Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

Beside the London Mansion House there is a Church with two truncated square towers-the stumps of amputated steeplessuggesting St. Mary Woolnoth, and St. Mary Wool-Church-Haw. What is transacted in it now we cannot tell; but could the reader have visited it fifty years ago, he would have seen in the heavy pulpit a somewhat heavy old man. With little warmth he muttered through a pious sermon-texts and trite remarks-till now and then some bright fancy or earnest feeling made a stiff animation overrun his seamy countenance, and rush out at his kind and beaming eyes.

'Being let go, they went to their own company." "" This brings up Hannah More and her book on the "Manners of the Great;" and the minister expresses his high opinion of Miss More. Some of the party do not know who she is, and he tells them that she is a gifted lady who used to be the intimate friend of Johnson, Horace Walpole, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the idol of the West-end grandees, and the writer of plays for Drury Lane; but who has lately come out with some faithful appeals to her aristocratic acquaintances on the subject of heart-religion, and which are making a great sensation. From the Lombard Street" Aweel," says a Scotch elder from Swalbankers and powdered merchants who lolled low Street, "Miss Moore is very tawlented, serenely at the end of various pews, it was and I hope has got the root of the matter; evident that he was not deemed a Metho- but I misdoubt if there be not a laygal dist. From the thin North country visage twang in her still." And in this remark which peered at him through catechetic spec- he is heartily seconded by the spectacled tacles, and waited for something wonderful Calvinist from Lesmahago, who has been which would not come, it was likely that he present all the time, but has not ventured was a Calvinist, and that his fame had cross-to speak till he found in front this Ajax ed the Tweed. And from the fond up- with his Westminster shield. And the milooking affection with which many of his nister smiles quaintly in acknowledgment hearers eyed him, you would have inferred that they are more than half right, but rethat himself must be more interesting than peats his admiration and his hope for the his sermon. Go next Friday evening to accomplished authoress. And then he opens No. 8, Coleman Street Buildings; and his Bible, and after singing one of the Olney there in a dusky parlor with some twenty hymns, reads the eighteenth chapter of the people at tea, you will meet again the Acts. "You see that Apollos met with two preacher. He has doffed the cassock, and candid people in the Church; they neither in a sailor's blue jacket, on a three-legged ran away because he was legal, nor were stool, sits in solitary state at his own little carried away because he was eloquent.” · table. The tea is done, and the pipe is And after a short but fervent prayer, cathosmoked, and the Bible is placed where the lic, comprehensive, and experimental, and tea-cup was. The guests draw nearer the turning into devotion the substance of their oracular tripod, and the feast of wisdom and colloquy, it is as late as nine o'clock, and the flow of soul begin. He inquires if any the little party begins to separate. Some one has got a question to ask; for these re- are evidently constant visitors. The taciunions are meetings for business as well as turn gentleman who never spoke a word, for friendship. And two or three have but who, at every significant sentence, come with their questions cut and dry. A smacked his lips as if they were clasping a retired old lady asks, "How far a Chris- casket over a gem, and meant to keep it, tian may conform to the world?" And the occupied a prescriptive chair, and so did the old sailor says many good things to guide invalid lady who has ordered her sedan to her scrupulous conscience, unless, indeed, Bedford Row. In leave-taking the host has she asked it for the sake of the young gen- a kind word for every one, and has a great tleman with the blue coat and frilled wrist- deal to say to his north-country visitor. bands across the table. "When a Chris- was a wild beast on the coast of Africa; tian goes into the world because he sees but the Lord caught me and tamed me, and it is his call, yet while he feels it also now you come to see me as people go to look his cross, it will not hurt him." Then at the lions in the Tower." Never was guiding his discourse towards some of his lion so entirely tamed as JOHN NEWTON.* City friends: "A Christian in the world is Commencing life as a desperado and dreadlike a man transacting business in the rain; naught, and scaring his companions by his he will not suddenly leave his client because peerless profanity and heaven-daring wickedit rains; but the moment the business is done he is gone; as it is said in the Acts,

*Born 1725. Died 1807.

