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by our colleges; I want you to prove that this is false. You will not do this by saying so, but if you are more humble, spiritual, and zealous, and preach the Gospel more fully, plainly, and faithfully, than before you came to us, they will like our colleges, and support them. It is when young men are proud and conceited in their manner, and metaphysical in preaching, that people are prejudiced against our institutions. Don't you go and affect fine things.. You are not to show off yourself, but to preach Christ and save souls. . . . . Be energetic. . . . . It is the duty of a man to understand his own profession, and it is your duty (as a minister) to understand the Gospel. Sinners are diseased; they are dying. You must go and tell them of the remedy-do it earnestly-urge them to receive it. Do not make them think, by a dull, lifeless style of preaching, that it is of little importance whether they believe in Jesus Christ or not. Tell them they are perishing-urge them to repent and believe immediately; and the more effectually you do this the better people will think of you as a preacher. Your work is to save souls.''-p. 489–491.

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We must not be understood to express the opinion that Mr. Wilson's views of preaching were complete. We do not think so. Much that we have heard, and some things which we meet with in this volume lead to a different conclusion, and we should be unfaithful to our conviction if we did not say as much. In the main, as already stated, they were sound; but the character of his own mind, and the very limited literary advantages which he possessed in early life, disqualified him for duly estimating the higher mental qualities of the preacher. The dread he entertained of metaphysical preaching savoured of this, for the term, as he used it, was descriptive of much that should be cultivated, and which, in due proportion, gives lucidity, without impairing strength or diminishing warmth, to the instructions of the preacher. Why not,' he said, on one occasion, referring to a recent theological work, 'take the whole word of God, without attempting to show how various passages harmonize?' To this defect we, in part, attribute the want of mental power in the pulpit ministrations of the day. This is felt much more extensively than is supposed, and the popular mind of the country is, in consequence, losing its respect for the pulpit. It is breaking loose from the controul which is now more needed than ever, and its confidence will not be recovered without a return to the masculine strength, and genuine scholarship, of a better age. This is deeply to be regretted. How it has happened we stop not to inquire. We note simply the fact, and commend it to the consideration of our readers. Many causes have doubtless contributed to it, amongst which we are compelled to place the influence of Mr. Wilson. An attenuated, artificial,

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and showy style of preaching-not such certainly as he designed, though not unnaturally following in the wake of his counselstriking for the instant, but destitute of the elements of continued power, has in many cases supplanted the more simple, earnest, and manly address, which becomes the pulpit. There is less both of intellect and of heart than there should be, and it need not, therefore, be matter of surprize if the influence of the ministry be greatly diminished. As an instrument of permanently affecting the popular mind, it is clearly unequal to its destination. Whatever qualities it may possess, this is wanting; but there are other topics which must be noticed, and we therefore leave the theme for the present.

There was another defect in Mr. Wilson's views, nearly allied to the one just noticed, and which grew out of the same causes. He did not duly estimate the importance of advanced literary culture, and therefore lent his influence too readily to the early and premature settlement of the students. We do not wish to dogmatize on this point, but we respectfully urge on the tutors of our colleges, and on the committees to which their management is intrusted, whether a serious evil be not inflicted on our younger ministers, and on the churches with which they settle, by allowing, as was formerly not uncommon, the period of study to be abridged, in order to meet the views, and apparent interests of destitute societies. We confess to a strong opinion on this point. The wider our observation has become the deeper is our conviction, that the cases are very rare, in which such settlements have not been productive of evil rather than of good. The present benefit has been purchased by an ultimate injury. The minister has been enfeebled for life, and the church has speedily learned that sufficient time had not been allowed for the formation of habits, and the accumulation of resources, which are imperatively demanded in the present day. The evil is further aggravated by the fact that, the students whose early settlement is commonly sought by destitute churches, are those in whose case it is specially desirable that the full term of initiatory study should be insured. They consist of two classes; those who possess, in an unwonted degree, the secondary qualities of a public speaker, and those who are preeminently distinguished by mental endowments. Now these are just the men who ought to be improved to the utmost; on whose training a liberal expenditure is economy; whom, to stint in early culture, is to injure irreparably for life; and from whose after labours the universal church may anticipate the largest and most gratifying result. To such men it is an act of cruelty to abridge, by a single day, the time of preparatory study, whilst to the churches they serve it is short sighted and most mistaken

kindness. We are glad to strengthen our position by the recorded opinion of Mr. James, who, referring to this feature of Mr. Wilson's public life, says :—

