in the seven or eight decades of work for the master by john chambers and his alumni, besides those who have finished their work on earth and whose names i do not remember, not having known them, or known them but slightly, there are others, preachers of the gospel, probably twenty or more, still in active career. it is interesting to look down the list of those who are, with the writer, fellow alumni of the first independent church, and to see also in what varied paths of service they follow the master. in the list of eighteen christian ministers known to the writer, six are presbyterian, two are methodists, three baptists, two congregationalists, and three episcopal. the first of those attracted to the gospel ministry by the pastor was thomas irvine, who died about 1827 or 1828. the second was the rev. charles brown, who united with the church october 1, 1826, and was ordained june 30, 1833. thus began, in true apostolical succession, a line of prophets of the good word of god.
it was one of the unanswerable proofs of the genuineness of john chambers's christianity, that he taught the religion of jesus as something more than a set of opinions, or even of convictions. he showed us all how to agree to disagree, to be friends, and keep "the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace", even when we could not see eye to eye. he cared very little what denomination "his boys" entered as preachers of the gospel. what he rejoiced in was their bearing witness to christ. intense as he was, in his ethical earnestness and in the reality of religion, tenacious of his own ideas as is ivy to the wall, he accorded the same liberty[131] of conscience and action to others that he allowed himself. in this, our leader was large minded as well as big hearted. i am inclined to think that his real generosity of mind and breadth of theological sympathy were greater than those of many laymen, whose mental view and habits have long been fixed. for an absolutely judicial opinion on this subject, i should trust the men in the pulpit rather than those in the pew. if this view seems a novelty, let us turn to the rev. dr. edgar levy, the venerable pastor of the berean baptist church of west philadelphia. now over four score, he united with the church about 1835. he said at the semi-centennial or jubilee of may, 1875:
"dr. chambers has always been the counsellor and friend of young men. what pastor ever had the power of drawing around him, to the same extent, the young men of our city? eternity alone will disclose the army of young men who have lighted their torches at this altar, and who have gone forth to enlighten and save a dying world.
"many of these young men have entered other denominations; but our pastor never seemed otherwise than glad that they had found fields of usefulness in other directions. his only concern seemed to be that they might be true men, useful men, faithful to god and to duty. and here, i cannot refrain from an allusion to my own change of church relations, as illustrative of his generosity. when i felt called upon to leave this home of my youth and unite with another people who bear a different name, i called on him to tell him of my purpose. and while he could not accept of my views, i shall never forget with what a largeness of heart he took my hand in both of his, and bade me go and preach the everlasting gospel to perishing men."
our great teacher was a man of continuous spiritual growth, in his old age ripening in the wisdom that helped[132] and in the faith that makes faithful. some things were seen by himself more clearly when god had given him the perspective of experience. this was so notable, that it excited the surprise of those who remembered only the former fiery days. he became less impetuous and abusive of his enemies. one alumnus writes, "a few years before his death, i asked him (dr. chambers) why he had fallen away from his strenuous and frequent utterances in behalf of total abstinence. he replied that experience had taught him that to make a man 'every whit whole' was almost as easy as to save him from a single evil habit, or to correct a single fault, and that he had come to feel that the utterance of a complete gospel was more necessary than preaching temperance. i think that this showed mr. chambers to be a less narrow-minded man than he had sometimes appeared to be".
his nephew writes: "after i graduated at college in 1866, i went to the union theological seminary and visited him a number of times. i was not quite clear about entering the presbyterian ministry. he urged me to do so and told me confidentially the plans to get his own church into the presbytery before his death. when i asked him how he could advise me to subscribe to the westminster confession when he could not do it himself, he said: "my son, i can swallow some things now i could not forty years ago"!
in a word, john chambers saw as clearly as whittier:
"the letter fails and systems fall,
and every symbol wanes;
the spirit overbrooding all
eternal love remains."
with prophetic eye he perceived also that "the individualism of the middle of the nineteenth century" was soon to belong to the past, and that unity and co-operation were[133] to prevail over competition and independency. yet to suppose john chambers was ever a sectarian would be to misjudge him wholly. his very life breathed out the prayer:
"o lord and master of us all!
whate'er our name or sign,
we own thy sway, we hear thy call,
we test our lives by thine."
during the last decade of his life dr. chambers withdrew somewhat from public speaking outside of his own pulpit. about four years before his death came a stroke of paralysis which somewhat weakened him. his physician was the celebrated specialist and author who, like dr. oliver wendell holmes, has enriched both science and literature. dr. s. weir mitchell. the patient was particularly touched by the tender solicitude of his quaker friends, whose meeting house on twelfth street was just across from his home. on recovery he sent out to his host of enquiring friends a circular containing his thanks in print as follows:
a card from the rev. john chambers.
