On this occasion, much additional interest was imparted by the presence of an Exeter deacon, who came to testify the love of the Exeter Church for the pastor who had left them. “God,” he said, “has blessed him very much. We have about three hundred and fifty members, and during Mr. Symes’ short pastorate of five or six years, about two hundred have joined our Church.” “The young especially have rallied round him; and we could point to many institutions showing where his usefulness has been so marked.” “His removal has been a county loss, and will be felt at chapel openings and harvest homes.”
The new pastor followed, saying, amongst other things:—
“I come to preach Christ to this congregation—the living Christ, who by His sacrifice has expiated our guilt upon the cross, and is able to free us from the guilt and from the power of sin; the Christ who is living and acting to-day as our Mediator, and is securing for us all spiritual blessings; the Christ who is the Lord of our life, whose will and leadership we, His people, are bound by the most solemn commands to obey; the Christ whose friendship is the joy of life, whose teaching settles all the creeds, and who in some mysterious sense includes within Himself all His believing people in His renewed life, and vitalizes all as the vine can vitalize its branches. In preaching such a Christ as this, there need be no narrowness in the ministry: it will be my own fault if there is. Christ touches human life at all points. To preach Christ fully is to raise the most profound intellectual problems, for Christ has localized the thoughts of men in every race. To preach Him fully, is to assert His claims, and to press those claims upon every sphere of human life, the personal and the political, the domestic and the congregational, the mercantile and the mirthful, the social and the sacred. Christ touches human life on all sides, and it is mine to preach Christ fully, and not to furnish a narrow ministry. I come then, dear brethren, to preach to you the Christ whose love is more than life to me; who has soothed me when, with broken heart, I have felt life unbearable; who has sustained me in ministerial work and trial extending over many years; who has stood by me in every effort which I have made, and who has most generously succoured me in my weakness and raised me when I have fallen.”
Confessions of faith on such an occasion are not so common now as once they were; but this admirable summary of truth was volunteered and delivered in a spirit which left nothing more to be desired; and what may not be hoped from a ministry commenced with such evangelical views and such hallowed resolutions?
In the second year of Mr. Symes’ ministry the foundation stone of the West Kensington Congregational Chapel was laid. On the 2nd of November, 1882, a large number of friends assembled to witness the ceremony performed by the venerable and catholic-spirited Earl of Shaftesbury. Mr. Wright gave a statement of the circumstances which had led to the gratifying event of the day. He said that,—
“In January, 1880, at a meeting held at the house of Mr. Edward Spicer, and attended by the late Dr. Raleigh, the deacons of the Church, and other ministers and laymen, it was resolved that a site should be secured for the erection of a Congregational Church, and a fund was started to which Dr. Raleigh subscribed £50, and six other gentlemen present £250 each; £250 was also promised by an absent deacon. After protracted inquiries and negotiations the present site was purchased. The London Congregational Union had voted £1,600 towards its cost, and the London Chapel Building Society £1,000 towards the erection of the church. The progress of the work was arrested by the lamented decease of Dr. Raleigh, but when the Rev. C. B. Symes entered on his ministry he gave new impetus to it, and liberally subscribed £250 toward the fund. The building to be erected was from the design of Mr. J. Cubitt, and the work had received the approval of many friends not connected with the district, two of whom had subscribed £500 each, and another noble citizen of London £200. The gifts by individuals ranged from £1,000 to five farthings from a little boy not quite eight years old! In that work they were trying to solve the problem how to penetrate the population with the spirit of true religion, and the building would be dedicated to the service and worship of Almighty God and His blessed Son, with the prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ might be the master of the house, the King of the people, and the Shepherd of the flock which might be gathered there. It would be a Free Church, independent of all external support and control; the worship would be free and spiritual, and the ordinances would be sustained by the free-will offerings of God’s people. It was not undertaken in hostility to any existing church in the neighbourhood, and there was nothing to hinder its promoters saying, ‘Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.’”
