Thomas Binney

was more than a Nonconformist; he was, in intellectual acumen, a lord chancellor, a prime minister, an archbishop, a king of men. That I was a fellow-countryman is one of my outstanding honours; we both hailed from the Tyne and we were proud of our river. We talked Northumbrian to one another, and laughed at the rude but graphic lingo.

My limited sketch must deal mainly with incident and occurrence, and hardly at all with the metaphysical and spiritual self which was the real Thomas Binney. I am particularly reminded of this by the perusal of the wonderful letter which he sent to me more than thirty years ago (March 1868, when I invited him to be good enough to advise me as to whether I ought to leave Cavendish Street Chapel, Manchester, for the Poultry Chapel, London. The letter runs to twelve quarto pages, and deals with the whole subject as if a judge were pronouncing a judgment from the bench. Binney begins his letter by assuring me that every man works by the impulse of motives and reasons which are known only to the man himself. Even the frankest statement of reasons for a great change in life he regards but as an outside and inadequate expression of the real reasons which govern the yerson most immediately concerned. The great soul of Mr. Binney will never be set forth adequately in verbal portraiture and colour. Though well aware of this, I feel no hesitation in reviewing some facts and characteristics inseparably associated with my recollection of a most kingly man.

Tor a moment let us look at Mr. Binney from a physical point of view. Harriet Martineau used to say that she never saw Christopher North (Professor Wilson) without imagining that the first man, Adam, must have Ijeen built on the same heroic and majestic lines, Some such thought always presented itself to my mind when I looked upon Thomas Binney. Think of a man six feet three inches high without either boots or hat to give c,^:arent increase to his stature. Think of him being broad in proportion. Give him a head which George Giltillan, the famous literary portrait - painter, described as “storey upon storey of brain,” — a description in which there was no taint of exaggeration. I never looked upon such a head. It was the head of a king and ruler — a kind of living court of wisdom and judgment and majesty. Put upon that head an abundant supply of almost golden hair, giving no trace of a comb any more than is given of such an instrument by the mane of a tawny lion. Set in his face two of the most piercing l)lack eyes that were ever seen. Put upon that face a long noble nose with curled and sensitive nostrils, then add a mouth and chin and jaw expressive of robustness, firmness, sternness, and executive faculty of the highest degree. If you could see all these things exactly as I intend them to be seen, you would not even then see the man until he smiled. I never saw such a smile, not even on the face of Mr. Singleton, mentioned long ago. It was like a dawn, a dawn in summer, a dawn that meant a day of infinite sunshine. When Mr. Binne; came into a meeting everybody in th meeting knew when he had come in. A a great national meeting, on the occasioi of some royal event, held in St. Paul’ Cathedral, Mr. Binney was not satisfiei with the seat which had been assigned hin as a member of a Nonconformist deputation What did my dissatisfied king do? At; little distance he saw a vacancy in a portioj of the cathedral set apart for the House o Lords. Mr. Binney went there and calml; sat down in that vacancy, no man doubt in; for a moment that he was the premier pee of Britain. No intelligent man could pas Mr. Binney even in the streets withou turning round and asking,” Who is he? It was something to begin the world withii a framework so stupendous and impressive

Turning to more important matters, let u look for a moment at Mr. Binney education ally. He had none of the advantages wit] which even schoolboys are favoured to-da As a working book-binder in his early yout] he had his way to make in the world with out fortune and without yatronage. H educated himself in a very large and efl’ectiv sense. He was no idler even in his boyhood He must have been conscious of a high destiny, and must have laboured to fulfil it without being able to explain his energy and devotion. He had not what would be called to-day a thorough theological training. Our fathers had to do the best they could with the opportunities, often narrow and humbling, which were within their reach. Nonconformity has never been able to dispense with the labours of untrained, irregularly trained, or inadequately trained preachers and pastors. Richard Baxter said, “I can disgrace no university, for I am of none.” Thomas Scott the commentator had no collegiate training. Congregationalists are not unappreciative of Robert Vaughan, John Burnett, Alfred Morris, I Thomas Lynch, or Edward White, not to! mention many others in some respects equally efficient and beloved. And yet these men had not the advantage of denominational collegiate training. I have never heard, let me say again and again, that the Wesleyan Methodists have been ashamed of their untrained giants, such as Jabez Bunting, Richard Watson, Robert Newton, or Morley Punshon. The Baptists have also been magnificently represented by men destitute of denominational training: need I mention — John Bunyan, Andrew Fuller, C. H. Spurgeon? We are not to understand that these were uneducated and ignorant men. Education is a large term and should be largely interpreted.

