Discouragement

AutoLio- Affairs in the congregation went on quietly, but comfortably, giaphical. several years, without any very great increase of numbers, till at length I began to be somewhat discouraged. My dear wife was always a comforter when I was a little cast down. A little occurrence took place at a church-meeting, which might have occasioned some uneasiness. One of the deacons interfered in the course of the proceedings of the evening, with what I considered the prerogative and authority of the pastor, when somewhat petulantly I resisted and rebuked him. Considering his age and my comparative youth, I did not act with all the meekness I should have done. It ought to have been passed over more gracefully on my part, and should have been mentioned to him in private, instead of being resented in public. The old gentleman, however, took it very quietly, and it made not the slightest difference in his conduct towards me. But he did not attend the church-meetings afterwards, though this might be attributed, perhaps, rather to the infirmities of age than to the circumstance just mentioned. It might have generated iU-will towards me. Young ministers sometimes are too sensitive in matters relating to what they consider official dignity

and authority

I at last became exceedingly disheartened by the state of the congregation. Our place of worship was uncomfortable; Autobiothe street in which it stood, though central as to the population, was narrow and shabby, and great odium was raised, ungenerously and unjustly, against it by the congregation which had retired with Mr Brewer. Yet, after all, the chief cause of its not being better attended was perhaps a want of care on my part in the preparation of my sermons. I have ever felt, and do feel to this day, the want of a more complete education. My composition was loose and unfinished. I was always energetic in manner, and have owed, under God, my success to this. I believe that had any offer of another situation been made at that time, I should have been strongly tempted to accept it. Against this, however, my wife, who knew the bias of my mind, firmly set herself, and used to say to me, “Never leave Birmingham tiU you see your way out of it as clearly as you did into it.” Her advice was sound and good, and shews the vast importance of a minister’s having for a wife one who can be a counseller as well as a comforter.

I am persuaded that ministers are too apt soon to get discouraged, and to quit a situation because their first success is not equal to their expectations. They should recollect that a man does much by his character as well as by his talents; and that confidence is the growth of years. There seems to be, of late, a most extraordinary and painful mobility come over our ministers. This arises, I know, from various causes, — the fastidiousness of the people is become excessive, through the circumstances of the age, and it really does require extraordinary effort on the part of our pastors to satisfy their flocks. This ought to stimulate the ministers, who, instead of endeavouring to meet these demands upon their talents and their diligence, lie down in despondency, and spend that time in reproaching their congregation which ought to be spent in coming up to their wishes.

My congregation perceiving that something needed to be done, determined upon improving their place of worship, and rendering it more comfortable. During the alteration we were accommodated with the old ]Ieeting-house, where Mr Kell, my old schoolmaster

LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

Autobio- at Wareham, was then minister. This gave us publicity, and the

graphical.

result was, that on our return to Carr’s Lane, our chapel was crowded, so that the very table pew was let. From that time we date our prosperity; and it shews what a public-spirited people can, and will do, to promote the usefulness of their minister; while others, through covetousness, carelessness, or a kind of hereditary attachment to the place in which their fathers worshipped God, will keep their minister’s talents and usefulness confined within a much narrower compass than he ought to be allowed to occupy.

Editorial. jjq -^ys that Mr James’s ministeral life commenced with seven years of apparent failure, is a question worth examining with the utmost care. The Church Book confirms what he has said of his want of success. At the end of 1805, when he had been in Birmingham four months, the church numbered sixty-two; at the end of 1806, sixty-nine; at the end of 1807, seventy-seven; at the end of 1808 the number had increased to a hundred; but fell again next year to ninety-eight. For several years after this the church record was very imperfectly kept, till for a time it ceases altogether. Although the official record fads us, tradition confirms Mr James’s own testimony, that till 1812 his congregation continued to be very small. Carr’s Lane did not remain empty through want of people in the neighbourhood to fill it, for even then the population of the town was upwards of eighty thousand. Nor was Mr James’s failure occasioned by the number and eminence of the other evangelical ministers in Birmingham; with the exception of Mr Burns at St Mary’s Church, there was no evangelical clergyman in the Establishment, having any pulpit power; and there were only two congregations of importance among the evangelical Dissenters, that in Livery Street (Independent) under Mr Brewer, and that in Cannon Street (Baptist) under Mr Morgan.

That Mr James preached in a mean chapel situated in a dirty street, that the popular sympathy was with his vigorous and eloquent, though guilty, predecessor, and that the young minister himself was too confident in. his own power, and too careless in his preparations for the pulpit, were, as he has said, among the principal causes of his disappointment. But there are some other circumstances which deserve consideration.

For some time his health appears to have been very feeble. Through month after month in 1806, Dr Bogue expresses his regret to hear that his young friend continues so unwell; in 1807 he writes, — “I am sorry to hear of your being ill and obliged for a season to abstain from preaching;” and for several years his work was continually being interrupted by physical weakness.

