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My most distinguished fellow-student for intellectual power and literary attainment was Henry Rogers, afterwards a large contributor to the Edinburgh Review. Some of the articles he wrote for that periodical have been published as essays in three volumes. His feeble voice stood in the way of his being an effective preacher; but his learning and ability eminently fitted him for the duties of a professor. In that capacity he rendered high service at Spring Hill, Birmingham, and next, at Lancashire College, Manchester. He was highly esteemed by Lord Macaulay, and Archbishop Whately; excessive modesty alone prevented his introduction to the highest literary circles.

He was a clear-headed, acute thinker and reasoner, delighting in Socratic talk, trotting out an unsuspicious conversationalist, until he entangled him in inconsistency and contradictions, the remembrance of which might be afterwards useful. Rogers, to the end of life, was a humble and devout Christian. Our intercourse in after-days was pleasant, and to me most encouraging.

William Drew, who became a devoted Indian missionary, was another of my contemporaries, and, from sympathy with him, I caught a portion of his spirit; had I possessed the needful qualifications, I could have devoted myself to a similar enterprise.

Samuel Bergne, for many years an able and much-appreciated secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, was another of my fellow-students. With him I became extremely intimate, owing, in part, to an extraordinary family affair, which I have been requested to relate. My father, before he married, had living with him a sister, to whom he was strongly attached. After their separation, she went to reside in London, and dropped all correspondence with him; to the day of his death he could never ascertain what had become of her. Methods were adopted to find out her residence, but all in vain. More than thirty years had elapsed since she disappeared, when one day I met Bergne, who had been visiting his mother at Brompton. “Have not you a relative there?” he asked. “Not that I know of,” was my reply. Then he told me that an evening or two before, as he was sitting by the fire, it flashed upon him how he had heard that an old friend of his mother’s, before her marriage, bore the same name as mine; that she came from Norwich, and that her brother was a lawyer. I was taken aback by what my friend said, and then related what I had heard in childhood respecting my father’s long-lost sister. “Depend upon it,” he exclaimed, “I have found for you the lady your family have been seeking in vain.” I soon received a request to meet the stranger at Mrs. Bergne’s house, when something like a scene occurred, as the separated relatives stood face to face. Yet neither then nor afterwards did she shed any light upon the mystery. She had a husband who proved to be no less a mystery. We never could learn anything about his connections; but, at the time of my introduction to him he was engaged on The Morning Post. We afterwards learned from himself, as well as others, that he had been employed in this country as an agent of the Imperial French Court; certainly he had in his possession a key to the cipher-writing, used by the first Napoleon. He showed me relics of that extraordinary man, and had much to say of several notabilities at home and abroad. What of fact mingled with fiction in his strange disclosures I cannot say; but, after his death, I saw some of his papers, including an unintelligible correspondence between Mr. Canning and himself; also letters relating to private scandals of great people, only fit to be thrown into the fire. He lived in an imaginary world, and used to say that Napoleon Buonaparte was still living. To his influence, I suppose, the mystery which shrouded my aunt’s life after her marriage, might be ascribed.

The four years I spent at Highbury were marked by much political excitement. In 1828 the Corporation and Test Acts were repealed. The Catholic Relief Bill was carried in 1829. In 1830 William IV. succeeded his brother. The “three days of July” the same year occurred in Paris: the abdication of Charles X., and the accession of Louis Philippe, swiftly followed each other; and a fresh impetus was thus given to the cause of English liberalism. The Duke of Wellington’s protest against reform, the defeat of the Ministry on the Civil List, and the introduction of the Reform Bill the next year, produced an excitement which I do not think has been equalled since, though for passionate discussion in the homes of England, it has been surpassed by what occurred during the trial of Queen Caroline. Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, and Lord John Russell were popular idols, their names in everybody’s mouth, their portraits looking down from innumerable shop windows, their busts set up in house after house, their likenesses printed on handkerchiefs and stamped on pipes and jugs, and all sorts of ware. They were mobbed and hurrahed wherever they went, and their carriages were dragged by the populace through streams knee-deep.

At that period the old House of Commons was standing, and went by the name of St. Stephen’s Chapel. Within its walls the Reform battle was fought; and there still lingered round it memories of Pitt and Fox, Burke and Sheridan. I had a great curiosity to see this English forum, and when I obtained admission, with my tutor, Dr. Halley, who explained the building and what was going on, I seemed to be in an old Presbyterian meeting-house, with galleries on three sides, the Speaker’s chair, with its wooden canopy, resembling a pulpit, at the farther end. Members were “cribbed, cabined, and confined.” The forms of the House were interesting to me, and afforded a framework in which to insert images of men in the reign of George II. I had but to put Court dresses and cocked hats on the members, and forthwith the age of Walpole came back to view. A messenger from the Lords, the bowing of an officer as he approached the table, with its wigged clerks, and other matters of ceremony illustrated my readings of Parliament business in olden times.

