St. John’s, Stratford, and St. James’s, Holloway, 1882–85

“Far too much time spent upon preliminaries; you are half way through before you get to the point.” It was his criticism upon an otherwise capital missionary biography, the point, to a missionary, being, of course, entrance upon missionary work. Still, as home and foreign work are one in essence, in spite of the missionary’s instinct to date his real beginning from the day he crossed the gangway and became by the very act a “missionary,” something must be written of the two curacies, St. John’s, Stratford, and St. James’s, Holloway. But before launching into these, here are a few paragraphs from a letter written to Mrs. Walker in 1913 by another old college friend, Dr. Davidson of Birmingham; for again, by some happy knack, the reminiscences, slight as they are, seem to catch the likeness exactly:

“Lodging as we did in adjoining streets, and having many tastes in common, we naturally saw a good deal of one another. Our daily intercourse began with a walk and run before breakfast, starting at seven. As my rooms lay in the direction of our walk, your husband used to call for me, and it was characteristic of his dislike of wasting time that, if he were early or I late, he employed the few minutes of waiting in reading one of my books. Carlyle’s French Revolution, with its short chapters, was well adapted for the purpose, and I believe that he read nearly a volume in this way. Our usual plan was to walk down Romford Road to the entrance of West Ham Park, and then run for a mile through the park, getting back in time for our respective breakfasts.

“The mornings and afternoons were spent in work and visiting. But occasionally he would take an afternoon off, and I can remember many a walk through Epping Forest or

if else by Whitechapel and Mile End Road to town. Or we might go up by train and spend a few hours in shopping, Denny’s bookshop, near the Strand, at the corner of what was then Holywell Street, being our usual destination. Sometimes we visited the National Gallery, the Turner room in which was his favourite resort. The Academy we went to more rarely, partly because we preferred to spend our spare shillings at Denny’s, chiefly, I think, because he was more in sympathy with the older work.

“In the evening we met more frequently, often having tea together. He and I had both taken mathematical degrees at Cambridge, and once a week, and occasionally twice, we read over old work or extended our knowledge of certain branches that had been slurred over in the hurry of the preparation at Cambridge. Often we worked through the problems in old or new tripos papers, and my chief recollection of these times is your husband’s triumphant exclamation of ‘Let the band play! ’ when some troublesome problem gave up its secret. We separated as a rule at about ten or eleven, but to this there were occasional exceptions. One night we sat up to see the great comet of the winter of 1882-3 that was only visible in the early morning. With the aid of two or three brews of strong tea and a set of tripos papers we managed to keep awake till four, when we set off for Wanstead Flats to get an uninterrupted view of the comet. As it happened, the object of our expedition was rather a failure. The comet, indeed, was visible throughout its whole extent; but it was almost obliterated by an unusually bright aurora, which in itself was worth sitting up to see.

“At other times we used to explore Whitechapel at midnight. Starting about eleven, we passed the public-houses of Stratford as the men streamed out of them and made their way to others farther west which had an additional hour allowed them. Our usual walk was down Whitechapel and Mile End Road and back by Commercial Road, returning to our rooms about two, after seeing a great deal of the strange midnight life of the East End.

“The time when I saw most of your husband, however, was during our walking tour in the Lake District in August 1883. We met one Monday evening, having come from opposite directions, at Windermere. Our plan was to cross the Windermere ferry and sleep the first night at Hawkshead; but the night was so dark that we could not see even the road that we walked along. We missed, of course, the turning to Hawkshead and

