I cannot say that much was done to deepen the impression on the minds of the candidates. As we all had to go to Norwich first for examination, and to Buckden for ordination, it was necessary to show some consideration for us, as there were no railways then. I often think that the Chaplain showed a great deal of good sense in his examination. It began on Wednesday morning, and he told us that he should give us hard questions at the beginning, that they would grow easier and easier during the three days of the examination, and that he should let us go as soon as he was satisfied. So we had a good stiff paper on various subjects at the first sitting, while he walked about the room and looked over the papers as we were writing, but having nothing to look over from a great many of the candidates. It was a great satisfaction to me, when that first sitting was over, to be told that I might go, and that I should find the necessary papers at Buckden.
Most of us Norwich men had to put up at Huntingdon, as the little inn at Buckden was full of the men from the Lincoln Diocese; and as I imagine that the Bishop did not like to have the Norwich men in addition to his own, he gave us no share of any of the privileges that his own candidates may have enjoyed. We signed our papers, etc., on the Saturday morning, and were told that we Norwich men were not wanted any more till the next morning. Accordingly the next morning we were in the church at the appointed hour, and that evening, to my great joy, I read prayers at the parish church of Huntingdon. How wonderfully different is the careful pains taken by all our present Bishops ere young men are admitted to the ministry, and what a wonderful improvement has taken place in this respect!
Letter from Rev. E. G. Marsh, on his entering the ministry:—
“Hampstead, February, 1836.
“My dear Friend,—Knowing with whom you are connected in the great work which you have now undertaken, I feel that I might fairly excuse myself from saying anything to you upon an occasion so interesting to all your friends; and my natural indolence would readily yield to the suggestion, and withhold me from interfering where others are more competent to advise. Yet on the whole I could not be quite easy if I suffered you to enter upon an office, far too high and holy to be approached by a sinner, but for that infinite condescension and love of our Saviour which has called us to it, without saying to you, in the words of St. Paul to Archippus, ‘Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it!’ This is indeed a solemn charge, even more so than that which you have just received from the Bishop. I can add nothing to its weight, and can only pray my God to forgive all our deficiencies, and to supply all our need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Nevertheless there are one or two hints which I will venture to suggest, in case they should help you in taking a practical view of the obligations thus laid upon you. In the first place, although this is a work which can only be successfully prosecuted in the spirit of prayer and in the strength of the Saviour, it is very desirable that the greatness of it should not dishearten us, or render us insensible to the duty of doing what we can. My simple advice to you in the beginning of your ministry is this—never to let a day pass, if it be possible, without doing some act in fulfilment of it. I mean some act having respect, not to your own personal salvation, but to the salvation of those to whom you are an ambassador for Christ: to your parishioners, while you are among them; to others, when you are absent. And this act, whatever it be, should be made the subject of special prayer. My second advice is to give sufficient time to each act, that it may be done properly, and rather to let many be neglected than to do any one perfunctorily, for on that which is performed indifferently and without due attention we cannot consistently expect a blessing. To do one thing at a time is the only way, either in spiritual duties or in temporal, to do many things well. Do not, therefore, attempt too much at once. Many break down and are discouraged by this error. Again, I would say, ‘Attend more to the living than to the dying.’ However important may be the clinical department of ministerial duty, we must always be greatly on our guard against encouraging the notion that the work of religion may be done, as doctors’ degrees are sometimes taken, per cumulum, or that anything can be done by a clergyman at the last hour which can reasonably be expected to produce a change in the spiritual condition of a person who has neglected to seek it before. Thus the ministry which you have received may be continually carried forward, independently of those occasional calls, caused by the alarm of sickness or the apprehension of death, which are most valuable seasons indeed, but on which too much stress may be easily laid, to the neglect of more hopeful opportunities. I hardly intended to say so much, and indeed, on what I have now said you may naturally ask me whether these have been my maxims in the course of my own ministry. But, alas! my dear friend, I do not propose myself as an example to you. I rather wish to see you avoid my errors and supply my defects; and happy shall I be if, in the arduous duties on which you are now embarking, you can derive the least aid from a single word of mine. Commending you to God and to the word of His grace who alone can make you an able minister of the New Testament,
“I remain ever, my dear friend,
“Your faithful and affectionate fellow-labourer,
“E. G. Marsh.”
