CITY TEMPLE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4430, 26 May 1941, Page 6

CITY TEMPLE

LONDON’S NON-CONFORMIST CATHEDRAL. ITS TERCENTENARY. (By Ludgate.) Amid the terrors and shocks of the greatest war of all the ages the stout-hearted leaders of the City Temple Church, London, have recently celebrated the tercentenary of the foundation of their famous witness, in stone and human spirit, to great principles in Church and State. It is not without significance that the celebration of the work begun by a small group of the Independents, within and without the State church of 1640; should occur when the democracies are fighting just that religious liberty and that freedom from State control in spiritual life for which the men of London and elsewhere suffered in person and pocket 300 years ago. The City Temple Church, built on the Holborn viaduct, is recognised throughout the English-speaking world as the cathedral of Nonconformity. To-day, having as yet escaped complete destruction by Hitler’s bombs, it is the only English Free church still functioning within the golden square mile of the ancient City of London. The great structure was not completed until May, 1874—0 n a site which cost £25,000, and is now worth £1,000,000 —but the “living church” there housed has for three centuries maintained an unbroken witness in buildings and 'pastors in the same city of London. From 1640 it has maintained a succession of pulpit giants and leaders which includes some of the most powerful preachers and thinkers of Free Church Christianity. GREAT PULPIT ORATORS. Its present minister, Rev. Leslie D. Weatherhead, M.A., is known from end to end of the Empire and the United States as a dynamic religious force; a quite brilliant writer, an orator and a thinker holding his own as a “popular preacher”—in the finest sense of that somewhat sneering epithet—with the leaders in all the Churches. The City Temple will ever remain a Congregational church; but Mr Weatherhead is a Methodist. The fact is that when filling the -City Temple pulpit the denominational emphasis has seldom if ever been laid. The “noblest Roman of them all,” Dr Joseph Parker, D.D., was, of course, a congregationalist; but Dr R. J. Campbell prepared for the Anglican ministry, and returned to it after 20 years as a Congregational minister. Another City Temple orator, Dr. Fort Newton, was an American universalist; Dr. F. W. Norwood was an Australian Baptist, and Dr. Maude Royden, for some time assistant minister, is an Anglican. The earliest ministers were, like Thomas Goodwin, the first divine, scholars, university graduates and Puritan members of the Established Church. When the great separationist controversies developed and the now powerful Free Churches were, born, the Congregationalists of England found their most inspiring pulpit exponents in Manchester and London. The tie between City of London Protestantism and Parliamentarianism and what is now the City Temple Church has been close from 1643, when Goodwin was one of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, down to 1941, when a Wea-

therhead helps countless nervewracked citizens to keep courageous and steady under tests which have destroyed the morale of half Europe. City Temple ministers, like their Puritan predecessors, have always had a part to play in English and Dominions history. VERY HUMAN STORY. The story of the City Temple has been told in a tercentenary volume, “The City Temple, 1640-1940,” by Albert Clare, hon. treasurer of the church, with a valiant foreword by Mr Weatherhead. It is a very human story and quite devoid of that humorless eulogy and denominational priggery which render so many religious books irritating and distasteful to cultivated readers. Mr Clare has his quiet smile with us over the exaggerated deference which some early ministers exacted from their congregations; and is not unmindful of that love of good food and a comfortable home which even the most inspired preachers revealed. Moreover, there is an acidity in Mr Weatherhead’s answer to critics of popular preaching “preaching to which the people respond, preaching which grips them. . . . Wherever you have strong, clear, helpful thinking you will have eager people ready to hear .”—which clearly proves that jaundiced jealousy of preaching colleagues of outstanding ability is not unknown among the ministers of all the Churches. JOSEPH PARKER, GENIUS. It does no injustice to “New Theology” Campbell, Dr. Norwood and other distinguished occupants of the City Temple pulpit to say that the man who “made” London’s cathedral of Nonconformity was Joseph Parker, D.D., the .Northumbrian son of a working stonemason, who came to London from a flourishing Manchester church. Like his passionately simple old stone-squaring father, Joseph Parker, had “a gait that might have suggested the proprietorship of the entire solar system.” With the face of an actor, the wild mane of a King Lear and a voice which would penetrate to the farthest corner of the vast church which for a generation was crowded when he preached, Joseph Parker was one of the “sights of London” which no intelligent visitor missed. When he came to London in 1869, •he galvanised the whole institution and transformed a small, steady flame in to a roaring furnace of aggressive and stimulating preaching and ministerial zeal. He started and maintained for 33 years a weekday noon service on Thursdays which drew tens of thousands of merchants and clerks. He founded his own weekly pamphlets and notes in one of which he inserted the following characteristic intimation:— As an arrangement for self-protec-tion, I am driven to announce the following as my charges for general public service; in all cases travelling expenses must, of course, be paid:— Preaching on behalf of salaries of poor ministers—NOTHlNG. Preaching for ministers whose salaries are less than £lOO a year— NOTHING. Preaching at the opening of chapels —six volumes of standard literature. Attending tea meetings—£so. Going to bazaars—one hundred

