No minister of the present generation has lived a purer life, or left the stamp of his thought more deeply on the public mind than the young incumbent of Trinity Chapel in Brighton. His sermons, not published until after his death, are meeting with an unparalleled sale, and every scrap of his sermon preparation, no matter how fragmentary, is seized for the press with the greatest avidity. He now addresses a far larger and more important audience than ever during his life time.
F. W. Robertson was born in 1816 and died in 1853—only thirty-seven years of age. He received the traditional English education at Oxford, and had a strong inclination for the military profession. This he was induced to renounce by the expressed judgment of his father—himself a military officer—that Frederick was better fitted for the Church. After he had received ordination, he acted as curate for twelve months at Winchester. His health being by this time broken, he took a trip to the continent under the advice of a physician. He was gone a year, and during this time entered into marriage. When he returned he served for four years in the parish of Cheltenham. Here the field for the exercise of his talents was comparatively narrow; but many persons were led to a higher life by his ministry—many more than he, with his habitual self-depreciation, was willing to believe until years had passed. After this he spent two months at St. Ebbs, in Oxford, receiving a miserably small salary. During this short time his talents became known, and he was offered the rich, aristocratic, and intellectual church at Brighton. The offer was refused at first, and was only accepted at last through the urgent solicitation of the Bishop, who felt that this was his proper field. Here his popularity became unbounded. The working people, who had almost deserted the Establishment, flocked to hear his bold, true words. His biographer says:
“His eloquence and originality could not fail to be marked. And if the congregation was intellectual he was pre-eminently so. The chapel became crowded. Sittings were scarcely ever to be had. For six years the enthusiasm never slackened: it grew and spread silently and steadily, and when he died broke out in a burst of universal sorrow.... But he put no faith in mere excitement, the eager upturned face, the still hush of attention. ‘What is ministerial success?’ he asks. ‘Crowded churches—full aisles—attentive congregation—the approval of the religious world—much impression produced? Elijah thought so; and when he found out his mistake, and discovered that the applause of Carmel subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives, and obedient humble hearts; unseen work recognized in the judgment day.’”
That success was his. James Anderson says:
“I cannot count up conquests in any place or by any man so numerous and so vast—conquests achieved in so short a period, and in many instances over the hearts and consciences of those whom, from their age or pursuits, it is always most difficult to reach—as were the conquests of that devoted soldier of the cross of Christ.”
But his labors were too great for his strength. For at least two years before his death he preached in continual pain, and yet there was no abatement in his power. Many of the sermons by which he is best known were then produced. We can scarcely realize as we read his calm sentences, radiant with beauty, and full of profound thought, that they were spoken during the ravages of a cerebral disease, that was soon to still his eloquent voice forever. When he died, having preached almost to the last, the city (containing sixty thousand inhabitants) was draped in gloom, and mourning was universal. A monument was erected, to which the working-men contributed a touching memorial.
The manner in which so many of Robertson’s sermons were preserved, is, when we consider his manner of preaching, very remarkable. He spoke extempore, and never wrote out a sermon before delivery. His leading thoughts were indicated by short notes, and the whole subject was carefully arranged in his own mind. But his words and his most powerful illustrations sprang from the inspiration of the moment. Usually he took a small piece of paper containing the headings of his thoughts with him into the pulpit, but never referred to it after the first few moments had passed. His sympathizing biographer thus describes him:
“So entirely was his heart in his work, that in public speaking especially, he lost sight of everything but his subject. His self-consciousness vanished. He did not choose his words or think about his thoughts. He not only possessed, but was possessed by his idea; and when all was over and the reaction came, he had forgotten like a dream, words, illustrations, almost everything.... After some of his most earnest and passionate utterances, he has said to a friend: ‘Have I made a fool of myself?’
“If the most conquering eloquence for the English people be that of the man who is all but mastered by his excitement, but who, at the very point of being mastered, masters himself—apparently cool, while he is at white heat—so as to make the audience glow with fire, and at the same time respect the self-possessed power of the orator—the man being always felt as greater than the man’s feelings—if that be the eloquence that most tells upon the English nation, he had that eloquence. He spoke under tremendous excitement, but it was excitement reined in by will. He held in his hand a small piece of paper with a few notes on it when he began. He referred to it now and then; but before ten minutes had gone by it was crushed to uselessness in his grasp; for he knit his fingers together over it, as he knit his words over thought. His gesture was subdued; sometimes a slow motion of his hand upward; sometimes bending forward, his hand drooping over the pulpit; sometimes erecting himself to his full height with a sudden motion, as if upraised by the power of the thought he spoke. His voice—a musical, low, penetrative voice—seldom rose; and when it did it was in a deep volume of sound which was not loud, but toned like a great bell. It thrilled also, but that was not so much from feeling as from the repression of feeling. Toward the close of his ministry he was wont to stand almost motionlessly erect in the pulpit, with his hands loosely lying by his side, or grasping his gown. His pale, thin face and tall, emaciated form, seeming, as he spoke, to be glowing as alabaster glows when lit up by an inward fire. And, indeed, brain and heart were on fire. He was being self-consumed. Every sermon in those latter days burned up a portion of his vital power.”
But though thus surrounded by an admiring congregation, and weekly giving out thoughts that were worthy of still wider notice, when some of his people, who realized that his words were too precious to die, raised a subscription to employ a short-hand reporter, with a view to the publication of his sermons, he refused to sanction the scheme, and wrote the parties a characteristic letter, telling them that he had no time to correct, and, without it, the discourses were not fit to be given to the public. Yet a number were preserved in this way, and though not published until after his death, they are almost faultless in form and expression. Other sermons were written out briefly by himself, after being preached, for the use of some private friends. It was thus that those almost incomparable discourses were preserved, which are without doubt the most valuable contribution that has been made to their department of literature during the present century.