From Mrs. Hoare to Mrs. Catherine Gurney on Edward Hoare’s first sermon:—
“I must send thee one line, dearest Catherine, to tell thee what a remarkable day of interest we passed on Sunday. Our dearest Edward read the service in Well Walk in the morning and in the evening preached. It was deeply interesting, and I longed to have my heart melted in love and gratitude. Such heartfelt satisfaction to have this dear child so devoted, and adorned with so childlike, lovely, and devoted a spirit, and thus enabled in our own chapel, amongst our friends and neighbours, to proclaim with grace and fervour the great salvation of the Gospel of Christ! This appeared to me to be remarkably the case with him, and, independent of a mother’s feelings, his countenance and manner, his manly grace and childlike humility and simplicity, were striking. The congregation had, I believe, much fellow-feeling with us, and the expression of it from different friends has been touching to us. Never was I less disposed to boast, and deeply can unite in that expression ‘Where is boasting?—It is excluded’; and yet I long to say with the Psalmist, ‘My soul shall make her boast in the Lord,’ and in the blessing He has been pleased to vouchsafe. Of course we feel the prospect of parting with Edward; one of the many cheering points in the prospect is his vicinity to Earlham, and to thee and our dearest brother. How kind has Joseph been to him, and what an opportune visit was his last to Earlham!
“I went to see Anna Tooten yesterday at Tottenham, as I had left Upton before the arrival of thy letter. Catherine has been very much cast down lately, and I am but a poor helper. The dear babes are with me to-day, while their mother is in Devonshire Street.
“My dearest brother and sister, nephew and niece, and dear Rachel included, I know they will all unite with us in the interest of Edward.
“Your truly affectionate
“L. H.”
Autobiography (continued).
It was not long afterwards that I went to my curacy. Pakefield was a bleak village on the top of a cliff, and I never shall forget what the guard on the coach said to me as I was approaching it for the first time. I had complained of cold, and he said to me, “Don’t talk about the cold yet; wait till you get to Pakefield—there you catches it genuine!” And so we did. Aye, and I witnessed many a gale of wind, and during the year that I was curate, there were no less than fifty shipwrecks off the coast of my own parish.
But no words can express my thankfulness to God that He placed me at the outset of my ministry in that village. My dear uncle had laboured there for more than forty years. In his day there were none of the new plans for evangelisation; the high-pressure system had not yet dawned. He had worked hard with parochial work, and he had faithfully preached the old-fashioned Gospel. There was no particular brilliancy about him; his sermons were not equal to his character, but they were like himself, full of Christ, and he and his most remarkable wife lived such a life of Christian holiness in the midst of those rough fishermen, that the late Rev. Henry Blunt once told me that he considered Mr. Francis Cunningham and Mr. Haldane Stewart to be the two holiest men he had ever met with in his life. And what did I find in that village? I found large congregations of fishermen and their families; but more than that, I went diligently about from house to house, and was soon acquainted with every house in the parish, and there I saw unmistakable evidences of the blessing that had rested upon my uncle’s ministry.
There were noble men among the fishermen, nobly working for God and for the cause of truth, and there were refined and well-instructed women in the different homes, many of whom had been brought up in those schools. There was a most marked and unmistakable difference between the converted and the unconverted, so that it was impossible for a young man to go from house to house without seeing with his own eyes the manifest results of a faithful Evangelical ministry. I have no words to express what the benefit was to myself. I learnt in that village what I was to expect, as well as what I was to do.