“I

ness, and then by his remarkable recovery | his own friend Cowper, who was not a prosignalizing the riches of God's grace, you fessed divine, no letters of that stiff centumight have expected a Boanerges to come ry read so free, and none have preserved out of the converted Buccanier. But never the writer's heart so well. was transformation more complete. Except We might have noticed others. We the blue jacket at the fireside, and a few would gladly have found a place for the Hon. sea-faring habits-except the lion's hide, and Rev. W. B. Cadogan, a name still dear nothing survived of the African lion. The to Reading, and another illustrious excepPuritans would have said that the lion was tion to the "not many noble." We should slain, and that honey was found in its car- have sketched John William Fletcher, that case. Affable and easy of access, his house saintly man and seraphic minister. And it was the resort of those who sought a skilful would have been right to record the services spiritual counsellor, and knowing it to be of Joseph Milner at Hull, and his brother the form of service for which he was best Isaac at Cambridge. It was by his Church fitted, instead of fretting at the constant in- History that the former served the cause of terruption, or nervously absconding to some the Gospel; and it was a great service to write calm retreat, his consulting-room, in Lon- the first history not of Popes and Councils, don's most trodden thoroughfare, was always but vital Christianity, and write it so well. open. And though he was sometimes dis- Isaac brought to the defence of the Gospel appointed in those of whom his confiding na- a name which was itself a tower of strength. ture hoped too soon, his hopefulness was the The "Incomparble" Senior Wrangler, and very reason why others turned out so well. gifted with a colossal intellect, he was nerThere was a time when Christian principle vous and indolent. In the Cathedral was a smoking flax in Claudius Buchanan of Carlisle he preached from time to time and William Wilberforce; but on Newton's powerful sermons, which made a great imhearth, and under the afflatus of God's pression, and the known identification of Spirit, it soon burst forth in flame. And if the Vice-Chancellor with the evangelical his conversation effected much, his corres- cause, lent it a lofty sanction in Simeon's pondence accomplished more. His narra- university. But he was remiss and shy, and tive is wonderful, and his hymns are very seldom came out publicly. He ought to sweet; but his letters make him eminent. have been a Pharos; but he was a lighthouse Our theology supplies nothing that can rival with the shutters closed. A splendid illuthem; and it is when we recollect how mination it was for his niece and Dr. Jowmany quires of these epistles were yearly ett, and a few favored friends in the lightissuing from his study, that we perceive keeper's parlor; but his talents and princiwhat an influential and useful man the rec-ples together ought to have been the light tor of St. Mary's was. Many volumes are of the world. Nor have we enumerated in print, and we have read others in manu- the conspicuous names in Wesleyanism, and script. All are fresh and various, and all the old English Dissent, and the Countdistinguished by the same playful sincerity, ess of Huntingdon's Connexion-any one and easy wisdom, and transfusive warmth. of which would have supplied a list as long, All are rich in experimental piety, and all and in some respects as remarkable as that radiant with gracious vivacity. The whole now given. Nor have we specified the sercollection is a "Cardiphonia." They are vices of eminent minds among the laityall the utterance of the heart. And they such as Cowper, who secured for evangelism will stand comparison with the happiest ef- an exalted place in English literature; and forts of the most famous pens. For exam- Wilberforce, who introduced it into Parliaple, take up the Life and Correspondence of ment; and Hannah More, who obtained an Hannah More, and how artificial does every audience for it in the most sumptuous thing appear alongside of John Newton! drawing-rooms, and by her tracts pioneered Here is one of her own bests pecimens, re- its entrance into countless cottages. These ligious and sparkling, a jet of spiritual cham- all fulfilled a function. Cowper was the pagne. And there is the effusion of some first to show how purest taste and finest laudatory bishop, slow and sweet, like a genius should co-exist with warmest love cascade of treacle or a fall of honey. But to Jesus Christ. His Task, and Hymns, here, midst labor and painful art, is the and Letters, were the several arches of well of water surrounded with its native a bridge, which has since been traversed by moss; nature, grace, wisdom, goodness- Foster, Hall, and other pilgrims, who showed John Newton and nothing more. Except plainly inspiration in their steps and heaven