It should also be remembered that he had come from Gosport with a mind untrained to protracted and strenuous exertion, and unenriched with either sacred or secular learning. There could have been at that time but little depth or variety of thought in his sermons, and he must have often violated the laws of good taste. At first he was scarcely conscious that hard work was the indispensable condition of great success. With an ardent, impetuous, glowing heart — a mind full of life and activity, though as yet altogether undisciplined — with a very free command of sonorous, if not accurate English — with a voice which for sweetness, richness, and pathos has been rarely equalled, never surpassed, and which even then was as absolutely under his control as in his later years, he could easily interest and excite a popular audience, and the necessity of diligent self-culture and laborious preparation for the pulpit was not forced upon him. But more metal was wanted, if he was to produce any deep and permanent impression on a vigorous and intelligent commimity.

From the first, he had some idea that his study was a place for reading and thought, and not merely for sermon writing; and here is an old book-bill which indicates, perhaps, the direction of his reading at the very comencement of his ministry: —

“Manton’s Works,.. £3 13 6

Bennett’s Christian Oratory, 0 6 0

Pirie on Baptism,.. 0 13
G

LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

Owen’s Gospel Cliurcli,

£0
Sermons and Tracts,
Meikle’s Solitude,
Edwards’ Redemption,
Remarks,
Leigtton, ....

Edwards’ Affections,.

Newman’s Baptism,.

These books lie bought in London in 1805, on his way to Birmingham; and he seems to have ordered from the same bookseller, Owen on the Hebrews, and Howe. But for a time there was not much vigorous application, and he paid the penalty in a protracted period of disappointment.

He felt his failure very keenly. He wrote desponding letters to his friends, who did their best to encourage him, knowing that he must ultimately succeed. Dr Bogue tells him in February 1806, that his “anxieties and fears about continuing in Birmingham are vain, and should be driven away without delay.” In March, Mr Bennett implores him to lay aside his “paralysing anxieties;” and in April, to “bear up against discouragements, and not to run away from his post.” His energy was at last stung into activity. His iateUectual habits rapidly acquired manly vigour. Mr Bennett and he began to correspond on questions of Biblical criticism and theological scholarship, which could not be discussed without considerable reading and reflection. The mental discipUne he should have received at Gosport under the direction of his tutor, he now acquired by his private studies. Before he gained accidental publicity by preaching in the Unitarian chapel, his resources were greatly increased, and his whole intellectual nature had become more robust. The temporary occupation of the Unitarian pulpit was the occasion, not the cause, of the sudden increase of his popularity.

About a year before the enlargement of the Carr’s Lane meeting, he was invited to preach at Liverpool to the congregation which had been gathered by the earnestness and eloquence of Spencer, and which had been suddenly plunged into the greatest distress by his premature death. Some of his Birmingham friends were apprehensive that the visit might eud in his removal from Birmhighara to Liverpool, and perhaps their fears were not altogether without foundation. That his removal would have occasioned them the greatest sorrow is evident from the warm affection they had expressed to him in a letter which he received at Bristol just before his Liverpool visit, and which may help to illustrate the kind of attachment which existed between himself and his flock. After acknowledging and thanking him for a pastoral letter he had written to them during his absence, and making some general observations on the uncertainties and vicissitudes of human life, they go on to say —

“Yet amidst all these proofs of mutation and imperfection one thing remains to comfort us, and that is, that our connexion as pastor and people stUl subsists. We rejoice that you are spared to us as our pastor. We rejoice that, although we can look around us and see vacant pews, which but lately were occupied with valuable and active members, — although Providence is removing some, the hand of death arresting others, and disease and suffermg, too generally its precursors, depriving us of the service and society of more, yet that many are from time to time coming forward to fiU up the ranks, and are thus ’ baptized for the dead,’ — so that, notwithstanding all these losses, you are not left to preach to empty pews, nor even suffered to preach to a declining congregation. But that which contributes most to our happiness is the confidence we feel that there is no decay of affection either on the part of pastor or people. We most sincerely thank you for the gTatifying assurance that the lapse of nearly seven years has made no change in your affection for us, — that notwithstanding the experience you have had of our inaptitude to profit as we ought under your ministry, notwithstanding the many imperfections which, during so long a residence among us, you cannot fail to have discovered, — notwithstanding any wounds which you may have occasionally received from any quarter, — your attachment is yet unabated. We read -with unfeigned pleasure the declaration that no change of scene, no variety of character, nor even the endearments of your father’s house, have divided your kind regards from the people of

LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

your pastoral charge. We hope, nay, we are confident, the affection is mutual. We have no wish to see your pulpit filled by a stranger, but we acquiesce in your occasional absence, because we think it needful that you should relax your labours for a short space durmg the revolution of a year; but we anxiously anticipate your return again among us.”