Edward Hoare, M.A.: A record of his life based upon a brief autobiography

by Edward Hoare

In addition to the deep interest of my own parish, the proximity to London brought me into contact with various movements of a more public character. This involved a conflict between my duty to the parish and my duty to the Church of which I was a member. But I firmly believe that the parish was the gainer, not the loser, by my interest in those general objects, and nothing tends more to wither up a man’s ministry than such an isolation as brings him into contact with his own limited surroundings, and leads him to stand aloof from the general work of the Church of God.

Then it has been my desire to attend as far as possible to diocesan interests, those connected with the rural deanery, the archdeaconry, and the diocese, such as ruri-decanal meetings, visitations, and diocesan conferences. It has appeared to me that when, by our position, we have a right to attend on such occasions, we ought to do so, and that if we hold back from taking our legitimate part, we have no right to complain if things are said and done of which we disapprove.

On the same principle I have attended Church Congresses, and have been thankful for the opportunity of publicly maintaining those great principles which are inexpressibly dear to my own heart. I have never hesitated to state what I have believed as clearly as I knew how to put it, and my experience is that, if a person will attend them in the Name of the Lord and as a witness for Christ, and will speak without either reserve or compromise, he will not only receive courteous treatment from those in authority, but will find a grand opportunity of spreading the truth through the length and breadth of the land.

I have myself received letters, from all parts of England, thanking me for words which I was enabled to speak at one of the Church Congresses, and I have known more than one instance in which words so spoken have been blessed to the permanent peace of conscientious inquirers.

I have been deeply interested in the large lay and clerical meetings of the Evangelical body. When I was quite a beginner I listened to an address at the Islington Clerical Meeting, by the Honourable Baptist Noel, which has affected the character of my whole ministry. He was speaking on the subject of spiritual power, and said that, whenever any attempt at ornamentation became apparent, power ceased. On those words of his I have acted ever since I heard them, and I am persuaded that those meetings are frequently the means of making permanent impression on many of those who are brought together by them. Thus I have always availed myself of every opportunity of attending such meetings. In the course of fifty-four years I have missed the Islington Clerical Meeting only three times, and then from no choice of my own, and they have led to a very sacred relationship with many of my beloved and honoured brethren in all parts of the country.

But I have known none that I have regarded as a greater privilege than our own Aggregate Clerical Meeting at Tunbridge Wells. From that I have never been absent, except when detained by severe illness, and nothing can exceed the sacred privilege which I have enjoyed in those happy gatherings. We have met as brethren in the Lord Jesus, as one in the great privileges in which we live, as fellow-labourers in our happy ministry, and as fellow-partakers of the grace of God. We have often taken counsel together, and though in the course of thirty-four years almost all the original founders have passed away, there is still the same spirit of brotherly harmony, and the same loving interest in each other’s welfare. I often wonder how it is that some dear brethren appear to me to undervalue such gatherings of those who fear the Lord.

But of all the objects away from home there was none that called forth my deepest interest like the Committee of the Church Missionary Society. I do not know exactly how long I have been a member of it, but I was invited by Mr. Venn when I was Curate of Richmond to join the Committee of Correspondence, and as I left Richmond forty-three years ago, I consider that I must have been at least forty-five years a member of that body, and I regard that membership as one of the great blessings of my life.

It has been the practice of its management to be always on the look-out for men who had distinguished themselves and could bring to the Committee their own experience of the work of the Gospel in those countries where their lot had been cast, and the result has been that there have been in that committee room a body of men, many of whom have filled highest positions under the Crown, but who gladly gave their time and talents to the patient consideration of the many difficult questions that have arisen in the progress of the work.

I can quite believe that the business of the Committee might be conducted with more despatch, and I have myself desired to see some changes in that direction, but for calm, patient, and prayerful consideration of the business before them, I have never known anything to exceed the conduct of the C.M.S. Committee. I cannot express the confidence that I feel in the fidelity of that Committee, and when I have heard men finding fault with their decisions, I have often wished that, before finding fault, they would attend our deliberations and see for themselves the prayerful process by which they have been led to their decisions. Again and again have I known them kneel down in the midst of their business, and plead with God for His guiding hand. And although it would be absurd to expect, upon every difficult question, forty or fifty independent minds should think exactly alike, yet I do not remember ever to have known an interruption of the unity of spirit, and there are few things that I have felt more, since it has pleased God to lay me very much aside, than the necessity of quitting my place in that committee room, and losing the privilege of uniting with such a body of men in such a work as that of the Church Missionary Society. I trust God will bless them with His own rich and abundant blessing. They have a noble work before them, not merely in spreading the Gospel amongst the heathen, but in uplifting the banner of truth at home, and I trust it may never happen again that dear brethren, in their earnestness for the maintenance of a pure Gospel, will ever think of weakening the Church Missionary Society by forsaking it, and so rejoicing the heart of the great adversary of souls.

With these words the brief Autobiography is closed, and it is characteristic of the writer that his faithful heart, like the compass-needle ever pointing to the North, should, after a brief deviation to his personal affairs, turn finally to the contemplation of the glorious work of that Society whose cause he loved to plead.