in their eye. Wilberforce, by the combinedly become his curate, and serve him gratis." movements for the Reformation of Morals Soon after this purpose had been passing and the Abolition of Slavery, set the ex- through his mind, through the influence of ample to the great philanthropic institu- his father he found himself minister of tions of our day; and the ascendency won Trinity Church, one of the largest places by his personal worth and enchanting elo- of worship in Cambridge, and where, for quence, supplied the nucleus round which upwards of fifty years, he proclaimed the Bible and other Societies were easily gather- salvation which he himself had found. The ed. And the moralist of Barley Wood, by career of opposition and obloquy which he the sensible tone of her "Cheap Reposi-ran passing off into universal esteem and tory," and her educational victories among homage, from the time that a gownsman the young savages of Cheddar, gave an ac- would blush to cross the quadrangle in his tive and useful direction to feminine piêty. company, till bishops were calling on him, Besides all which, her clever and pointed three together, and till that bleak Novemessays helped to expose hollow profession, ber day, when the mourning University and turn on evangelical motives in channels bore him to his tomb, beneath the stately of self-denying industry. The connecting roof of King Henry's Chapel-the triumph isthmus betwixt the old "Duty of Man," of faith and energy over long hostility, and Romaine's "Life of Faith," may be may encourage other witnesses for obnoxfound in the "Practical Piety" of Hannah ious truth, and is amply detailed in Mr. More. Carus' bulky volume. We only wish to inIt was on the close of a century thus pre-dicate the particular work which we believe pared, and in the University in fullest con- that Mr. Simeon did. Filling, and eventtact with English mind, that God raised up ually with great ascendency, that commandCHARLES SIMEON.* The son of a Berk- ing pulpit, for more than half a century, shire squire, and educated at Eton, he was and meeting in his own house weekly scores sent to King's College. Being warned that of candidates for the Church of England he would be expected to communicate on ministry-we do not hesitate to say, that the first Sabbath after his arrival in the of all men Simeon did the most to mould University, and shocked at his own obviousį the recent and existing evangelism of the unfitness, he instantly purchased "The Southern Establishment. And in his first Duty of Man," and strove to prepare him- and most fervent days-untrammelled, beWith little success. But subsequent-, cause persecuted and unflattered, he did a ly an expression of Bishop Wilson, in his noble work. The impulse which he then book on the Lord's Supper-" the Jews gave was purely evangelistic, and men like knew what they did when they transferred Thomason, and Henry Martyn, and Daniel their sin to the head of their offering," sug- Wilson, were the product. But as he got gested to his mind the possibility of trans- older and more honored, when he found ferring guilt to another. The idea grew in that in the persons of his friends and puhis mind till the hope of mercy became pils, and through his writings, he had bestrong, and on Easter Sunday he awoke come an important integral of the Eswith the words," Jesus Christ is risen tablished Church, if he did not become less to-day; Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” After evangelical he became more hierarchical. this vivid dawn, the hope of salvation con- He still loved the Gospel; but the Church tinued strong within him; but he was three was growing kind, and he was coaxed into years without finding a single friend like- a more ardent episcopacy and more exact minded. On the eve of his ordination, he conformity. The Church was actually imhad serious thoughts of putting in the proved, and personal acquaintances mountpapers an advertisement, That a young ing the bench put a still more friendly face clergyman, who felt himself an undone sin- on it. He began to hope that evangelism ner, and who looked to the Lord Jesus would prevail among the clergy, and that Christ alone for salvation, and desired to they might prove, if not the sole, the most live only to make him known, was persuad- successful agency for diffusing the Gospel. ed that there must be some persons in the And strong in this belief, he began to blush world whose views and feelings accorded at the excesses of his youthful zeal, and inwith his own; and that, if there were any culcate on his student-friends reverence for minister of that description, he would glad- the Rubric and obedience to the Bishop. He bought patronages and presentations, and bestirred all his energies to form a

self.

