heaven.’
“He had himself got to the heavenward side of life. He was as busy as he had ever been, entering fully into the work, thinking and planning about it, as if he were still young, and life all before him, and his interest in public and passing events continued unquenched. Yet, and this is no fancy, a deep peace seemed to have come down upon him, with silent expectancy in it, as if he stood at the meeting-place of the two worlds and took both into his field of vision. The depressions of former years were gone, and but that our ‘eyes were holden’ by a merciful blindness, we might have known that the Master’s coming was at hand.”
The population in South Kensington by this time had enormously increased. The relics of rural life repeatedly noticed in this volume disappeared, and the crowded neighbourhood called for spiritual provision. At a social meeting in January, 1879, a resolution was passed expressive of gratitude for the goodness of God, and of a conviction that the time had come for making a vigorous effort to extend to one of the newly-peopled districts in the neighbourhood some of the privileges which the Church had so long enjoyed; and a year afterwards, at a similar meeting, joy was expressed that a good site had been found in West Kensington, together with a determination to erect on it a chapel worthy of the neighbourhood.
It is sad to record what follows. Dr. Raleigh removed to Kensington at the close of the year 1875, early in 1880 he was laid aside. On the 10th of March he sent to his “Flock and Friends” this touching letter:—
“I must try to write a line to tell you what a great grief it is to me that I am still prevented from meeting you ‘face to face.’ Pain and weariness have been my portion during these last weeks. But God has upheld me by His great goodness, and enabled me to cast all my care upon Him, and to commit all my ways to Him. Indeed, I may say I have but one serious care, the care that arises in my heart when I think of you and of your interests in the Gospel, which I can at present do little or nothing to promote. I know you are being well instructed by other servants of the Master, and that the Chief Shepherd Himself never ceases to have you in His care. Nor can I doubt that this unexpected and undesired illness of your pastor is among the ‘all things’ which may work together for your good. With prayer and patience on your part and on mine it will certainly be so, and our God will supply all our need according to His glorious riches by Christ Jesus.
“I am assured by the deacons, both for themselves and for you, that I may go on in the use of the best means for recovery with a quiet mind, and in the confidence that you will willingly and prayerfully wait for my restoration to strength, and for what—if God graciously gives it—will certainly be to me, even more than to you, a happy return to my work. Of course all waiting of this kind must have reasonable limits; but I think you may be assured that I am not likely to forget them. I thank God that I have so much reason to wish, I hope before very long, to be able to put my hand again to a work which, in some ways at least, has prospered so well. That this our mutual desire may be accomplished, I cast myself with confidence on your sympathy; and still more earnestly I make appeal to you for your prayers, that I may be kept in unfailing trust, and that I may be restored to you the sooner.
“And for you, dear brethren, with all my heart I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. The Shepherd of Israel have you in His care.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Dr. Raleigh’s last hours are thus described by his wife in her beautiful memoirs of him:—
“Throughout the night of 17th April he was very restless, and said, ‘I have not been able for two days to think any religious thoughts, but I know that I am His.’ When the morning came (Sunday) his countenance wore the changed look we learn to know too well, and he spoke of his departure as at hand, as indeed he felt it was. His wife, wishing as usual to send a message to be read to his people, asked him what it should be. He hesitated, saying, ‘I do not want to alarm them, and it looks as if I were of such importance if I send a message.’ He consented, however, and dictated a few words. Many things were talked over, and last words spoken during the day. The wrench of parting was still hard to him, and the spring sunshine seemed too glad for dying eyes. ‘Everything is as bright as if I were well,’ he said; but looked an earnest assent when reminded that in this lay the hidden promise of a better spring-time. Some food being brought him, of which he tried in vain to partake, he put it gently aside, saying, ‘The Bread of Life is near.’ Again: ‘I should like to go to-day; it is my day.’ His whispered words to his children; his expressed thoughts and cares about their future; his last looks of love and welcome, are laid up in the sacred silence of the heart ‘till the day dawn.’
“As the evening drew on he became restless with the restlessness so common at the approach of death. The weary spirit, finding home no longer in the dissolving body, was struggling to break the chain and enter into the life of liberty. The eyes, always so responsive to the light, grew dim, unconsciousness fell gradually over him, and before we knew it he was away beyond reach of loving word or touch of ours; but we believe he was not beyond the reach of higher ministries. As the long night passed, and the slow dawn found him still waiting at the gate, perhaps there came to his spirit the first whispers of heavenly fellowship. Perhaps ‘Jesus Himself drew near and went with him.’ Shortly after noon on Monday, 19th of April, 1880, he entered calmly into rest.”