In the evening of the same day a meeting was held at the Vestry Hall, Kensington, when Mr. John Kemp Welch presided, and Messrs. James Spicer, J.P., H. Wright, J.P., Dr. Hannay, the Rev. C. B. Symes, Mr. J. H. Fordham, Mr. Robert Freeman, Mr. William Holborn, and Messrs. H. and E. Spicer supported the chairman. The sum of £14,190 was required, and before the close of the meeting no less than £12,084 was subscribed or promised. The following appeared in the report:—
“Dr. Stoughton said he would like to tell those present a little of what had been done in days gone by, when a considerable movement began in 1849, resulting in the erection of five new chapels in the space of ten years. They were not all connected with Allen Street Church, but they all sprang out of the operation of the voluntary principle, and the Kensington people had something to do with all of them. It began with the erection of Horbury Chapel, Notting Hill; and was followed by Kensington Chapel; Oakland’s Chapel, Shepherd’s Bush; Edith Grove, Brompton; and Cravenhill chapels. Those chapels could not have cost less than thirty or forty thousand pounds, and the liabilities were all undertaken during those ten years. If they added another ten years for paying off those debts, they would see that £30,000 or £40,000 was expended in chapel building work during that period. The fathers were not quite asleep, and the sons had very grateful recollections of what they did in days that were past. He referred to it as an example for them to emulate, and to go on during the next ten or twenty years as their predecessors did. If they laid out £30,000 or £40,000 outside their church, it would be a noble thing. The debt on Allen Street was paid off five years after it was opened, and he was then very anxious to see a new chapel spring up in South or West Kensington, where there was much vacant land which he knew would in time be covered with houses. A variety of circumstances, however, prevented his realising that desire; but now that streets and squares had been built, and the name changed from North End to West Kensington, they had done nobly and wisely in setting to work to build the contemplated edifice. He heartily congratulated them upon their present position, and on the relationship existing between pastor and people. Mr. Symes was doing work which had not previously been done, and was laying hold of young people brought into the neighbourhood; the speaker looked most hopefully upon these circumstances and trusted that the Church in Allen Street would go on as prosperously as ever.”
Here I must bring my narrative to a close. The ninety years’ history now recorded exhibits the continuity, the development, the increase, the augmented resources, and the advancing power of the Kensington Congregational Church. Religious progress has followed, though not with equal steps, progress in other respects, visible throughout the Court suburb, and its vicinity. The duplication of the ecclesiastical body, if so the movement at Horbury about thirty years ago may be termed, is now, thanks to our Heavenly Father, being repeated; but gratitude to Him for this renewed inspiration of zeal is mingled with regret that the effort has been so long delayed. May it now be carried forward with ardour, in the spirit of faith, love, and prayer, and may other similar operations follow in years to come,—the activity and self-sacrifice of Kensington Christians keeping pace with the wants of the neighbourhood! The results at Notting Hill ought to be combined with those at Kensington, in order to estimate the value of what was done more than thirty years ago. The congregations, the members, the contributions since, should be reckoned together in a sum total; and a proportionate increase continued through coming days will secure an aggregate most blessed to contemplate, illustrating the true law of progress in Congregationalism. It will be God’s building, God’s husbandry, a working together with Him and under Him: ministers and people being one with the Church’s Lord. What purity of communion, what brotherly love, what self-sacrificing zeal, what achievements of benevolence, what noble family lives, what numerous conversions to Christ may be anticipated in consequence of aims and endeavours such as are now suggested! If the Church be a Divine garden, growth, fruitfulness, beauty ought to be expected. Rich abundance will crown a field which the Lord hath blessed. The most prosperous Churches in Christendom only exhibit what may be called, in the highest sense, a natural result of His superintendence and blessing. What spiritual wonders may be looked for, what earnest, humble work should be attempted, what encouragement under heavy responsibility, what comfort amidst trials and disappointments will assuredly come in the garden of our toils, our hopes, our joys,—“supposing Him to be the Gardener!” [127]
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