* Born 1758. Died 1806.

when Simeon himself lived in them, they are now too many and exceeding dry.

As presiding over a school of the prophets, Simeon's great defects were a want of grandeur in his views, and the absence of a gravitation-centre for his creed. His pupils might come forth sincere and painstaking parsons; but, overladen with truism and shackled by routine, they were not likely to prove venturesome missionaries or bold and original evangelists. His own propensity was more for well-divided sermons than for a theology newly inspired and anew adapted to the times. He loved to open texts; and it was rather to the sermon-fishery than to the field of battle that he sent his young divines. His outfitpresent was not a sword but an oysterknife; and if the "evangelicals" whom Arnold met were Simeonites, we do not wonder that they failed to command his reverence.

ministry evangelical but regular, episcopal | however vigorous or affecting they might be but earnest. Volunteering his services and accepted by the under-graduates, he became virtual Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology to the University of Cambridge. In fulfilment of this task, he inspired no grand ideas. His mind was not telescopic. He did not look to the Church universal's long future, nor to the position of his own Church relatively to Christendom. But he looked to England as it then was, and as he assumed that it ever would be; and he looked out for new Bishops and advowsons in the market and present openings for an Evangelical clergy-the painstaking overseer of his own repairs, but not prophetic enough to foretell the alterations that would be eventually needed, nor creative enough to suggest them. The minds of his respectful listeners were not stimulated by the proposal of great schemes and noble purposes; even as they were not invigorated by fresh and sublime presentations of familiar truth. And he One thing must not be forgotten as taught no system. He loved every text and shedding lustre on his Christian memory. dreaded none, and gloried in laying on each He had continual heaviness, and great sosuccessively an equal stress. According licitude for Israel; and as he mightily to his text, a hearer might imagine him helped to awaken throughout the evaneither Calvinist or Arminian, High Church-gelical Church a missionary zeal on their beman or Low. To evade no text and exag- half, so in his dying thoughts, like the gerate none was his object; and this was well: but we rather suspect that the Bible contains pervasive principles, prepollent and over-mastering truths, and that a firm hold of these is very needful for the interpretation of the individual texts. And of this we are very sure, that no energetic ministry nor wide reformation has ever arisen without one or other of these cardinal truths as its watchword and rallying-cry. In Simeon's Theology there was nothing equivalent to Luther's Jehovah-Tsidkenu, or Wesley's golden sentence, "God is Love.”

Lord himself, he earnestly remembered them still. And in the recollectedness and deep humility of that dying scene, there is something greater and more solemu than any obituary which we have read for many days. During his long and active life-disinterested, peremptory, and singleeyed, he approved himself a faithful servant of his blessed Master. But the greatest good which he effected, we are disposed to think, is what he did directly, and still more what he did early. To our judgment he is not one of those men who can be But if not grand he was earnest, and if widely or long transmitted. Already is not comprehensive he was orderly and me- all that was impulsive in him dying out, thodical. A man of routine rather than of and we fear that some who exceedingly system, he was a pattern of punctuality admired him once are forgetting what he and neatness in his person, and a model of taught them. And his own last days, we clear and accurate arrangement in his fear, were not quite so impulsive as his sermons. He liked to see work well done, first. An ancient University and a hierarand was therefore tempted to do too much chical Establishment are to a fervent Evanhimself. To ensure the preaching of a gelism like those Transatlantic lakes which good sermon, whatever the text might be, are lined with attractive gravel. A stout he actually printed for the guidance of arm, starting in deep water, may row a ministers twenty dense volumes of Helps to goodly distance; but as it nears the banks Composition. Only think of it! and only or skims the shallows, the boat will be think of the parishes which get these slowed or arrested by the spell in the spectral Helps as regular sermons! This water. It would appear that even Simeon Homiletic Bone-house contains no fewer at last felt to some extent the influence of than twenty-five hundred "skeletons," and this magnetic mud.