It was the first time that Death had laid his hand on any of the Kensington pastors until after their removal from the neighbourhood, and the new visitation was keenly felt. This was testified in many ways, especially by the public funeral on the 24th of April, 1880. A service was held in the chapel, attended by a large concourse of ministerial and other friends. The Rev. J. G. Rogers delivered a funeral oration, dwelling upon the character of his deceased friend and fellow-student. The procession afterwards wound its solemn way to Abney Park. “When the cortége approached, all were hushed to silence and many an eye was wet with tears. The line of spectators stretched from the Church Street entrance gates, past the open grave, and overlapping but not surrounding it. Hardly a sound was heard but the grating of the footsteps of the bearers of the coffin and the procession on the gravel. Preceded by the Rev. Henry Allon, D.D.; the Rev. J. Guinness Rogers; the Rev. Mr. Glyn, Vicar of Kensington; and the Rev. W. M. Statham; and followed by all Dr. Raleigh’s children (except the eldest) and other members of his family, and various friends and delegates, the coffin, literally covered and re-covered with flowers, was borne to the tomb. Then Dr. Allon conducted the solemn service, in which the Rev. Mr. Glyn took part; after which all who desired had an opportunity of taking a last look at the grave, and many deposited there their offering of flowers—their symbol of affection. Presently the earth would be covered in, and all would be over.”
Funeral sermons were preached at Kensington Chapel on the following Sunday by Dr. Allon and Mr. Rogers.
To resume the mode of expression adopted in the earlier portion of this volume, and only dropped in describing the pastorate preceding that of Dr. Raleigh, I shall ever deeply regret that, through absence from England, I was unable to take any part in these solemnities. I was not aware of his serious illness until the fact was communicated to me in Rome, and scarcely had I received the sad intimation when the news of his death arrived; and I was shocked to find that the dear Kensington Church was again destitute, and that I had lost an honoured friend.
The interregnum between Mr. Clayton’s removal and Dr. Leifchild’s arrival extended beyond two years and a half; but breaks in the after history of the pastorate were remarkably short. Two months only elapsed between Dr. Leifchild’s retirement and the commencement of Dr. Vaughan’s labours. Dr. Vaughan terminated his Kensington ministry in May, I accepted a call from the Church in July; Dr. Raleigh’s removal to Kensington was about six months after his predecessor left; Dr. Raleigh died in April, his successor was elected at the beginning of November. The comparative brevity of these intervals, when placed beside the history of many other Congregational Churches, is remarkable, and inspires special thankfulness in a community in this respect so highly favoured. At no period has there been divided feeling amongst the members with regard to a new minister. Rival candidates are unknown at Kensington, and proceedings relative to filling up vacancies have ever been conducted in a spirit of entire harmony and love.
The Rev. Colmer B. Symes, of Exeter, having been strongly recommended as likely to meet the needs of the Church, a meeting was held on the 4th of November, 1880, to decide whether he should be invited as Dr. Raleigh’s successor. The course adopted was the same as on the last occasion. The Church passed a resolution, unanimous and cordial, that Mr. Symes should be requested to accept the pastorship; then the deacons were to convey that resolution, and to urge “the acceptance of the important office to which he had been elected.” The deacons visited Mr. Symes at Exeter, and discharged fully the duty intrusted to them by their fellow members.
The gratifying result appears in Mr. Symes’ reply on the 13th of November, 1880:—
“Dear Christian Brethren,—
“In replying to your kind invitation to assume the pastorate among you, I have at the outset to thank you for the undeserved honour which you have done me, and to recognise the increased value of your invitation through the thoughtful delicacy of your deacons, who came to Exeter that they might present it personally to me.
“It is needless to dwell on the anxiety which your action has caused, or upon the painful sense of responsibility under which I have approached the decision of my own course. You will fully understand that the step which you have asked me to take involves the very gravest results, both to you and to my beloved congregation at Exeter. Such a step is a crisis in a man’s life; and the consideration of it penetrates one through and through with the conviction, ‘It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.’ To say then that I have thought much and prayed earnestly over this question, is only to assure you that I have done what, under such circumstances, any Christian man of honest purpose must do.