y Regarded intellectually, probably the first feature that would strike any man in studying the personality of Thomas Binney would be the largeness and the firmness of his mental grasp. It was impossible to find anything small in Mr. Binney’s thoroughly prepared discourses. He seemed to look at the horizon rather than at an enclosed field, or a local landscape. He had a marvellous way of connecting every subject with eternity past

and with eternity to come./ In this way his subjects were set in their right perspective and colour, though in this way they probably on some occasions lost in immediate popular effectiveness. There were times in Mr. Binney’s development of a subject when if you lost one sentence you lost the whole discourse. Mr. Binney’s preaching was eminently rational in the true sense of that term. He never degraded faith to the level of reason, he always elevated reason to the level of faith. The ladder which he invited his hearers to climb was solidly placed upon the earth of history and fact, and acknowledged assumptions, though the head of it was lost in light not to be borne by the vision of men. Mr. Binney’s ministry had underneath it like a rock a massive conception of doctrine and spiritual philosophy. It was rarely imaginative, and this he once accounted for somewhat curiously in a conversation I had with him in his latest days. Pointing to his writing-table he said: “I have never had a study facing the south; I have never written in sunshine: so there are no figures and parables and illustrations in my discourses.” Herein he did himself injustice, and yet herein he did certainly indicate the northern and least attractive aspect of his public ministrations. But he wrote the hymn

“Eternal Light! eternal Light!”

and yet that very hymn is rather rhetorical than, poetical in the Tennysonian sense. It is rhetoric at its best. It is even doctrinal rhetoric! There is a whole body of divinity in it. The holy rhetoric glows into a holy song.

I have spoken of some discourses of Mr. Binney’s which were thoroughly prepared. Many hearers preferred his written discourses to his extemporaneous sermons. I have nevei been able to accept the preference. Wher Mr. Binney was himself prepared, when his mind was aflame with his subject, when he had not so much as a scrap of paper to look at, but when he knew the very soul of the theme he was about to expound, then he was at the highest point of his efficiency, his massiveness, and his spiritual splendour. Then what looks of light! What smiles of tenderness! What accumulated argument! What songs of triumph and domination! In his written discourses he was apt to be too verbally accurate to enjoy his full liberty of legitimate popular expression. When he did bind himself down to mechanical limit and proportion the lines were often too formal and severe. His mind was never meant for a cage of words; on the contrary, it was meant to fly with the daring and strength of an eagle. Some of Mr. Binney’s discourses were judicial arguments. He spoke from the pulpit as he might speak from the bench of a judge or the chair of an umpire. Some discourses were balanced statements, prepared, as it were, for the consideration of a sworn jury. Beyond all dispute such statements were complete and masterly and luminous. Yet when he was in perfect health of mind and body his so-called extemporaneous discourses transcended his formal and judicial arguments as the stars transcend the mountains.

From a social point of view Mr. Binney was quite a personality, — quite unique and special. Some persons may be surprised at me regarding Mr. Binney as shy and self-obliterating. In my judgment, however, this was one of his noble characteristics. He was never really at home in large companies. In such companies everybody wanted him to speak, and as if he knew that fact he was almost always silent. I remember dining with him at a famous inn at Greenwich, and how keen was the expectation that he would say something which all the company could hear, but I grieve to say that at our end of the table we could only catch an occasional and unconnected word. But see him with two or three really genial comrades and he carried everything his Own way, and everybody wished it to be exactly so. He could say more in a sentence than many men could say in a paragraph. He was full of fun and banter, but in all the merriment there was no bitterness and there was no sting. I can hardly recall the name of any man so appreciative of other men as was Mr. Binney.