One figure especially I now recall—that of Sir Charles Wetherall, a fierce opponent of reform. Up he rose, violently gesticulating, his shirt very visible between his black waistcoat and dark nether garment.

The coronation of William IV. and Queen Adelaide indicated a change in that august ceremonial, which showed how reform touched royal pageantry. Though an instance of a double coronation, it came short of the elaborate display when the previous monarch sat alone in Edward’s chair. I saw the procession going down to Westminster, along a narrow street at Charing Cross—old-fashioned shabby shops standing where now you catch sight of palatial hotels—old Northumberland House, with its gardens, occupying the space now become a broad avenue. The beefeaters, the trumpeters, and the footmen in attendance upon the gaudy state-coach, with its royal occupants, were very picturesque. And what a crush there was to avoid the mob streaming down from the Haymarket!

All sorts of reports were afloat, tending to make the new king popular. It was said, that immediately after his accession, he came to town in the dickey of his carriage, and invited, after an unceremonious manner, his old naval friends to come and dine with him. A story went the round with rare applause that, after the defeat of the Reform Bill, when he wanted to dissolve Parliament, he said if the royal carriages could not be got ready, he would go in a hackney coach. How far such tales were true I do not know; but a nobleman, present at one of His Majesty’s dinner-parties at the Brighton Pavilion, told me that, on that occasion, the king toasted some of his guests in sailor fashion, and remarked that his seafaring pursuits had scarcely fitted him for a throne. Then, pointing to the queen, he added that for any improvement in his ways he was indebted to that good lady. The story raised him in my estimation and that of many others.

I must now turn from politics and royalty to what was more in my own way.

The Rev. Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, stood high amongst London Evangelicals as Vicar of Islington, and I sometimes heard him in his crowded church; but my great delight was to walk down to Camberwell to listen to Henry Melvill, then in the zenith of his popularity. His manner was peculiar—he had a curious shake of the head, and a strange inflection of voice at the end of a sentence, which kept up attention. As to style, he was artificial in the extreme; every paragraph seeming to be planned on the same model, ending with the words of his text as a well-turned climax. The preacher swept his auditors along with the force of a torrent from point to point. I heard him at Barnes, when he was advanced in life, deliver one of his old discourses, I should judge little, if at all, altered; but it lacked the fire of early days, and the congregation evinced little of the sympathy which seemed to quiver in London churches at the sound of his voice twenty or thirty years before.

Rowland Hill, though a very old man in 1830, continued to fill Surrey Chapel with a crowded audience. I listened to a sermon in which he recommended young people when they set up house-keeping to secure one piece of furniture especially—i.e., the looking-glass of a good conscience, so that husband and wife, keeping it clean, might see themselves in it, with joy and thankfulness; “for a good man is satisfied from himself,” and, he added, “so is a good woman.” John Angell James, of Birmingham, was one of the most popular preachers at that time, and he occasionally occupied Surrey Chapel pulpit; but William Jay, of Bath, was a more regular “supply,” and echoes of his sonorous voice I still catch as I read his pithy and impressive sermons. When he came to preach Rowland Hill’s funeral sermon I had left college, and he honoured me with an invitation to preach for him at Bath the Sunday following. In 1886, when I occupied the same pulpit in my old age, a lady told me that she remembered my being there more than fifty years before, when the people wondered at their pastor’s sending “such a boy to take his place.” A similar occurrence had happened when Jay first preached for Rowland Hill.

James Parsons, of York, was a frequent visitor to London, and used to occupy for several Sundays in the year the pulpit of Moorfields Tabernacle, and that of Tottenham Court Chapel. Congregations gathered an hour before service to listen to this youthful preacher. He had been educated for the law, and, with a strong taste for rhetorical efforts, had cultivated, by the study of English authors, his own extraordinary gift for public speaking. Almost inaudible at first, his voice would gradually rise into tones shrill and penetrating; and after repeated pauses, when people relieved themselves by bursts of coughing, he would, during his peroration, wind them up to such a pitch of excitement as I have never witnessed since. He was thoroughly evangelical and devout, and did an immense deal of spiritual good. I became intimately acquainted with him in after-years, and found in his friendship a source of much enjoyment. His conversations in the parlour were as full of anecdote and humour as his sermons in the pulpit were of pathos and power. I have heard a member of Parliament, one of his deacons at York, say that Mr. Parsons’ eloquence in early days was perfectly electrifying, and that, as he listened to him at that time, he felt as if he must lay hold on the top of his pew to prevent being swept away by the force of the preacher’s appeals.

