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

by Edward Hoare

It was not so with the subject of this memoir. The prophet in this case was honoured in his own country. On Sunday mornings, three-quarters of an hour before service began, many aged and poor parishioners might be seen making their way into the church to secure good seats. In Holy Trinity the free seats are more in number than those that are appropriated, and some of the former are in the best part of the church; all these were filled long before the hour for the commencement of service. As eleven o’clock drew near the congregation were in their places, and the aisles were filled with strangers in every available spot waiting in the hope of some possible seat. It was a common thing in the summer for as many as a hundred to go away unable to get accommodation. The writer well remembers the profound impression which the Sundays used to make upon his mind. The old Vicar and his curates were in the vestry in good time robed and ready; [174] having knelt in prayer, there was a silent interval, and exactly to the moment when the clock in the tower struck, the vestry door was opened and they passed out into the church.

Sometimes this was a slow work, as the people stood close together; some were sitting on the pulpit stairs, and the clergy had to thread their way to the chancel rails.

When service began the cushions at the rails were all occupied by worshippers kneeling upon them. Canon Hoare generally took part in the service, which was conducted in the simple old-fashioned way, read, not “toned down” in the manner now so prevalent.

When the preacher ascended the high pulpit it was an impressive thing to see that great congregation, over sixteen hundred in number, ranged beneath in the body of the building and around him in the deep galleries, waiting for his words. His prayer before the sermon was a very striking one, and it was always in the following words: “Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who hast purchased to Thyself an universal Church by the precious blood of Thy dear Son, and hast promised that the Holy Spirit should abide with us for ever: may we now enjoy His sacred presence! May He direct the word which shall now be spoken, and apply it with Divine power to all our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Those sermons were wonderful, delivered so well that few could believe them to be written discourses, which they were; with changes of tone which made the sentences impress themselves upon the memory; the manner so solemn, as befitted the ambassador, and yet so pleading, as became the father. The eloquent language attracted the intellectual mind, and the remarkable simplicity of expression appealed to the simplest understanding. The matter of these sermons was, however, their great charm.

The atonement wrought by Christ was their great theme. Many preachers, when enlarging upon other subjects, bring in this doctrine at the close of their discourse, but with Canon Hoare the great foundation of our faith, viz. the substitution of Christ for the sinner, and His finished work of propitiation applied by the Holy Spirit, was always visible, not as a thing to be brought in at the end, but already there, as the centre and pivot of all that he said; hence no doubt the power of his words, and withal as a thing much to be observed was the extraordinary freshness with which he was able to present, Sunday after Sunday, the old story of the Cross, old but ever new.

Very powerful were those discourses, for they were full of teaching. The preacher was a deep student of his Bible,—“After diligently working down into it for fifty years,” he used to say, “I am still only scratching the surface!”—and he possessed moreover an unusual power of imparting knowledge; he was pre-eminently a teacher, and among the many privileges which his curates enjoyed none was so great as the Scriptural teaching which they received in their Vicar’s sermons. After the preacher had concluded there was a short prayer, followed by the blessing, and then, with nothing to take away the impression of the solemn words to which they had listened, the congregation dispersed. There were three or four services in the Parish Church every Sunday, besides the shortened Morning Service in the hospital and Mission Service in the large Parish Room; there were also five Sunday Schools, and many classes on the same day for old and young men, women, and senior girls.

Though in his vigorous days he always preached twice, he was in the habit of opening the principal boys’ school every Sunday morning, and in the afternoon visiting one or other of the various schools and classes, finishing all by slipping into the afternoon service in time to hear the sermon preached by one of his curates. By these means he kept in touch with everything going on in the parish.

The weekday work was enormous and varied. The Parish Room, so called—really a large building containing a hall and different rooms—was occupied nearly every hour of every day in some part or other; and in the parish at large every conceivable kind of agency for the temporal and spiritual good of rich and poor was to be found, all animated by real energy and spiritual power. Many a time have the workers heard from their Vicar’s lips, “Let us not be content with machinery; what we want is Life.”

The Sunday Evening Services in the Parish Room were deeply interesting. For half an hour beforehand the volunteer choir sang hymns to attract the people in, and workers went into bar-rooms and common lodging-houses to bring in any who would come.