THE

SWORD AND THE TROWEL.

JUNE, 1881.

The Last Sunday in Surrey Chapel.

THE SUBSTANCE OF AN ADDRESS BY VERNON J. CHARLESWORTH, DELIVERED ON THE SABBATH BEFORE THE CHAPEL WAS

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FINALLY CLOSED.

Y the services of to-day the history of this time-honoured sanctuary will be brought to a close. These doors, which have opened upwards of fifteen thousand times-thrice every Sunday-will be shut for the last time when we go. our way to-night. This spot, over which angels have hovered ready, on swift wing, to bear to heaven the record of the triumphs of the cross; and to which three generations of the faithful have repaired for Christian worship and service-this spot will soon be covered with other buildings devoted either to commerce or to manufacture. Though we could have wished that reverence for the sanctuary had triumphed over the imperious demands of Cæsar, we must rejoice that the chapel has fully subserved the purpose for which it was originally designed.

But while the structure must disappear, its history will remain as a sacred heritage, and many will find example and encouragement in the record of the facts which made the name of Rowland Hill honoured, and established the fame of Surrey Chapel throughout Christendom.

Vast as are the changes which have been effected during a hundred years, the spiritual necessities of the people have not lessened. This district, which was covered with open fields a century ago, is now

crowded with houses teeming with a population numbering tens of thousands, many of whom are living without the fear of God before their eyes, and in a moral condition which ill accords with our boasted civilization. Every argument by which Rowland Hill justified his mission when he purchased this site may be urged to-day with more than its former emphasis, and the call which summoned him to a life of self-sacrificing duty may be heard above the din of the traffic which disturbs our worship,-"Son, go work to-day in my vineyard."

Surrey Chapel was born of the great Methodist revival which asserted the liberty of Christian service. The Reformation had unsealed THE BOOK for the people, and Bible readers threw off the shackles by which priestcraft had held them in bondage; Puritanism had opened the sanctuary, and worship had regained its spirituality; Methodism was then needed to quicken into activity, and to direct powers which clerical officialism had despised, but which the great Head of the church required as ordained auxiliaries in promoting the extension of his kingdom. Divine truth, spiritual worship, and sanctified service struggled for and won their freedom, and each of these events we have named became, in turn, the Ararat of an emerging economy, and the Horeb which opened. up a fuller revelation. From these, as starting points, men went forth to win greater triumphs in the name and for the kingdom of the Saviour, and our thanksgivings abound for the priceless heritage of an open Bible, liberty of worship, and the recognized priesthood of believers. From this pulpit the truth of the gospel has been proclaimed by trumpet-tongued evangelists; within these walls a pure worship has been maintained, and from the fellowship of the church assembling here holy men have gone forth to serve the Lord Christ" in the spirit of a noble consecration.

Its first pastor was a man of no common type both as to genius and devotion. Educated for the ministry of the Established Church, he found the ecclesiastical restraints imposed upon him were calculated to impair his usefulness, so he cut himself adrift to labour within a parish whose boundaries were defined by the coast lines of the United Kingdom. With the cross for his centre, he claimed "all the world" for his sphere of service. When he erected this chapel he stipulated for six months' freedom every year, that he might labour in the provinces. Nor did his congregation suffer during his absence, for his place was filled by the most prominent ministers of the day, who sustained the work for a month in turn. All parties profited by the change, and the unity of the evangelical brotherhood received a welcome illustration.

It never occurred to Rowland Hill that "dulness is holy, and solemn stupidity is full of grace," hence he consecrated even his talent for humour to the service in which he was engaged. Ignorance and malice have done their best-or worst-to obscure his character by a traditional reputation; but he was no merry andrew in the pulpit, and never comported himself in any other way than that which became a Christian, a minister of the gospel, and a gentleman. He was intensely real, and loathed all affectation. Any expedient to which he resorted to compel attention or to command success was as natural to him as though he had kept to the methods enjoined by duly authorized rubrics. That he was deemed eccentric does not surprise us; but the fault was

not his, but theirs whose circles were struck from other centres than the cross, and embraced areas wider than the warrant of the word. "Sent with God's commission to the heart," he made everything subservient to this end, and consecrated all he was and all he had to the service of the Saviour.

If his preaching lacked the breadth of modern theology, it was because the narrowness of the Bible was sufficiently broad for the compass of his creed, and the dicta of inspired men of more value than the conjectures of an unsanctified philosophy. What if he did preach rambling sermons when his natural faculties were impaired by age, and his time engrossed by the cares of his office; his worst enemies never charged him with wandering from the gospel. The divine blessing rested upon his preaching as a sacred benediction, and the moral wastes around became as the very garden of the Lord. Societies still exist to attest the power of the gospel he preached, and cover with a network of sacred agencies vast areas once closed to the missionaries of the cross. The Religious Tract Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the London Missionary Society were amongst the products of the revival in which Rowland Hill played so conspicuous a part. For many years the annual missionary sermon was preached from this pulpit, and no more interesting or important event was considered to claim attention during the May meetings.

The Sunday-school movement, which, starting in various centres, soon covered the land, found as devoted an advocate in Rowland Hill as in the Gloucester journalist, and about a dozen schools owe their existence to the genius and self-consecration of the pastor of Surrey Chapel. During the erection of this building, he frequently gathered the children together, and interested them in the truths of the Bible, and his last appearance in public was in connection with the Sundayschool anniversary.

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To say that he was a live man," as our American neighbours designate one unusually in earnest, is only to utter a part of the truth: he was "all alive," and "always alive," and sustained and directed the organizations he wisely projected for reaching all classes of the community. Whether addressing a fashionable drawing-room audience convened by the Countess of Huntingdon, or talking to the arabs of St. George's Fields or the Mint, he never failed in the task. His versatility was only equalled by the intensity of his convictions, and his resolutions never failed for lack of the devotion necessary to give them effect.

From the time when he was a schoolboy at Eton, and gathered his schoolmates together with the hope of winning them to Christ, down to the close of his career at the age of eighty-nine, he never shrank from the duties which his office involved and to which he had received an indisputable call. His last experiences formed a fitting close to a life of unwearied toil in the service of the Saviour. "I have no rapturous joys," he said, "but peace: a good hope through grace, all through grace." And the hope he cherished, and which proved his solace and his stay to the last, passed into full fruition when the summons came: "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." By his express wish his mortal remains were deposited in a