CH. n.] STRATFORD AND HOLLOWAY 17

arrived ultimately at Ambleside as the last hotel was closing. Every bed in it was occupied and we spent our first night on chairs in the dining-room. Our plan was to climb one high mountain every weekday; and, the weather favouring us, the plan was more than carried out, though several hills were climbed in thick fog which hid all view from the top. After this, we gave up the usual names of the weekdays, and always spoke to each other of Helvellyn day, or Skiddaw day, or Pillar day. The third day (Langdale Pike day) we arrived at the Royal Oak Hotel at Rosthwaite, where we stayed for several days, and climbed from there Skiddaw and Glaramara and other hills. In after years, towards the end of his life, there were few things he wrote about so often as our stay at the Royal Oak. From there we went on to Wastdale Head, taking Bow Fell, Great End, and Scawfell Pike on the way, and, not content with these, he also ran up Lingmell. Our climb up Great Gable was one of those of which I have the best recollection. Starting from Wastdale Head, we got to the top rather early, and lay there for two or three hours working in vain at a problem in the last tripos papers. As the problem was one that could not be solved by any method that we then knew, the sun might have set on Great Gable before we arrived at its solution. It was the next day (Pillar day) after we had crossed Scarth Gap and were running down the hillside into Buttermere valley, that he sprained his ankle. As we were a long way from the nearest house, the prospect before us was anything but pleasant; but after a rest, the sprain turned out to be less serious than we thought, and he was able to walk over Honister Pass to our old quarters at Rosthwaite.”

And now for the levels of life, the curacies. St. John’s, Stratford, supplies a sheaf of letters concerning this unforgettable curate. He was earnest, tremendously earnest, all agree as to this; he was capital at getting others to work; he could draw all sorts and conditions of people into harmonious fellowship in work; he saw the best in a poor worker, and encouraged him to do his best, and he made much of that poor little best. He was a delightful companion, though terribly serious when serious things were in question; and he never wasted time, so never was in any apparent hurry. He considered Miss Havergal’s experience dangerous, and the teaching known as “Keswick”

something to be regarded with caution (this from his early friend, the organist of St. John’s, is of interest in view of later developments). And finally and emphatically, his preaching was some thing out of the common, measured yet fiery, and people flocked to hear him. Altogether an attractive picture of curate days.

“I shall always remember his loyalty to his Vicar under very trying conditions,” writes a friend of the time. “He only once spoke to me of his disappointment that his Vicar, whom he had known in more evangelical days, when he had agreed to come as his curate, had encouraged and adopted advanced ritual; but though these things pained and disheartened him, he continued loyal and faithful to his Vicar for two years while faithfully preaching the Gospel and adhering to what he believed to be right and according to the mind of Christ.”

The Stratford curacy terminated upon a memorable day, when loyalty to Christ and evangelical principles clashed with loyalty to the Vicar. So ended the two years there.

Then came St. James’s, Holloway. Canon Stuart, writing from “The Precincts,” Canterbury, says:

“During the fifteen months he worked with me at St. James’s he was like a brother to me; and though he was with me such a short time, he left a memory behind him which will never be forgotten. I date all the inspiration for missionary work which has ever since characterised that church to his offering himself to the Church Missionary Society.”

“I remember our church was being cleaned when he came,” writes an old parishioner, “and the services were being held in the large lecture hall during Mr. Stuart’s absence. When Mr. Stuart returned he asked me how the new curate had got on; and I answered, ‘He gave us four sermons in the morning, and I can’t say how many in the evening! ’ [It was always his way to cram an immense amount of “stuff” into his sermons. He never in the least indulged in mere verbiage.] And he dealt firmly with those who confessed to hidden sin indulged in for years, though he was very gentle with those who wanted to give their sins up. He was only with us for about fifteen months when for the second time the definite call came to go to the heathen. It was at a missionary meeting that the thought came home to him that he had not offered both hands earnestly. He felt that if others used both hands earnestly to do evil, God’s children should use both hands earnestly to do good. I well remember what it cost him to decide, but when once he did, the joy soon followed. When he was leaving us he heard a whisper that a testimonial was being got up, and he came to me quite distressed and asked me to stop it; he felt his work was but imperfectly done.”