Edward Irving occupied the Caledonian Church in Hatton Garden, a retired and ugly-looking Presbyterian meeting-house; but the nobility flocked round him, and it was picturesque to see Scotch schoolboys in Highland kilts placed in front of the pulpit. As I was trying to get in at a side door, up walked the gigantic orator, with his black locks and broad-brimmed beaver, as if an old Covenanter had risen from the dead. An infant lying in the arms of that strong man added to the effect of the picture. His manner at that period was grand. His sermons were carefully prepared and read, every word, but with a blended majesty and pathos which no extempore utterance could exceed; and his reading of the twenty-third Psalm, Scotch version, was inimitable. His favourite word, “Fatherhood,” quoted by Mr. Canning with admiration, and now so hackneyed, impressed religious people wonderfully by its freshness. A fellow-student took me some time afterwards to call on him at his house in the then New Road. He was unwell and sat by the fireside wrapped in a blue gown. He talked to me for some time on the subject of baptism, the right understanding of which, he said, was a key to many theological questions. I could not assent to all he said, nor indeed understand it, but did not dare, at my age, to make any reply. When he had ended he slowly rose from his chair. It seemed as if he would never finish rising, he was so tall. When erect, he waved his hand to a nursemaid, who was walking across the room with a babe in her arms, and then, placing his hand on my head, he offered a solemn intercession, suggesting the idea of a Hebrew prophet blessing a young Israelite.

At a later period he took up peculiar views on prophecy, and on some ecclesiastical points. Then he became wild and incoherent. I heard him preach outside Coldbath Prison to a few bystanders, very differently from what he had done in Hatton Garden. He seemed to have lost unction as well as thoughtfulness and eloquence. On a cold winter morning, before breakfast, several students and myself walked down to his new church in Regent Square to witness “the gift of tongues,” which, amongst other imaginations, he believed had been miraculously bestowed. The building was dark, for the sun had not risen, and the mysterious gloom heightened the effect of the exhibition which followed. First arose inarticulate screams, then exclamations of “He is coming!” “He is co-m-i-ng!” drawn out in marvellous quavers. What appeared to me inarticulate and incomprehensible sounds, were regarded by him and many people as Divine utterances. They deemed them the return of Pentecost—a gift of tongues. At London Wall Church I saw him afterwards arraigned before the presbytery for heretical opinions touching the Lord’s humanity. He fought his battle manfully; and whatever people might think of his sentiments, they could scarcely fail to be impressed with the sincerity and earnestness of the man. The trial issued in his expulsion from Regent Square—poor fellow! It is touching to think of his history; popularity was his snare. It turned his head; yet, after all, he sacrificed that very popularity to sincere convictions. His latest life was an instance of martyrdom for conscience’ sake. Those who condemn his opinions must honour the man.

Dr. Chalmers came to preach at Regent Square. After the benefit derived from his printed sermons, I might well desire to hear his voice. The pitch of excitement to which he wrought himself up surpassed everything of the kind I ever witnessed. His vehemence was terrific, yet all seemed natural. He was John Knox over again—John Knox in manner, more than John Knox in thought and eloquence of expression. He moved on “hinges,” as Robert Hall said, or rather, “like a cloud, that moveth altogether, if it move at all.” The fact is, he felt what he was saying. It went down to the depths of his own soul, and hence it reached the souls of others. The crowd in the church was immense, numbers standing all the time; yet it was curious to learn that the sermon was already in print—in print, I believe, years before. He often redelivered his discourses, even after publication; and Dr. Wardlaw of Glasgow told me his distinguished neighbour informed him, that he tried to lessen the crowds at church by announcing that next time he meant to deliver what they had heard already. “Yet,” with a childlike simplicity the old man added, “they come in still larger numbers than before!” Not many preachers are troubled in that way.

At the time now referred to, religious services were not multiplied as at present; hence great interest was taken amongst London Congregationalists in what were called “Monthly Lectures,” given by ministers who carefully prepared what they delivered. Three come back to my recollection now. The first, in Jewin Street, was delivered by Dr. Collyer, a popular divine, who attracted the notice of royalty, and had the Dukes of Kent and of Sussex to hear him. I knew him well in after-days, when he spoke of friendly intercourse with him, vouchsafed on the part of Queen Victoria’s father. The subject of the doctor’s lecture was “Our Colonial Empire,” and a felicitous text was selected from Ezek. xxviii. 14–16. He urged on his audience the claims of distant colonies, then much neglected; and he painted vivid pictures of England’s commercial wealth and vast possessions, insisting strongly on our national responsibilities. The second I remember was in Claremont Chapel, from the lips of my tutor, Dr. Halley, on the importance of intercessory prayer, showing its place in Church history, as a pivot on which turned events of unutterable importance. A third, at Bermondsey, was delivered by a minister of great pulpit gifts, named Dobson, who discoursed on the topic of the final resurrection. I am not in the habit of saying the former days were better than these, yet I may be permitted to express my opinion that those three lectures would bear favourable comparison with the best productions in Nonconformist homiletics at the present day. Among venerable forms present at these lectures, to officiate or listen, were Dr. Winter, of New Court, now covered by buildings sacred to the law, a man of high repute, stout in figure, and strong in opinion; and Dr. Pye Smith, spare, attenuated, ethereal in presence, Melancthon-like in spirit, and as full of learning as Melancthon, with scientific knowledge which entitled him to the place he held by the side of accomplished geologists. I may also mention James Stratten, of Paddington, who had an eagle’s eye, and a combination of face, voice, thought, and style which rendered him unique amongst preachers,—like Rembrandt amongst artists—rich in lights and shadows. Nor should Dr. Fletcher, of Stepney, be forgotten, whose purity of thought, felicity of diction, and depth of evangelical sentiment attracted large audiences. The Claytons were well-known members of this goodly fellowship. How these and other names are passing out of remembrance!