His views of the necessity of ministerial education were correct, but perhaps he was not sufficiently impressed with the importance of its being carried on to any very high degree of classical, philosophical, and scientific acquirement. He admitted that an entrance to the ministry should be through an academic institution, but then the college was viewed too much, or too exclusively, by him as only the door to the pulpit. The education of dissenting laymen, even among the respectable classes, was in his youth not what it happily is now; and he was not, therefore, prepared to appreciate the value of literature from an enlarged acquaintance with it. The same remark will apply to the education of ministers who, when he entered on his career, and for a long while afterwards, had gone back from the standard of their forefathers, and were taught to do good with a much smaller modicum of general acquirement than is now justly considered necessary for the pastors of our churches. He lived to see a vast improvement in his own cherished institution, and, I believe, rejoiced in it If in some earlier stages of his official connexion with Hoxton Academy he erred in attaching too little. value to scholastic acquirements, it was the error, to a considerable extent, of no small portion of the religious public. His influence in the direction of the affairs of the college was, in the opinion of many intelligent observers, too often and too much given in the way of curtailing the already too short term of the curriculum of the students, in order to meet the application of the destitute churches for pastors. He did not consider that it is better for a church to be kept a year or two waiting for a pastor, than that it should be supplied with one whose education is incomplete. It used to be pleasantly said of him, that he had a double anxiety, first to get the young men into college, and then, as soon as possible, to get them out again. In his ardour for the spread of the Gospel and the supply of vacant charches, he occasionally lost his end by precipitancy in furnishing unsuitable men: he was too much guided by number, too little by quality It is sometimes said, that we had better have inefficient ministers than none at all. This leads to a great error. It would be a benefit if many of our churches could be relieved of useless ministers, even though they should remain destitute for years, so that they were settled at last with men likely to do good. Far better is it to have the ground quite unoccupied for any reasonable length of time, than to have it permanently covered with encumbrances.'-p. 574, 575.

There is another topic to which we must advert, and we regret that our limits preclude our doing it full justice. The labours already recorded are far beyond what are ordinarily rendered, and had nothing more been done by Mr. Wilson, his

name would deserve to be had in lasting honour. But in a distinct, though cognate branch of service, his exertions were still more abundant, and entitle him in a yet higher degree to our gratitude and admiration. Never did a man more fully realize the obligation entailed by his Christian profession to live not to himself. Instead of regarding his wealth as the means of personal gratification, or of family aggrandisement, he laid it under generous tribute to the cause of truth, and became thereby a benefactor, in the highest and best sense, of his fellow men. He did not wait to be forced into action, nor was he content with being ready to meet the call of duty. It is a poor and pitiful consecration which some evidence, -a thing of words and idle sympathies,—an outward garb, rather than an inner habitthe negative of evil more than the animated and earnest prosecution of good. It was far different with Mr. Wilson, and in this was his most honourable distinction. He was perpetually seeking for opportunities of doing good. He knew that such existed, and with the sound-heartedness and enlightened judgment of a Christian man, he sought them out. Few, probably, are aware of the extent to which he did so. We had heard much, but honestly confess that our largest conceptions of what he did, fell immeasurably below the truth. From the perusal of this volume we have risen with astonishment and profound respect, and are conscious of an anxiety beyond what we commonly feel that other gentlemen whose circumstances resemble his, should attentively read this record of his labours. Go thou, and do likewise,' is the language it addresses to all such. Would that their hearts may be stirred to a compliance with the divine precept!

It does not appear that the building of chapels formed any part of Mr. Wilson's original plan. Indeed,' remarks his son, 'there is some reason to conclude, from a passage in one of his early letters, that he was not at that time very sanguine in his expectations of great spiritual fruit from the multiplication of chapels then commencing.'

He commenced with Hoxton, where, at a cost of 850l. he erected a larger chapel than the one which had previously existed in connection with the college.* The usual dissuasives were addressed to him on this occasion by the prudent and the worldly. Some, from whom he might have expected aid, assured him that the place would never be filled.' But he

For this chapel, and the several enlargements which took place between 1800 and 1809, Mr. Wilson advanced upwards of 5000l., 'nearly the whole of which, by his own diligent and unremitting attention, had, in 1811, been refunded.'-p. 309.

was too much in earnest to listen to their advice, and the result proved his wisdom. Encouraged by the success of his first effort, he united with other gentlemen in 1808 in erecting Tonbridge Chapel, New Road, towards which he advanced a loan of £1500, that was subsequently reduced to £350, which he generously remitted. Five years afterwards his property was considerably augmented by the death of a relative, and the magnitude of his contributions increased in an equal degree. A sudden augmentation of wealth is a severe trial of character. Many have failed before it, and instead of augmenting their donations, have withdrawn such as they were previously in the habit of giving. 'Happily,' says Mr. Joshua Wilson, in my father's case, habit had come in aid of principle. He had been too much accustomed to do good, and had tasted too deeply of the pleasures of active beneficence, to be in so great danger from this temptation as he might have been at an earlier period of life.'

In 1813, the year in which his property was increased, 'he gave orders, on his own sole responsibility, for the erection of a spacious chapel, with school-rooms in the basement,' at Paddington. The contract for the building amounted to £4925, and he purchased the freehold in the following March for £779. The sum expended by Mr. Wilson on this erection greatly exceeded £7000. Of this amount, £5178 10s. 4d. remained due in 1835, and was then most generously reduced to less than one-half.

Claremont Chapel, at Pentonville, was another of Mr. Wilson's erections, and he proceeded in it with the same nobleminded generosity. It cost upwards of £7000, and was opened September 24th, 1819. Of the sum advanced Mr. Wilson ultimately gave £500, and the balance due to him was discharged in February, 1834.* Only two years after the opening of this place of worship he entered into another contract for the erection of one yet larger, in the neighbourhood of Oxford-street, the total cost of which exceeded £11,000. We refer, as our readers will anticipate, to Craven Chapel, respecting which our author justly remarks,

This was my father's last and greatest work of the kind in London, and in no other did he more clearly exhibit that spirit of noble daring and unshaken confidence in God and his cause which distinguished him through life. He had faith in God in habitual exercise, he also

* His rule-a rule to which he invariably adhered-was, to take no interest; but he did expect that the whole, or the greater part, of the principal laid out on his large and costly London chapels should be gradually repaid.'-p. 309.

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