Two or three more sentences from letters received in 1912 may suffice:

“When we first knew him in 1884 he was a frail man outwardly, but a man of determination and set purpose where the cause of God was concerned. I shall never forget one of his Saturday night prayer-meetings when he took ‘Without Me ye can do nothing,’ with several references to our nothingness; and I can hear him say now, ‘Ye are profitable for nothing.’ Then these words in one of his prayers about the same time, at one of those ever-to-be-remembered Saturday night prayer-meetings come back to me: ‘Tie those bands very tightly to-night.’ He was telling the Lord we were a company of His children joined together by the bands of love; then came the foregoing words, and a mighty wave of ‘Amens ’ rose to the Throne. I have never been to such prayer-meetings since; they were full of life and power. How he loved his Lord! one felt it in his whole being, it throbbed with passion for men and souls.” “Since 1885 we have had many curates,” another writes, “some remaining with us for years; but no one else left such a mark in the parish as he did, and yet he was only with us for fifteen months. Those whom he won for his Lord are standing firm to-day.” “I never saw him,” adds another, “but I was at St. James’s, Holloway, shortly after he left and the air was still full of him, and my Bible got enriched with many notes of his addresses treasured by those who knew him.”

Even in those early days the preaching must have been remarkable, for wherever he went there were crowds. “How do you do it?” a fellow-missionary asked him years afterwards. “Get saturated in your subject,” was all he could say. As a speaker he was perfectly fearless; he never aimed at soothing souls with those safe, comfortable sentences which disturb nobody, and do nothing; he said what was in his heart in words as direct as he could find. Sometimea such words were unconventional and exceedingly simple, and very young notes show common subjects dealt with in uncommon fashion. But it was more than vivid, forcible language, and originality; it was the dead earnestness which told. He was in earnest, and people had to listen, and found it hard to forget. Later, as he grew in wisdom, his sermons struck the scholarly as more than usually deep and thoughtful, for they always conformed to the old rule, and were informing before they were inflaming; though truly a glow as of inward fire preserved the informing part from coldness.

The missionary meeting to which one of the letters alludes was no ordinary gathering; it stands out in Dr. Stock’s memory, stored as that memory must be with events of singular interest, as a great historic occasion:

“It was the grand meeting for men only,” he writes, “got up by C.M.S. and Y.M.C.A. together. Lord Cairns presided, and died a fortnight later. It was Moule’s first appearance at Exeter Hall as a speaker. Fifty Cambridge men came up to London and special seats were reserved for them, and we gave them tea beforehand, and I addressed them at tea. E. A. Stuart spoke last, and proposed a Gordon Memorial Fund (Gordon just dead), and that fund is being used to-day. That meeting settled Walker and several others.”

For in his address Dr. Moule, now Bishop of Durham, used the illustration of the servant giving his ear to be bored in token that he would not go out free. Those who know the speaker know his intense quietness of manner, and unsensational fashion of speech, but the word from his lips was as fire; it leaped to the heart of one who heard and it swept his soul that night. Thereafter it possessed him, it impelled him. Home, the home-work which he loved, his will which unconsciously to himself had not been wholly yielded, all went down before it. In telling of it, as he did sometimes when asked what had brought him to India, he always told it in the same way, no word rearranged; for like the child who faithfully keeps to the words which first opened the delight of a new story to it, so he seemed to hold as almost sacred the very wording of the sentence which had opened heavenly visions to him:

“It was at a C.M.S. meeting at Exeter Hall. Moule was speaking; he asked us to put both our hands quite within the Master’s hands. And that meant doing anything, going any where: and so I am here.”

He had offered before to the C.M.S., but there had been a preference recognised by him in that flash of swift intuition as not of the Spirit but of the flesh; it was now laid down for ever.

“I decided that night to re-offer to the C.M.S., this time for anywhere. I could not do otherwise when I had put my hands quite within the Master’s hands: —”

simple again, is it not, as the deepest things must be.