Serving on committees—£2ooo. Such a man, with exalted moral courage, a tough physique and an earnestness which was transparent, was bound to impress London. When the City Temple was opened in May, 1874, after a successful financial campaign, the Lord Mayor and sheriffs attended in state; and the celebrated Dean Stanley, of Westminster, spoke at a celebration luncheon at Cannon-street Hotel. “It seems to me,” said the dean, “that being present on an occasion of this kind is not only one of the privileges of the Church of England, but I will go further and say it is a bounden duty.” It was Dean Stanley who invited Non-conformist ministers to deliver lectures in the nave of Westminster Abbey. Dr. Parker’s ministry was autocratic though the autocracy of a genius; but his judgments were sometimes wide of the mark. No one ever spoke like him. Thousands who usually never enter a church crowded to hear him. And, as Mr Angus Watson remarks, “among Dr. Parker’s audiences were to be found outstanding statemen and public men of his time.” “No man,” writes Mr Clare, “ever had a greater right to appropriate to his own case the declaration of the great apostle: ‘This one thing I do.’ ” In a generation which knew a Spurgeon, a Booth, a Scott, Holland and a Mark Guy Pearce, Joseph Parker was a prince of preachers, who drew men’s hearts to noble things. “NEW THEOLOGY” CAMPBELL. The accession of Dr R. J. Campbell to the pulpit throne of the City Temple, as Dr. Parker’s successor was a transition from rugged, inspired oratory to the calm, clear, fascinating eloquence of a still young man, with whitening hair and infinite • intellectual charm. This is not the place to recount the history of “New Theology” Campbell, and those spiritual wanderings which ended in the broad bosom of Anglicanism. He filled the City Temple and gave it a new meaning to many perplexed souls. His minstry there lasted thirteen years—years full of achievement as well as controversy. The loyalty of the City Temple authorities and congregation to their minister in this period is reflected in Dr. Campbell’s dedication of bis book “Christianity and the Social Order”:—“To the chulrch and congregation of the City Temple in recognition of the loyalty, charity and liberality of spirit with which they have sustained their minister in his endeavour to present the wider Gospel to the time.” Mr Clare’s owm testimony includes these striking words: “Like the Stranger in Jerome’s ‘The Passing of the Third Floor Back,’ people of the most diverse characters found an indefinable magnetism and enheartening influence in his personality and counsel.” Tribute is paid to Dr. W. Norwood’s wonderful ministry of seventeen years, and Mr Weatherhead’s influence in the religious life of the stricken London of to-day. In 1941 tire City T.emple is still f<xrWard r looking, determined to add its own contribution to a proud record of 300 years. Mi’ Clare’s volume breathes a spirit of rededication to a Great Cause.