“As the result of such thought and prayer, of a simple surrender of my movements to the guidance of a higher wisdom than my own, and of earnest effort to interpret that guidance, I now accept your invitation to the pastorate as cordially as you have given it; and while utterly unconscious of any fitness, mentally or spiritually, to achieve a true success, I am confident that God has called me to work at Kensington, and for that work ‘my sufficiency is of God.’
“When your deacons showed me that, although I had felt obliged to present passive resistance to your previous kind advances, God had led you to an unanimous decision, I felt that my duty was written in letters of light, and I could have given an immediate reply. That reply has been delayed a week, partly to correct or confirm what might have been a hasty judgment, and partly that I might rise to the level of that Apostolic charge, in which we pastors are urged to take the oversight of the flock of God, ‘not by constraint, but willingly.’ A week ago I was conscious of Divine coercion, the compulsion of duty. I did not like to pass before you as a captive dragged in triumph behind the chariot of a Divine regal purpose. I would rather come before you as the willing herald to announce the presence of the King amongst you, and to describe to you the joys of His royal rule.
“You will not, I am sure, be pained at this allusion to past unwillingness. I should be unworthy of the love I hope to win from you, if I could callously cut those living nerves of loving friendship which, during the past four years, have thrilled again and again at the touch of as tender a sympathy as a pastor could wish to enjoy. I am asked to leave an earnest, warm-hearted, united, and useful congregation, who have laid me under the deepest indebtedness by their sensitiveness to my ministry, by their love in my deep sorrow, by their unbroken harmony, and by their zealous fellowship with me in all service to Christ. I have never received one harsh word or one cold look from them; and I should be less than human if I could part with such people painlessly. Still I do feel very distinctly that the unanimity of your judgment in offering to me the splendid opportunities of service to Christ, which your neighbourhood presents—confirmed as that judgment has been by impartial advisers on all hands, to whom both you and I have appealed for counsel—may be accepted as the tones of a Divine call; and with gladness and thankfulness for the honour of service to Christ among you, I accept the pastorate.
“When first asked to preach to you in my holidays, I quite understood the full significance of the visit; but as your request had come to me when at leisure, and had come so unsought, I felt that I dared not refuse to take the step which God seemed to indicate; and therefore I preached to you in August. Since then I have felt that I must maintain a very passive attitude; and, at every subsequent stage, I have earnestly prayed that God would allow your action to express His will to me. I pledged myself to Him that I would say or do nothing myself, and that I would accept your perseverance or your discontinuance as the revelation of His will for my life. I am therefore bound in simple truthfulness to act on your decision, and to feel at rest on the score of Divine guidance.
“It is, however, a great comfort to me that the judgment of all whom I have consulted outside my own congregation concur in your decision and in the response which I have given. May God so generously help me in my ministry, and in His great condescension use me to impart unto you such spiritual gifts that you and I shall rejoice together in the union which we now form; and to Him from whom alone all the grace must come will we give all the praise.
“As to the future, the less I say the better. It is, perhaps, wise that a man should do as much as he can, and talk as little as may be of what he intends to do. I might paint you a picture of what I mean my ministry to be; but you would see at once that the picture was painted with the trembling brush of a human purpose, and that it was scarcely worth your while to examine it. I would rather leave the light of God to photograph the actual ministry as it shall be worked out from day to day; and may the picture satisfy your spiritual perceptions, and, above all, be acceptable to God.
“While, however, it is wise to be silent about all my expectations of service among you, I will tell you what is clear to me, and is invested with no uncertainty. I am coming to preach to you the love and the power of a living Christ, who has expiated the guilt of our sins by His wondrous death; who mediates for us to-day before the throne; who now ministers to us through the Spirit with wisest teachings and gentlest comforts and holiest inspirations; that living Christ who is the Alpha and the Omega of all that is noblest and truest in human life, and who will help us to fulfil our purer purposes until He presents us guiltless and without fault before His Father’s throne. This will be the burden of my ministry; and may that Spirit of God, without whom the most truthful, earnest, and sincere ministry will be powerless, enable you and dispose you to receive this Gospel from me as the Word of God.
“I am, dear Christian brethren,
“Yours in Christ Jesus,
“Colmer B. Symes.”
A recognition service was held at Kensington Chapel, when I was again invited to preside; and amongst the ministers and friends present were the Rev. Dr. Allon, the Rev. Dr. Hannay, the Revs. J. C. Harrison, Newman Hall, C. E. B. Reed, J. H. Russell, A. Mearns, W. Roberts, Messrs. H. Wright, W. Holborn, and R. Freeman.