No young man need have any fear in preaching before him. If there was anything in a discourse he saw it; if he did not see it you may l)e perfectly sure it was not worth looking at. I never knew him in conversation try to lower the reputation of any brother minister. He had no gift of detraction. He had no genius for slander. He had not even that petty gift of throwing out little stinging hints suggesting that he could tell more if he were disposed to tell all he knew. Mr. Binney’s social qualities no one could really appreciate who had not gone to him in the deepest trouble. Then Mr. Binney was in very deed as a prophet of the Lord. But if Mr. Binney’s sympathy was to be elicited in all its tenderness and fulness, the party seeking it must keep back no part of the sad story. If the suppliant for sympathy was a prodigal son, he must tell the whole of his dreary tale, and so tell j it as not to awaken the suspicion that he was keeping back anything of importance. Then Mr. Binney would show him the way to forgiveness and peace. Not only would / he show him the way back, he would walk / with him to the utmost possible extent, and ( then leave him with a benediction equal to j a new hope in life. If the case were one of i bereavement, or loss, or personal sorrow of any kind, Mr. Binney could heal it as with balm from Gilead. The wife of one of our ministers had just lost her youngest child, the baby of the house, and she mourned to Mr. Binney, exj)ressing the hope that she was not acting wrongly in giving way to her emotion. She did not Avant to grieve God in her soitoav. When she hinted that she might be doing so Mr. Binney said (and the father of the child told me he could never forget the tone), “My dear, it was your child.” That word “your” was to him an explanation of the poignant grief and its anguished expression. The pastoral career of Mr. Binney was full of such jcAvels of tenderness and sympathy. In the house of affliction Mr. Binney breathed the very spirit of his blessed and healing Master.

With regard to Mr. Binney’s reputation outside his own denominational bounds no man will dispute the statement that he was the typical Xonconforuiist of his time. I remember a grand caricature of him in which nothing was seen but his magnificent head, and underneath the picture was written, “The head of the Dissenters.” It AA’as a very happy hit. Indeed, it was hardly a caricature. for Mr. Binney’s head and face were constructed on such lines that it was impossible to make anything of him but some figure of real nobleness. Dr. Alexander McLaren, of Manchester, beyond all doubt one of the greatest preachers of the world, said on the occasion of his own jubilee, in a speech memorable for wisdom and pathos, “Mr. Einney taught me how to preach.” That is testimonial and tribute enough for any man. In that sentence a great monument was erected to a great memory. Dr. John Pulsford, one of the seers of the Church, a student, a saint, a philosopher, said to me, “Mr. Binney had more influence in the formation of my opening mind than any other man.” What a tribute! What would not some of us give for such recognition from such men! Talking to Dean Stanley one day, I happened to remark that I was glad he had taken part in the services connected with the burial of Mr. Binney. He immediately replied, “I intended my presence to express my veneration for his character.” Speaking of Dean Stanley, I am reminded of an occasion upon which I met Mr. Binney at the hospita])le table of the Westminster Deanery. The Bishop of London (Dr. Temple) was present, together with canons, deans, and various Nonconformist pastors. When we rose to leave the dinmg-room Dean Stanley, a model host, called out, “The bishop first, now “the patriarch” (meaning Mr. Binney), “and now the rest of you as you please.” The action, though so simple, had quite an electric effect upon us all. How delicate and expressive the arrangement of the order — the bishop first, now the patriarch, and then the rest of us followed without standing on the order of our going! In the life of Archbishop Tait I came upon a line which may be fitly quoted in this connection. The great archbishop had received a deputation respecting some proposed parliamentary action in the matter of the marriage of a deceased wife’s sister. It was a Nonconformist deputation. Only one name is given, so ha2)pily we cannot fix the archbishop’s depreciatory observations upon the other speakers. The name given is the name of Mr. Binney. “Mr. Binney was there, looking and speaking like a king of men.”

I do not remember any man who was to l)e seen on so many public occasions as Mr. Binney. Whether it was a coronation or an execution Mr. Binney was sure to be there, and he was almost as sure to turn that spectacle to some public account. At the beginning of his ministry Mr. Binney’s sermon was as often a ncAvspaper as a theological discourse. He was, in short, a man of action, a man of affairs, as well as a minister of the Gospel in the usual sense of the term. I have often fancied how deeply interested Mr. Binney would have been in his own funeral! The funeral procession was a mile and a quarter in length; all the places of business on the route were closed; all sections of the Protestant Church were represented. How he would have revelled in the scene, and what a sermon he would have preached on it the following Sunday! Seldom, indeed, within the range of my personal knowledge, has a mind so intensely introspective been so keenly interested in the external phases of daily life.