I do not intend here to quote lists of the celebrated people who were interested in Mr. Charrington and his work at this time. I do, however, want to emphasise the statement I have just made. And when I say that that great and good Lord Shaftesbury, whose name is honoured and revered in the history of our own times, and always will be so honoured and revered, was the principal supporter of Mr. Charrington, then I have said all that is necessary.
At one of the annual general meetings of the Tower Hamlets Mission, Lord Shaftesbury was present, who till the time of his death was president of the mission. He made a long and interesting speech. From that speech, duly reported and preserved, I quote the following passages. The Right Hon. The Earl of Shaftesbury said—
"It is necessary that if I should address you at all, I should do so at this moment, for I cannot stay with you much longer. I am afraid whatever I say will be scarcely audible. My voice is very weak to-night, and it is not in my power to throw it out to the end of the hall. I wish first to say that I feel very much the kind reception you give me, and to assure you that if I failed in my attendance two years ago, it was not on account of any frail and feeble excuse, because I have never, I think, broken an engagement, except on a really good excuse. And I confess I am more astonished at the assembly I see before me on such a night as this, than that I should have kept my engagement who had the advantage of coming here in a carriage. But the presence in such numbers, and the enthusiasm you manifest, show to me that the cause is in your hearts, and that by God's blessing you duly appreciate the kindness and the mercies here prepared for you. (Cheers.) For many years I have been in the habit of coming to Whitechapel, and many people say to me, 'Why do you go to Whitechapel so often?' My answer is, 'Because I always find very good people there; and if you knew Whitechapel as well as I know it, you would find there was a larger proportion of good people in Whitechapel than in an equal number of people in the West End of London.' I will tell you one thing which I like about Whitechapel people; I like their hearty, open manner, and the general enthusiasm of their demeanour; and I tell you fairly that you put me in mind of a large body of people with whom I was more conversant in earlier years than I am now, and my friend Bardsley here will bear testimony that the people of Whitechapel are, to my mind, more like the people of Lancashire than any other people in the metropolis. If you want to know what a Lancashire man is, look at our friend Bardsley on the right (laughter). He is descended from one of the noblest men I ever knew. His father was one of the grandest men I ever knew—a grand old patriarch, who has given some ten or eleven sons to the service of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I entirely concur with the sentiments of my friend Clifford, and I rejoice to see him here to-night, and may his life be long spared to appear on this platform. What you heard from your friend Mr. Charrington and from Mr. Clifford is quite enough, and constitutes the strongest appeal I could well imagine to the wealthy and the powerful. What a manifestation of work is going on here day by day, night by night, and hour by hour! See the effects made for great ends, and apparently for small ends too: What we call a small end, when we have to do with the working classes, often constitutes the very turning point in the man's existence. The only way to assist a working man is to enable him to assist himself. Let me press on you seriously the immense advantages you enjoy compared with your forefathers. Time was, and not very long ago, when such a meeting as this would have been impossible, and you could not make such a thing intelligible to men's minds. Remember how this mighty city has grown up; and all the Church of England, and all the denominations, if they could be brought to be of one mind would be wholly inadequate to the great spiritual work of this metropolis. Now I delight to see these lay agents come forward and, like your friend, Mr. Charrington, act as auxiliaries and subsidiaries to the efforts of the ordained ministers to preach the word of God. It is a great blessing when you see how hundreds and thousands are brought to come in the spirit of freedom and choice, to hear the Word of God, who could never have been coerced by any system of ecclesiastical discipline which even the Pope might endeavour to institute. All these considerations should impress on you a sense of the deep obligations under which you are: first to God, and then to these men whom God has raised up to conduct these various missions, and to sustain all these manifold efforts to propagate the Gospel. I am certain that I am within the limit when I say that there are at least 400,000 persons at the present time in this metropolis who would never have heard the Word of God but for the agency of such missions. Did these exist in former times? I recollect when we propounded nineteen years ago that the theatres should be opened for divine service on every successive Sunday, we were treated by some with scorn, by some with doubt (very sincere doubt), and by all with misgiving. What has been the result? Such gatherings as these. Thus the Gospel of God has been sounded out in the metropolis, and I, in going the rounds of our great cities in the dark hours of the night, have found that by such means as these many have come to know of the Gospel.
