John Chambers, Servant of Christ and Master of Hearts, and His Ministry in Philadelphia

by William Elliot Griffis

I. How an unknown man may become immortal.

Does any one of you say that the work of the Lord offers no compensation in the way of personal fame? He is correct in the main. Do your work as faithfully as you may, and the probability is that you will die, and the world will give your memory not a second thought. Men will forget where you are buried. The newspapers will not stop their presses long enough to record the fact of your death unless they are paid for it. Wicked men will say, There, we told you so! That foolish fellow who made himself, and all good fellows miserable by his religion is dead at last. He caught a cold going to prayer-meeting, and he is gone, religion and all. The world will not greatly concern itself about you, or your memory. But just invent a new lie about one of God's saints. It may be as improbable as this one which Gashmu invented, that the Jews were about to rebel, and at once you take your position among the famous men. Your name will go down to posterity, as one whom the world will not willingly forget. Unborn generations will read your name, and believe the lie which you invented.

II. How should the Christian man meet scandal?

In the way in which Nehemiah met it. He said nothing to refute the scandal. He kept right along, doing the work of the Lord. He knew that any attempt to answer the charge would only give advantage to the enemy. If a dog barks at you in the street, it is bad policy to turn round and bark back at him. The dog is always a better barker than you are. If you lower yourself to his level, you must not complain if he beats you at his own game. Keep on doing the Lord's work. They sent for Nehemiah to come down and have an interview with them at one of the villages of the plain of Ono, but he replied "O no! I am doing a great work: I cannot come down." Imitate Nehemiah. You may not have the immortality of Gashmu, but that is an immortality of infamy. Better be remembered by God, than by His enemies.

The effect of this sermon was immense and immediate. The daily press took it up, and made frequent and pungent comments, but the sharp wit of the good preacher had forestalled all criticism.

There were many special sermons, about election time, and in civil crises, which were equally bright and witty. It was not by these that the reputation of the good man was made, however. None who heard, can ever forget his sermons for the young. As a rather dull boy of nine, or ten, I listened as if he were talking directly to me. Hearing once a pretentious young man, criticising Dr. Chambers, and saying that he was not an intellectual preacher, my wonder was what "intellectual" meant: and I was greatly helped by my mother, who told me that the young man did not know enough to be able to understand our pastor. After all these years, I am inclined to think that my mother was entirely right. His sermons for the culture of the Christian Life, I have never heard equalled. He anticipated everything in this line which Drummond afterward wrote.

After fifty years, his form, his face, his voice, are all as vividly present as they were in my childhood, and I am sure that the spiritual lessons of his life, survive just as strongly in the hearts of hundreds of us boys of the old First Independent Church.

John Chambers was much more than a preacher. His pastoral work, and his intimate personal knowledge of each member of his large congregation, were as remarkable as his pulpit utterances. Thursday was his day for coming to our house, and it seems to me now, that he came every Thursday, but that is, of course, impossible. However, we children always expected to see him on Thursday, and usually at dinner. I well remember the homelike frankness with which he would express his appreciation of some of the dishes which my mother, who was a notable, and old-time housewife, would have prepared for him. I remember even more distinctly how it seemed to me that he knew everything that went on at our school and the events of our little cosmos. He seemed to be as much interested in them as we boys were. He seemed to know everything that we did. The only time in my boyhood that I went to Welch's circus, down Walnut street, I became disgusted with some coarse jokes of the clown, and went out before the performance was over. I ran down the stairway from the dress circle, out of the door, and plump into the arms of Dr. Chambers! Did he scold me? Not much. He simply said in that voice of his, the tones of which were like an organ, "My boy! You in that place! Come now, you did not like it, did you? I should not think that you would care for such things. I should think your telescope would show you finer sights than anything you would see there."

How did he know that I had a telescope, and that I had made it myself, and that I used to be up on the roof of our old home all night, only creeping into bed just in time to avoid being caught? I never told him. I went no more to the circus.

In our church life it was the same. On the Sunday on which I united with the church, there were seventy-two who were received; yet this great man found time to say to the boy of fifteen, as we left the church, that he would expect me to take part, preferably by engaging in prayer, in the Sunday night prayer service, a fortnight from that day."