Looking back to “sixty years since,” I am struck with the difference between certain aspects of Metropolitan Nonconformity presented then, and others familiar now. Indeed, a similar state of things is obvious when we turn to the religious history of other great cities. Citizens then for the most part lived in London. Westminster and the opposite side of the Thames saw, on Sundays and week days, in the same neighbourhood both the poor and rich. Thus pious families exerted an immediate and constant influence where they lived, and my remembrance of Metropolitan domestic life then is intensely gratifying. There were happy homes in London where now want and misery abound. Organised district work goes on, but it is a poor substitute for the presence of godly and philanthropic people in their own homesteads, coming in constant contact with those who needed sympathy and help.

Efforts were not wanting for the benefit of London on the part of Christian people in general. The City Mission had then been recently founded, and students in Highbury College lent a hand in work amongst the poor. I remember a district in existence, called Saffron Hill, full of old tenements now swept away. Some fellow-students went with me to the spot on a Sunday afternoon, and we preached from a doorstep, while women looked down from their windows, and perhaps men below were smoking their pipes. Drury Lane was a dirty, neglected neighbourhood; and, in a room hired there, we conducted a service on Sunday nights. Sometimes disturbances arose, but the work went on. Nor were certain districts in the country round London neglected. There we preached and visited the aged sick, praying by the bedside, and ministering such instruction and comfort as we were able.

Public religious meetings in those days were comparatively rare, and the style of speaking was different from what it is now—more ornate, with apostrophes and appeals of a kind which has vanished away. The annual Bible gathering was held in Freemasons’ Hall, the floor covered with a closely-packed audience. A passage was partitioned off on the left hand side for the access of speakers to the platform, who were eagerly watched, and loudly applauded, as they approached, their heads amusingly bobbing up and down as they quickened their pace. The diminutive William Wilberforce, eye-glass in hand, his head on one side, came skipping along; Dr. Ryder, Bishop of Gloucester, with big wig, and smooth apron, followed at a more dignified pace; Cunningham, Noel, and other evangelical celebrities were sure to be present. Rowland Hill, by his quizzical look, and humorous tongue, could not fail to make a mark; and Burnet of Cork, who afterwards became pastor of the Independent Congregation, Camberwell, was a vast favourite, his rising to speak being a signal for loud cheers. There he would stand, calmly extemporising sentences which exactly hit the occasion, and the audience—all eyes turned towards him—upturned faces seeming, as he said, to resemble “a tesselated pavement.” He liked to compare North and South Ireland with one another, as showing the contrast between a Bible-reading and a Bible-ignoring population.

After Exeter Hall had been opened there arose a tremendous controversy about Unitarians and the Bible Society. Some well-known speakers could not get a hearing, and the scene on the platform was terribly confused, until Rowland Hill rose and put the assembly in good humour, by remarking that he “would accept the Bible from the hands of the devil; only he would keep him at a distance, and take his gift with a pair of tongs.”

In the same place anti-slavery meetings were held. I remember one in particular when, besides Buxton and Mackintosh, O’Connell and Sheil were present. Mackintosh spoke with philosophical calmness. O’Connell was full of invective, satire, and pathos; one moment terrific in denunciation, then heart-melting in tones of sympathy; now stamping with his foot, and laying hold of his scratch wig, as if he would tear it in pieces; next, with gentle whispers, drawing tears, or creating laughter. Sheil, in a torrent of declamation, was carried off his legs, borne along by his own impetuosity, completely overmastered by himself; whilst his Irish friend never lost self-control amidst most violent storms of passion.

Some time afterwards, I listened to Lord Brougham in the same hall on the same subject. He was then past his best days, but flashes of oratory, full of satire and invective against the party he had left, burst forth in a long speech, which, as chairman, he delivered in the middle of the proceedings, to the interruption of previous arrangements. It was, I suppose, by no means equal to his earlier efforts, but enough remained of thunder and lightning to remind one of his eulogised resemblance to Demosthenes.