Twice in the period that he was Vicar of Holy Trinity a Parochial Mission was held, the respective missioners being the Rev. Rowley Hill, afterwards Bishop of Sodor and Man, and the Rev. H. Webb Peploe. Each time it was a grand success, greatly owing, under God, to the prayer and preparation which preceded it. The second mission was remarkable for the number of men whom it reached; at the services for men only there used to be two thousand listeners crammed into the church. Being well followed up, these missions left a glorious mark in the parish. Canon Hoare used often to quote the words of some foreign pastor, “The Church of England is the best in the world at throwing the net, but the worst at drawing it in,” and he always added, “Let us not fall into that error, but draw in the net”; and so he did. How familiar to the ears of his old curates were the words that he often said on Sunday morning from the pulpit at the close of some instructive sermon, “If there are any who would like this matter explained further, I shall be glad to see them this afternoon in the Parish Room at a quarter past four”; and he has often remarked, “I have never given this notice without getting some earnest souls who wanted help.”
“Pray for people and look out for God’s answer,” was the direction that he used to give to his workers, and in this lay surely one of the secrets of his great success as a pastor. The characteristic of Holy Trinity parish was “Life”; the Holy Spirit was manifestly at work in the place, blessing the various agencies among rich and poor, young and old, arousing, renewing, converting, and edifying.
One of his loving fellow-workers thus recalls an experience of this in the earlier years of Canon Hoare’s ministry at Tunbridge Wells:—
“I recollect well a great spiritual movement that took place over the whole parish, then undivided except by St. John’s. People, men and women, came to us, chiefly of course to him, asking for help in their spiritual state—people who had been living entirely secular lives. There seemed to have been no special cause for it—no mission—no exciting preaching; it was caused by his careful parish work and ministry. This went on for, I think, about two months; we kept it very quiet, spoke of it only to a few prayerful people, but they were praying for it; at length, however, it got out, and a few unwise persons—some of whom were Church people and some were not—got down Revivalists and hired the Town Hall to throw excitement into the work. Immediately it ceased! I build no theory or argument upon the fact, I merely say what I noticed.”
The same writer continues thus:—
“About that time we began the Evening Communion, and I recollect well our astonishment at the result. Such a number of new faces whom either we did not know or never saw at Holy Communion! Servants, lodging-house keepers, wives of working men, whom practically we had been excommunicating by having the Holy Communion only at the hours when we had hitherto celebrated it.”
All who had the sacred privilege of working with Canon Hoare in his splendidly ordered parish will agree in this, that two clauses of our Church’s Creeds were ever before his eyes: one was the note of all his preaching; the other, the motive and reward of all his work.
“I believe in the Forgiveness of Sins.”
“I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life.”
This chapter, which describes some of the parochial work of the parish, would not be complete without a reference to a great organisation which, though not of the parish, yet annually assembled in it, viz. “The Aggregate Clerical Meeting.” Shortly after his appointment to Tunbridge Wells, at a time when no conferences of clergy, now so common, had been thought of, the idea of the great spiritual benefit to be gained by such an annual gathering made Mr. Hoare determine to try the experiment. Having consulted with some friends, he sent invitations to the members of seven “Clerical Societies” in the neighbouring parts of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, to assemble in Tunbridge Wells in the month of June for a series of meetings, not for the public, but for themselves, lasting over two days, with a sermon in Trinity Church on the evening of the first day and a celebration of the Holy Communion in the morning of the day following. All invited guests were given hospitality in the houses of kind friends. The Conference thus assembled met annually for about forty years, and from the first to the last meeting Canon Hoare was its President, although on two occasions illness obliged him to depute another as the chairman. From its small beginning it soon spread, sending its invitations through the South-East of England, although drawing the greater part of its members (who numbered altogether nearly five hundred) from the three counties named above. Laymen too, “introduced by a clergyman,” were invited to attend, and gladly availed themselves of the opportunity. Most of the great Evangelical men have preached at its annual gatherings, and papers and addresses of the greatest possible interest have been given at these meetings. All however who have attended on these occasions will agree in this, that the one thing to which every one looked forward was the closing address of the President. Precious words were always given him to speak, full of spiritual experience and loving exhortation.
The value of conferences like these is now acknowledged everywhere, but it is only due to the one whose memory we affectionately cherish that the credit of originating them should be here given to him whose foreseeing mind recognised the blessings such meetings would confer.