It had rarely, if ever, fallen to the lot of a minister after his retirement from a Church to preside on two occasions at the introduction of a new minister. I little thought that I should have to discharge such duty as devolved on me that evening. It seemed, I said, but the other day since they assembled to welcome Dr. Raleigh, and though so long a term of service as had been allowed to his predecessor could not have been expected, it might have been hoped that the former would have survived the latter. “I feel how great your loss has been, and deeply do I sympathize with you in this respect; and I am anxious to say so now, because on account of my being in Italy at the time of Dr. Raleigh’s interment, I had not an opportunity of then tendering in public my sincere condolence. But whilst I mourn over what you have lost, I would rejoice on account of what you gain this evening. I have not yet had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with Mr. Symes. I believe I never met him but once, and then he made, during a short space, a much more favourable impression on my mind than I have sometimes received from far longer interviews with other brethren. My heart is filled with gratitude to God for having sent you such a man in the room of him who could not continue by reason of death.”
On this occasion, much additional interest was imparted by the presence of an Exeter deacon, who came to testify the love of the Exeter Church for the pastor who had left them. “God,” he said, “has blessed him very much. We have about three hundred and fifty members, and during Mr. Symes’ short pastorate of five or six years, about two hundred have joined our Church.” “The young especially have rallied round him; and we could point to many institutions showing where his usefulness has been so marked.” “His removal has been a county loss, and will be felt at chapel openings and harvest homes.”
The new pastor followed, saying, amongst other things:—
“I come to preach Christ to this congregation—the living Christ, who by His sacrifice has expiated our guilt upon the cross, and is able to free us from the guilt and from the power of sin; the Christ who is living and acting to-day as our Mediator, and is securing for us all spiritual blessings; the Christ who is the Lord of our life, whose will and leadership we, His people, are bound by the most solemn commands to obey; the Christ whose friendship is the joy of life, whose teaching settles all the creeds, and who in some mysterious sense includes within Himself all His believing people in His renewed life, and vitalizes all as the vine can vitalize its branches. In preaching such a Christ as this, there need be no narrowness in the ministry: it will be my own fault if there is. Christ touches human life at all points. To preach Christ fully is to raise the most profound intellectual problems, for Christ has localized the thoughts of men in every race. To preach Him fully, is to assert His claims, and to press those claims upon every sphere of human life, the personal and the political, the domestic and the congregational, the mercantile and the mirthful, the social and the sacred. Christ touches human life on all sides, and it is mine to preach Christ fully, and not to furnish a narrow ministry. I come then, dear brethren, to preach to you the Christ whose love is more than life to me; who has soothed me when, with broken heart, I have felt life unbearable; who has sustained me in ministerial work and trial extending over many years; who has stood by me in every effort which I have made, and who has most generously succoured me in my weakness and raised me when I have fallen.”
Confessions of faith on such an occasion are not so common now as once they were; but this admirable summary of truth was volunteered and delivered in a spirit which left nothing more to be desired; and what may not be hoped from a ministry commenced with such evangelical views and such hallowed resolutions?
In the second year of Mr. Symes’ ministry the foundation stone of the West Kensington Congregational Chapel was laid. On the 2nd of November, 1882, a large number of friends assembled to witness the ceremony performed by the venerable and catholic-spirited Earl of Shaftesbury. Mr. Wright gave a statement of the circumstances which had led to the gratifying event of the day. He said that,—
“In January, 1880, at a meeting held at the house of Mr. Edward Spicer, and attended by the late Dr. Raleigh, the deacons of the Church, and other ministers and laymen, it was resolved that a site should be secured for the erection of a Congregational Church, and a fund was started to which Dr. Raleigh subscribed £50, and six other gentlemen present £250 each; £250 was also promised by an absent deacon. After protracted inquiries and negotiations the present site was purchased. The London Congregational Union had voted £1,600 towards its cost, and the London Chapel Building Society £1,000 towards the erection of the church. The progress of the work was arrested by the lamented decease of Dr. Raleigh, but when the Rev. C. B. Symes entered on his ministry he gave new impetus to it, and liberally subscribed £250 toward the fund. The building to be erected was from the design of Mr. J. Cubitt, and the work had received the approval of many friends not connected with the district, two of whom had subscribed £500 each, and another noble citizen of London £200. The gifts by individuals ranged from £1,000 to five farthings from a little boy not quite eight years old! In that work they were trying to solve the problem how to penetrate the population with the spirit of true religion, and the building would be dedicated to the service and worship of Almighty God and His blessed Son, with the prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ might be the master of the house, the King of the people, and the Shepherd of the flock which might be gathered there. It would be a Free Church, independent of all external support and control; the worship would be free and spiritual, and the ordinances would be sustained by the free-will offerings of God’s people. It was not undertaken in hostility to any existing church in the neighbourhood, and there was nothing to hinder its promoters saying, ‘Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.’”