"The grand leading principle is to deal out to the hundreds and thousands of these districts a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me tell you how low people may fall, even as it were in the centre of religious light, unless that truth is brought home to them personally and individually. Some years ago, when our commissioners were making inquiry into the mines and collieries of this kingdom, one of the commissioners—a most excellent man, and very anxious about the religious welfare of the community—told me himself that in one of the largest colliery districts of England, he descended into a pit, and spoke to the man there—a hard-working man; and being anxious to know something of his religious state, said to him, 'Do you know Jesus Christ?' 'No,' was the reply; 'does he work on the bank, or in the pit?' Such was the state of a man in the middle of one of the most populous districts in England, in the mines and collieries, the centre of hundreds and thousands so utterly ignorant of the first elements of religion that he had never heard the name of the Saviour of mankind. But if none go forth to the highways and to the hedges to gather them in; if there be none to invite them to places such as these; none to reveal to them the nature of sin and the fallen condition of man in his present state, they will certainly not learn it by intuition. Man has to preach the Gospel to man; and it is a sense of this duty that is occupying such men as Mr. Charrington and others in their endeavours to communicate to you the blessing God has so abundantly imparted to them. I am delighted to see such a meeting as this, because I see the enthusiasm with which you come: and when you joined in those hymns, I saw that you sang them from your hearts, that you knew what you were singing, and that the hymns were not merely exercises of music, but the expressions of true devotion. It is a mighty thing to have achieved such results in the wild and remote districts of the East of London, and would to God we had a hundred halls such as this! where men of God should stand and daily preach the Word of God, and minister consolation to those who come. Mr. Charrington has said that he desires a larger building, and so do you desire it, and so let every one desire it, and pray for it heartily, and do what in him lies to get it. Every person, I say, every woman, and every child may be a centre of influence. And recollect what that means. Your influence may be small, but if it be a centre it makes a little ring of itself, and these concentric rings one after another will at length cover the whole space of London, and will produce a feeling that will issue in the accomplishment of the prayer which Mr. Charrington has so devoutly pronounced. I trust you will have that building, and that it will be consecrated, as this one has been, to the knowledge of God and the salvation of souls. I am afraid I can say no more. I doubt whether you have heard what I have said. I heartily pray God that blessing may descend on you all, collectively and individually, in this great and important district of Stepney and Whitechapel."
I have been tempted to give longer extracts than I at first intended.
Such words as these, however, definitely present the Tower Hamlets Mission of those days to your mind, and they also have a real historic value. I make no further apology for giving them.
They strike a note, however, which naturally leads me on to the next period in Mr. Charrington's life. They are most fitting to conclude this chapter, inasmuch as they definitely point to the movement which resulted in the building of the largest mission hall in the world, and establishing upon a firm and concrete basis the most successful unsectarian mission ever known.
Only the other day the papers announced the death of General Booth. The fame of that great leader of men and mighty warrior in God's cause has penetrated to the utmost corners of the earth. Yet, it was pointed out in a leading article in the Daily Telegraph that there were other organisations, no less wonderful in what they had accomplished, no less deserving of reverence and support, which nevertheless were hardly heard of—comparatively speaking—by the outside world.
Mr. Charrington's name was specially mentioned in this regard.
It is, perhaps, a whimsical fancy, but I like to think that—and Frederick Charrington has said as much to me—I have, in some sense, in this book, discovered him, from an unknown country. All this life he has worked for God, seeking no personal fame, no undue advertisement.
Comparisons very often lend themselves to the grotesque.