The Religious Life of London

by J. Ewing Ritchie

But I return to Mill Yard. The Christian Church in our day has pretty well agreed to get rid of or, at any rate, ignore what is read in the Bible about the seventh day being “the Sabbath of the Lord your God.” At one time this was not so. Now the tide

has receded and left the Seventh-day Baptists stranded on the mud. In doing so, the Church, of course, has increased the difficulty some feel about the Divine origin and perpetual obligation of the Christian Sabbath. Archbishop Whately, for instance, could reason with the Christian who had exchanged, in spite of the literal command of God, the Christian for the Jewish Sabbath, but his arguments would fail to touch the Seventh-day Baptist, who would contend that he was doing that which God had commanded. But the fear of this has not led Christians to abandon what, in the opinion of most of them, is the apostolic plan of meeting on the first day of the week. It is to be hoped the fund left for the benefit of the Seventh-day Baptists is not a large one. The mouldy appearance of Mill Yard Meeting-house indicates that it is not. But it is enough to retain at his post a gentleman who, perhaps, would be more profitably engaged elsewhere. Certainly it does seem like a waste of power to have a chapel and a service lasting nearly a couple of hours for one grown-up adult male and three adult females, excluding the chapel pew-opener. I must say, with the exception of a young gentleman in knickerbockers, who was so astonished at the apparition of a real stranger that he kept staring at

me all the time of singing, all seemed to do their duty. The singing—and there was plenty of it—was really and truly Congregational. Five or six parts of the Bible were read, and the congregation followed with open Bibles. The preacher laboured at his discourse, and quoted Hebrew and Latin as if we had all been learned divinity students. Nor could he have prayed with more fulness and power had the benches been filled with living souls waiting to draw near to the Father of spirits and live. One could not but respect the preacher, however useless seemed his learning and misdirected his research. Yet I would be sorry to stand in his shoes. He had hearers once—Where are they? Dead, or moved away, is the reply. He says in 1840 he began “to officiate as afternoon preacher in the ancient Sabbath-keeping congregation in Mill Yard.” He talks of “nearly sixty years of close critical, philological, and exegetical study of the sacred Scriptures;” of “more than thirty years of constant and laborious exposition of them;” of his having fully, freely, fearlessly, and repeatedly discoursed upon every part of natural and revealed religion. In spite of his age, physically he is not unequal to his work. He has a good voice, yet practically he beats the air. There are few to

listen to his words and respond to his appeal. I wonder—as in his quiet study he reads the ancient versions of the Bible and laboriously constructs his argument:—whether it ever occurs to him that there is something better and grander than seventh-day baptism, or systematic theology, and that is everyday Christianity. I wonder, too, while looking on the dead graves and the long grass, whether it occurs to him that in that region of all unclean and deadly sin it especially behoves the preacher, in preference to ingenious speculation or antiquarian research, to impress on the heart and consciences of men the yearning, living love of God. It is not in the calm retreat, the silent shade, that vice and irreligion can be confronted and changed into purity and piety. One would fancy at Mill Yard the contrary opinion was held, as the preacher goes on, expounding the Proverbs or the Book of Job to empty benches, while close by the harlot plies her unhallowed calling, the publican retails his vitriol gin, and mothers, with eyes artificially black, knock about their little ones or cover them with kisses, as they themselves are alcoholically stimulated into maudlin tenderness or demoniac rage! If you want to see what an endowment can do for religion, go to Mill Yard. No doubt those

who left money for the place thought they were doing God service. In reality, an endowment can but preserve a corpse which had better be put away. We bury our dead out of our sight. As it is in the material world so it is in the spiritual world. We love to look on life; we shrink with abhorrence from the sight of death, when Time’s decaying fingers have dimmed the lustre of eyes once bright as stars, and plucked from beauty’s cheek the blushing rose.

A more curious spot in all London is not than Mill Yard Meeting-house. The day I was there, after a service of nearly two hours, it was established by the learned minister, who is an F.S.A., and calls himself elder of the congregation (he must often stand a good chance of being junior as well), that the title of the Book of Proverbs was only to be applied to the first part, that it consisted of divers distinct sections, and that generally the book was found in the Bible after the Psalms. Evidently the preacher is a learned, painstaking student of the Dryasdust school—full of crotchets; but the biggest crotchet of all is that he should go on preaching year after year in Mill Yard.

Mr. Spurgeon’s works and essays are so constantly before the public that the briefest notice of them is

all that is necessary here. In his great Tabernacle near the Elephant and Castle, which is one of the sights of London, he has a church alone consisting of 4700 members, and such is the orderly arrangement that, as he said, if one of his members were to get tipsy he should know of it before the week was out—a statement perhaps true in reality if not literally. Enormous as his place of worship is, it is always filled; but it represents, not so much a Christian Church as a Christian community on a gigantic scale. In his Orphanage at Stockwell some 135 boys are boarded, clothed, and taught. Then at Newington he has established an Orphanage and School, and under his great Tabernacle is a Pastors’ College, which in a couple of years takes the raw student from the shop or the counting-house and sends him forth into the world a ready-made divine, occasionally not a little to the dismay of those who consider a good training and a careful preparation great helps to ministerial usefulness. The students are lodged in families around, and on the Sunday are principally employed in preaching in various districts near London. Some of the Baptist places are very small indeed, and very badly attended. It were better, one would think, that they were shut up and merged

with other churches or denominations. There is something inexpressibly melancholy in the long lists of Zions, and Bethels, and Mount Sions, where the pastor and the people scarcely live. Amongst some of the Baptists there are some of Antinomian tendencies, and the preachers of such doctrines have very large congregations. They are the elect of God, and can never sin. As to their doctrine and its results, one illustration will suffice. A member of one of the largest of these Antinomian places unfortunately got tipsy, fell out of the cart in which he was riding, and broke his leg. “Ah!” said his sympathizing pastor when he heard of it, “what a blessed thing he can’t fall out of the covenant.” The Antinomian believes that Christ paid, with his death, the price of the pardon of a certain number. These are in the covenant, and out of that covenant they cannot fall. There are in the Church of England those who preach this doctrine, but their number is rare. Up in Notting Hill is a Tabernacle built up and carried on by Mr. Varley, an humble imitator of Mr. Spurgeon. Originally Mr. Varley was a butcher, but he took to preaching; and finding that people came to hear him, and that he did them good, he now devotes himself entirely to ministerial work. At his Tabernacle, in St.

James’s Square, there is accommodation for 1200 hearers, and for the education of more than 500 children. This history of these Tabernacles shows what may be done when suitable agency is employed. Mr. Spurgeon’s subscriptions are really wonderful. Twenty thousand pounds were given him by one lady for the purpose of founding his orphanage. More than once 2000l. have been dropped into his letter-box, as he told the writer of an article in the Daily Telegraph, where, ludicrously enough, he appeared under the head of “Unorthodox London.” “When recently attacked by illness, he began to despair; but that same evening a lady left 100l. at his door, and 1000l. came in immediately afterwards.”