In the evening of the same day a meeting was held at the Vestry Hall, Kensington, when Mr. John Kemp Welch presided, and Messrs. James Spicer, J.P., H. Wright, J.P., Dr. Hannay, the Rev. C. B. Symes, Mr. J. H. Fordham, Mr. Robert Freeman, Mr. William Holborn, and Messrs. H. and E. Spicer supported the chairman. The sum of £14,190 was required, and before the close of the meeting no less than £12,084 was subscribed or promised. The following appeared in the report:—
“Dr. Stoughton said he would like to tell those present a little of what had been done in days gone by, when a considerable movement began in 1849, resulting in the erection of five new chapels in the space of ten years. They were not all connected with Allen Street Church, but they all sprang out of the operation of the voluntary principle, and the Kensington people had something to do with all of them. It began with the erection of Horbury Chapel, Notting Hill; and was followed by Kensington Chapel; Oakland’s Chapel, Shepherd’s Bush; Edith Grove, Brompton; and Cravenhill chapels. Those chapels could not have cost less than thirty or forty thousand pounds, and the liabilities were all undertaken during those ten years. If they added another ten years for paying off those debts, they would see that £30,000 or £40,000 was expended in chapel building work during that period. The fathers were not quite asleep, and the sons had very grateful recollections of what they did in days that were past. He referred to it as an example for them to emulate, and to go on during the next ten or twenty years as their predecessors did. If they laid out £30,000 or £40,000 outside their church, it would be a noble thing. The debt on Allen Street was paid off five years after it was opened, and he was then very anxious to see a new chapel spring up in South or West Kensington, where there was much vacant land which he knew would in time be covered with houses. A variety of circumstances, however, prevented his realising that desire; but now that streets and squares had been built, and the name changed from North End to West Kensington, they had done nobly and wisely in setting to work to build the contemplated edifice. He heartily congratulated them upon their present position, and on the relationship existing between pastor and people. Mr. Symes was doing work which had not previously been done, and was laying hold of young people brought into the neighbourhood; the speaker looked most hopefully upon these circumstances and trusted that the Church in Allen Street would go on as prosperously as ever.”
Here I must bring my narrative to a close. The ninety years’ history now recorded exhibits the continuity, the development, the increase, the augmented resources, and the advancing power of the Kensington Congregational Church. Religious progress has followed, though not with equal steps, progress in other respects, visible throughout the Court suburb, and its vicinity. The duplication of the ecclesiastical body, if so the movement at Horbury about thirty years ago may be termed, is now, thanks to our Heavenly Father, being repeated; but gratitude to Him for this renewed inspiration of zeal is mingled with regret that the effort has been so long delayed. May it now be carried forward with ardour, in the spirit of faith, love, and prayer, and may other similar operations follow in years to come,—the activity and self-sacrifice of Kensington Christians keeping pace with the wants of the neighbourhood! The results at Notting Hill ought to be combined with those at Kensington, in order to estimate the value of what was done more than thirty years ago. The congregations, the members, the contributions since, should be reckoned together in a sum total; and a proportionate increase continued through coming days will secure an aggregate most blessed to contemplate, illustrating the true law of progress in Congregationalism. It will be God’s building, God’s husbandry, a working together with Him and under Him: ministers and people being one with the Church’s Lord. What purity of communion, what brotherly love, what self-sacrificing zeal, what achievements of benevolence, what noble family lives, what numerous conversions to Christ may be anticipated in consequence of aims and endeavours such as are now suggested! If the Church be a Divine garden, growth, fruitfulness, beauty ought to be expected. Rich abundance will crown a field which the Lord hath blessed. The most prosperous Churches in Christendom only exhibit what may be called, in the highest sense, a natural result of His superintendence and blessing. What spiritual wonders may be looked for, what earnest, humble work should be attempted, what encouragement under heavy responsibility, what comfort amidst trials and disappointments will assuredly come in the garden of our toils, our hopes, our joys,—“supposing Him to be the Gardener!” [127]