Immediately came the test as to whether both hands were truly “quite within the Master’s hands.” The C.M.S. doctor passed him “for Ispahan (Persia) or some fairly healthy climate.” Nothing could have been naturally more congenial to him than such a sphere; there was a call every way, intellectually, spiritually: “If the way opens as it appears to be doing, what a glorious privilege it will be!” he wrote to his sister. But upon July 7 to his mother:

“There is a little doubt as to the station to which I shall be assigned. Since I wrote home, the secretaries have become convinced that there is a work in India which would just suit me, the aim of which is to reach the higher classes. They asked me to go and see Sir Joseph Fayrer, who is a physician with a personal knowledge of the Indian climates. He says that I may go; but the question is still left open.

“‘Let my sentence come forth from Thy presence.’ Wherever it is, the everlasting arms are underneath. What a privilege it will be to go forth with the message of life to the heathen world! We must just leave all in God’s hands. If He is sending me forth, He will make the way very plain. Surely it is His guidance, and therefore must be right.”

For a need had arisen in the last place in the world to which a keen man would have chosen to be sent, an old field, full of difficulties of an inward sort, worked by the C.M.S. in the north, west, and centre, and by the S.P.G. in the south-east, a district about 100 miles from north to south, and 70 from east to west, with an area of 5176 square miles, or about the size of Yorkshire, and a population then numbering about 2,000,000. Tinnevelly: there is no magic in the name. It stands for plain hot prose.

To his mother, while the question of his destination was still undecided, he wrote again:

“I am going to see the secretaries this afternoon. They very warmly wish to send me to Tinnevelly, with a view partly, I think, to revival work in the Native Church. I have been holding back, in deference to what you and others seem to feel about the unsuitability of a warm climate, but it must be anywhere with Jesus. God knows I fear to take any step without His guidance. A sweet little verse has helped me this morning: ‘When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, Thou knewest my path.’ How blessed to realise that He knows! We must be willing to be like Abram. He went out, not knowing whither he went; the when and the where we may safely leave with God.”

“When God doth favour any action it runs, it flies.” All too quickly for the mother and sisters at home the weeks ran and flew, and the last evening, October 10, was spent in writing home from Liverpool. One of the letters kept through the twenty-seven years has this word of brotherly entreaty:

“It is such a happy thing to be a Christian. All the Saviour’s paths are paths of peace. I was seventeen when I gave my heart to Him. Would that I had done it many years before! The world did not make me happy, though I tried it well. But the Saviour does. Now God wants you to obtain mercy. He holds it out to you as a gift and says, ‘Come, buy, without money and without price.’ Do thank Him for the gift, and take it. Give your heart and your life to Christ, and He will save you and make use of you for His glory. Isn’t it better to lead someone to heaven than to have people admire you on earth? Live for Him Who died for you, and first trust Him with your soul.”

There is nothing more to say, and only one thing more to copy, and then we may “get to the point.” This prose poem, written some eighty years ago by Nathan Brown of Burmah, Assam, and Japan, made a deep mark upon the life we are to follow now:

“My soul is not at rest, there comes a strange and secret whisper to my spirit like a dream of night, that tells me I am on enchanted ground.

“The voice of my departed Lord, ‘Go! teach all nations 1 ’ comes on the night air and awakes mine ear!

“Why stay I here? the vows of God are on me, and I may no longer stop to play with shadows or pluck earthly flowers, till I my work have done and rendered up account.

“And I will go; I may no longer doubt to give up friends and idle hopes and every tie that binds my heart to thee, my country.

“Henceforth it matters not, if storm or sunshine be my earthly lot, bitter or sweet rny cup, I only pray, ‘God make me holy and my spirit nerve for the stern hour of strife.’

“Through ages of eternal years my spirit never shall repent that toil and suffering once were mine below.”

“The circumstances of earthly life give scope for the embodiment of two characters absolutely opposed. For earthly life lies between and in connection with two orders, and it includes in itself two orders. ... It may be fashioned on a fleeting or on an eternal type.”

WESTOOTT on St. John viii. 23.

1885-86]