During my Windsor ministry I became acquainted with a noted Wesleyan, who was not an itinerant, but a local, preacher. He went by the name of “Billy Dawson,” and was eminently gifted with humour and pathos. I heard him preach, and listened to his platform speeches. He was not only naturally eloquent, but histrionic too; in speeches and sermons he acted while he spoke. He made you realise what he described. It is said that George Whitefield, when preaching to sailors, described a storm at sea so vividly that some of them shouted, “Take to the long boat.” Dawson had a like power of realising what he described. He would, at a missionary meeting, make a telescope of his resolution, and putting it to one of his eyes, describe what he saw in imagination,—perhaps a picture of the millennium drawn from Isaiah’s prophecies. I was young, just come from college, at the time I speak of, and made a speech in which I used some words which were not so plain as they might have been. After the meeting he spoke to me kindly, suggesting equivalent terms in plain Saxon. It was a good lesson for an unfledged bird.
When I was a member of the Wesleyan Society, I attended class according to rule, and I found the practice beneficial, inasmuch as it was a constant spur to self-examination. The primitive agape, revived amongst the Methodists, exists under the name of love-feast, at which, together with eating bread and drinking water as an expression of fellowship, men and women are accustomed voluntarily to rise, and give some account of their religious experience for edification to others. These addresses I found often interesting and useful. By such means, a habit of spiritual intercommunication amongst Methodists is kept alive; beneficial in some cases no doubt, but liable to abuse in others, as most good things are. I am constrained to relate how this habit on the bright side manifested itself on a private occasion during a meeting of Conference in London. Dr. Jobson, an eminent Wesleyan, invited a party of friends to his house. He kindly included me in the number, and I found at his hospitable board the President for the year, and some ex-presidents. Together with them, Drs. Binney, Raleigh, Allon, and Donald Fraser were present. Our host was a thorough Methodist, and very comprehensive in his sympathies, for he had mixed with different denominations. He had many friends in the Establishment, and in early life had studied under an eminent Roman Catholic architect, at whose house he met bishops and priests of that communion. On the occasion I refer to, he in an easy way initiated a conversation which I can never forget. He appealed to his guests, one by one, for some account of their religious life. All readily responded; and this is most remarkable,—all who spoke attributed to Methodism spiritual influence of a decisive kind. To use Wesleyan phraseology, most of them had been “brought to God” through Methodist instrumentality. Dr. Osborne was present, and made some remarks, at the close of which, with choked utterance, he repeated the verse—
“And if our fellowship below,
In Jesus be so sweet,
What heights of rapture shall we know,
When round the throne we meet?”
The Norwich Methodists were chiefly humble folks with a sprinkling of some in better circumstances; their habits were very simple and they looked upon some who made money as becoming “worldly,” or at least, as exposed to temptation. At that time, however, such as possessed social comforts could not be justly charged with conformity to the course of this world; and over their little gatherings in one another’s houses there was shed a religious atmosphere such as was breathed in class and love-feast. Early in the century on a Sunday, between afternoon and evening service, there might be a large tea-party, where the preacher, a class-leader, and other members of Society would talk and pray and sing, till it was time to go to evening service at chapel. This communion seems to me now as I think of it such as is described in Malachi: “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it; and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His name; and they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.”
Worldly prosperity has since fallen to the lot of not a few Methodists, and the usual temptations surrounding wealth have tested their character; but I am thankful to say, amongst those whom I have visited, I have found beautiful instances of adherence to religious principles. I may mention a friend already noticed, Sir William McArthur, K.C.M.G. When Lord Mayor of London he continued his previous Wesleyan duties; and whilst bountiful in his hospitality eschewed usages of a fashionable kind. In his year of office the Œcumenical Conference was held, and during its meetings repeated Mansion House invitations were given to friends in sympathy with Evangelical religion. I attended his funeral, and in his residence on Notting Hill a large number of mourners assembled, and we had a short devotional service together, very touching, tender, and beautiful.
My personal recollections of Methodism, which roll back more than seventy years ago, linger round Yarmouth and Norwich. At Yarmouth I used to worship on a Sunday in a curious old-fashioned square chapel, with galleries on the four sides. There was a deep one opposite the two entrance doors, and attached to the front of that gallery was a pulpit—by what means, as a boy, I never could make out. The preacher ascended from behind by a staircase, invisible to the congregation, and then from the top of the staircase descended by two or three steps into a curiously shaped pulpit. I distinctly recollect the venerable Joseph Benson, then a patriarch, who had been associated with Methodists in John Wesley’s time. I think I see him now, of slender frame, venerable aspect, and wearing a coat of dark purple. Of course I have no recollection of what he said, but he was regarded as a saintly man in those days. In the autumn Yarmouth was frequented by a number of mariners from the north—coblemen they were called—who had come to fish for herrings off the Yarmouth coast. They were staunch Methodists, and used to hold a prayer-meeting after the general service. How those men used to pray with stentorian voice, which called forth loud “Amens” from voices all over the chapel!
In Calvert Street, Norwich, there used to be special services on Christmas-day. After a prayer-meeting at six o’clock in the morning there was preaching at seven o’clock, when hymns appropriate to the season were sung, accompanied by violins and wind instruments of different kinds. I did not fail, between five and six o’clock, to rise and cross the city in order to be in good time for these services. They usually commenced with the hymn—
“Christians, awake, salute the happy morn
Whereon the Saviour of mankind was born;
Rise to adore the mystery of love,
Which hosts of angels chanted from above;
With them the joyful tidings first begun
Of God incarnate and the Virgin’s son.“Then to the watchful shepherds it was told,
Who heard the angelic herald’s voice: ‘Behold,
I bring good tidings of a Saviour’s birth,
To you and all the nations upon earth:
This day hath God fulfilled His promised word,
This day is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord.’”
With the Methodist chapel in Calvert Street my earliest religious thoughts are connected. Watch-nights and love-feasts, are sacred in my recollection.
VI. Respecting the Congregationalist denomination, of which I have spoken already, let me add that in 1877 I was requested by Dr. Schaff, of New York, to give my impression of prevalent beliefs amongst us. I replied as follows: “Looking at the principles of Congregationalism, which involve the repudiation of all human authority in matters of religion, it is impossible to believe that persons holding those principles can consistently regard any ecclesiastical creed or symbol in the same way as Catholics, whether Roman or Anglican, regard the creeds of the ancient Church. There is a strong feeling against the use of such documents for the purpose of defining limits of religious communion, or for the purpose of checking the exercise of free inquiry; and there is also a widespread conviction that it is impossible to reduce the expression of Christian belief to a series of logical propositions, so as to preserve and represent the full spirit of Gospel truth.” (See Schaff’s “Creeds of Christendom,” p. 833.)