"for many days my mind has been exercised how i could in the most christian and modest way reach the eye and ear of a very large number of friends whose solicitude for my restoration to health and continued life has been so marked. i have concluded that a simple card, sent out through the press, from an honest heart, would be acceptable to all.
first, then, i owe a debt of undying gratitude to the ministers of the prince of peace, who came like doves to the windows of my tabernacle with the inquiry late and early: 'how is he; any change for the better?'
again my gratitude is due to a large number of god's israel, who called again and again without any other object[134] than to know whether the light was beginning to burn brighter in the house of sorrow. how christian-like was this!
then, again, i wish to acknowledge, as best i can, my debt of gratitude to that large class of my fellow-citizens, beginning with the learned jurist and reaching down to the humblest man of toil. in this enumeration i take more than ordinary pleasure in including a large number of the society of friends, especially the members of the twelfth street meeting. while memory lasts those fond inquiries of old and young will not be forgotten. kind words never die. as to my own beloved people i may say of them, as jesus said of the faithful woman: 'they have done what they could'. there has been nothing left undone to relieve the anxiety of a pastor's heart.
the press, too, has been most kind and generous, for which i thank them. nor can i pass unnoticed the eminent services of my physician, s. weir mitchell, m.d., whose skill and devotion, under god, have brought me into a state of convalescence.
glorious christianity! how unlike all other systems of religion.
john chambers.
philadelphia, march 28, 1871."
on reaching his seventy-sixth year, in 1874, the young people of the congregation planned a delightful surprise, of which he thus told, at the semi-centennial of his pastorate: "they converted these two figures '7—6' into gold dollars, and they presented me the '76' beautifully made up of gold dollars, containing one hundred and eleven in all."
"the glory of young men is their strength" and hope. it would hardly be fair to expect an old man of seventy-two, who had borne the heat and burden of the day, and was already broken in health and by many sorrows, to feel as[135] hopeful and buoyant concerning things at the end of the earth as a young man not yet thirty. yet none more than himself felt humiliated and took rebukes gladly, when he realized that he had not honored his master by as large a measure of faith as he ought to have done.
late in 1870, just before leaving for japan, to which country i had been invited by the lord of echizen, to organize the education of the lads of his province according to occidental principles and in modern methods,[10] i called on my old pastor to receive his blessing and take farewell. always hearty in his welcome and kindly in his interest, i felt that his faith was not as strong concerning the educational and missionary conquest of the far east, as his preaching and long-continued interest had led me to expect. as with the war for freedom and national life, so in the war for the everlasting kingdom, it seemed to me he took a too local view of a great subject. i was genuinely surprised that, instead of heartily cheering me, he seemed to discourage me. he spoke gloomily of the vast masses of untouched heathenism and said that anything i could do was only as a drop in the bucket.
[10] see verbeck of japan, chapter xi.
nevertheless, by the grace of god, i intended to make that drop tell, and i felt that what man could not do, god would. i entered the japan, in which no native christian dared then to make confession of his faith, in which no more converts to reformed christianity than could be enumerated on the fingers of one hand were known, and in which descendants of the roman catholics of the early seventeenth century were still in the crypts, undiscovered yet, even by the french missionaries then on the soil. at that time, 1870, feudalism with its medi?val ideals was the rule of society. a half dozen government schools on[136] western principles, and only one or two of missionary origin, were in their infancy. i went out to live four years in the east, one of them as a lone exile in fukui. this was the japan which verbeck, brown, and hepburn by christian teaching and healing, which satow, aston, and chamberlin through scholarship, and which kido, okubo, and iwakura by political action were reconstructing, and where all the fascinations and horrors of the pagan world were rampant. no life insurance company in america would then insure my life, except at a heavy premium.
when i came back home in 1874, and in the still grandly attended friday night meeting spoke to dr. chambers' people, i told them of christian churches with nearly a thousand members enrolled, of christian schools and hospitals, and of a new japan. i called the attention of the now venerable pastor to this fresh illustration of the truth he had so often proclaimed, how much greater god was than our feeble faith, and how superbly the kingdom of heaven was marching on. after the benediction, a hearty right hand shaken and left shoulder patted in the ancient style, with words of glowing friendship, made for my soul a picture set in diamonds of delight—the last of the great man that has framed itself in my memory.