From Howitt's Journal

MEMOIR OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

BY MARY HOWITT.

Ar the moment when Hans Christian Andersen is in this country, we believe that we cannot present to our readers a more acceptable gift than an excellent portrait and memoir of this extraordinary, man. Whether regarded as the human being, asserting in his own person the true nobility of mind and moral worth, or the man of genius, whose works alone have raised him from the lowest poverty and obscurity, to be an honored guest with kings and queens, Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most remarkable and interesting men of his day. Like most men of great original talent, he is emphatically one of the people; and writing, as he has done, principally of popular life, he describes what he himself has suffered and seen. Poverty or hardship, however, never soured his mind; on the contrary, whatever he has written is singularly genial, and abounds with the most kindly and universal sympathy. Human life, with all its trials, privations, and its tears, is to him a holy thing; he lays bare the heart, not to bring forth hidden and revolting passions or crimes, but to show how lovely it is in its simplicity and truth; how touching in its weaknesses and its shortcomings; how much it is to be loved and pitied, and borne and striven with. short, this great writer, with all the ardor of a strong poetical nature, and with great power in delineating passion, is eminently Christian in spirit.

In

It is a great pleasure to me that I have been the means of making the principal works of Hans Christian Andersen known, through my translations, to the British public; they have been well received by them, and I now hasten to give our readers a slight memoir of their author, drawn from the True Story of his own Life, sent by him to me, for translation, and which is just now published by the Messrs. Longman. The portrait which accompanies this was kindly lent to us, for the use of our Journal, by Carl Hartmann, a young German artist of great promise, now residing at No. 7, Stafford-row, Buckingham Gate, and who also is a friend of the poet.

The father of Hans Christian Andersen was a shoemaker at Odense. When scarce

ly twenty, he married a young girl about as poor as himself. The poverty of this couple may be imagined from the circumstance that the house afforded no better bedstead than a wooden frame made to support the coffin of some count in the neighborhood, whose body lay in state before his interment. This frame, covered with black cloth, and which the young shoemaker purchased at a very low price, served as the family bedstead many years. Upon this humble bed was born, on the second of April, 1805, Hans Christian Andersen.

The father of Andersen was not without education; his mother was the kindest of human beings; they lived on the best terms with each other, but still the husband was not happy. He read comedies and the Arabian Tales, and made a puppet theatre for his little son, and often on Sundays took him out with him into the woods round Odense, where the solitude was congenial to his mind.

Andersen's grandmother had also great influence over him, and to her he was greatly attached. She was employed in taking care of a garden belonging to a lunatic asylum, and here he spent most of the summer afternoons of his early childhood.

Among his earliest recollections is the residence of the Spaniards in Funen, in the years 1808 and 1809. A soldier of an Asturian regiment took him one day in his arms, danced with him amid tears of joy, which no doubt were called forth by the remembrance of a child he had left at home, and pressed the Madonna to his lips, which occasioned great trouble to his pious mother, who was a Lutheran.

In Odense at that time many old festivities were still in use, which made a deep impression upon the boy, and were as so much material laid up in his richly poetical mind for after use, as all who are familiar with his works must be well aware. His father, among other works, industriously read in his Bible. One day he closed it with these words: "Christ became a man like unto us, but a very uncommon man!" at which his wife burst into tears, greatly distressed and shocked at what she called "blasphemy." This made a deep impres

« VorigeDoorgaan »