The Sabbath, as I remember it in church and home, was a rubric on our week's page. The normal family in the Chambers church, of which ours was one, were all ready at home on Sunday morning so as to be punctual at church. After a good breakfast, including the traditional "Dutch cake and coffee" for the elders and grownups, and plenty of the same sweet and nourishing food, saving the Mocha, for the young folks, we started off from home so as to be at Sunday school a few minutes before nine o'clock. The session lasted until quarter past ten, which gave ample time for the breaking up and dismissing of the classes, the social greetings of friends, and a comfortable interval for getting into the larger auditorium above, where service began punctually at 10:30.
The Sunday school had been started as a novelty in the days of the old Thirteenth Street Church by the pastor shortly after his coming to Philadelphia. Although I do not remember that he ever taught a class himself, or ever heard of his doing so, yet there was one feature of his connection with and interest in the Sunday School which has been to me and to many an inspiration for life. Not long after the preliminary devotional exercises were over, our handsome leader, of stately port and mien, appeared on the scene. Going to each class he shook hands heartily with each and every teacher, and often saluted, or in some way noticed, the children of the class, speaking a pleasant word, or inquiring after sister or brother, parent or relative. Often to their delight he called the pupils by their first names, for he was able to do this. Both teachers and scholars would look for the appearing of this grand man as regularly as they awaited the sunlight. The pastor kept ever in vital touch with the Sunday School, generally remaining until near the time for his engagement upstairs. Thus he inaugurated a custom which was life-long and inspiring, and which many another active pastor has followed in true apostolical succession.
Would my readers wish to have a specimen of John Chambers's preaching even in his early days? To do this by presenting simply ink and paper is not to reveal "thoughts that breathe and words that burn". It is simply to point to a pressed flower, bleached of its tints and with all its perfume exhaled, for the sermon was the man himself. Nevertheless, a faded and time-stained pamphlet of fifteen pages, entitled "Sermon by the Rev. Mr. John Chambers, delivered at the Presbyterian Church in Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia, on the evening of December 2, 1827", when Universalism was then new and in the air, from these words, "Ye shall not surely die", gives some idea of the general style and quality of the young preacher. The discourse was "taken in shorthand by M. T. C. Gould, Stenographer".
Let us in imagination take our seat in the little brick church among his audience and listen to the discourse. Even the stenographer, owing to the crowd, was, as he says, in "a very unfavorable position for hearing." But who could not hear such a voice?
The sermon is a vigorous setting forth of religion in the genuine old-fashioned style, in a torrent of emotional and not particularly logical oratory. It is an assault upon the notions of those "who would persuade you that the idea of future punishment is only the visionary dream of fanatics". The especial reference is to "those emissaries who are so industriously engaged in seeking to destroy the souls of men: they are laboring by all the ingenuity of the arch fiend himself, who first presented the forbidden fruit under such bewitching charms".
The new pastor believes that this system "leads to the destruction of all morality and religion". By him the Eden narrative is read as a literal fact. The young orator quotes from Montesquieu, Lord Bolingbroke (though the reporter could not catch either the point or the words) and Hume, by which he would prove that "this system leads to the destruction of civil society and civil government". Warming to his theme, he declares that "all vice is the immediate offspring of the dogmas of Universalism.... The doctrine of universal salvation leads to all the vices and abominations under heaven". Reference is made to the fact that "New York tells a mournful tale in consequence of this doctrine"—the allusion being to a recent duel between a citizen of New York and a citizen of Philadelphia. The preacher even declares that "a man holding such sentiments should never be entrusted with any civil office".[7]
[7] Was this the duel of Midshipman Hunter and the brilliant young Philadelphia lawyer, Miller, the latter losing his life and the former becoming the famous "Alvarado" Hunter told of in the life of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, (Boston, 1887) p. 239?
Against the background of "fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest upon the wicked and ungodly" he pressed the invitation to come to "the Redeeming Saviour, the Divine Saviour, the Glorified Saviour". The eloquent preacher closes his discourse, which is from beginning to end directed to the conscience, with a good, warm, direct appeal to his hearers for personal decision.
Enough of proof is here given that from the first, even to the last year, if not the latest moment of his life, John Chambers never lost sight of the needy, sinful, human soul, and that he always closed with a tender and affectionate personal appeal. Men might be as steel against his logic, but their hearts melted under his winning importunity.