The G. Campbell Morgan Archive

CHAPTER SEVEN

SEEM to remember Dr. Morgan saying once with regard to May meetings that he almost felt like starting a Society for the abolition of all Societies. Certainly the unnecessary overlapping that exists is scandalous. I do not think he has ever cared to be prominently associated with many societies, however good their objects. He has had his own work, and has stuck to it; never seeking to be President of this and vice- President of that, and a leading speaker at anniversary meetings. I have heard him make charming little speeches when brethren who were his friends were being honoured, but he will not be remembered as an orator, or as a popular platform man. You might as well expect the Governor of a College to be noted for his amateur theatricals.
ery rarely has he talked of himself. Towards the end of 1936 an attractive lantern lecture was given at Westminster Chapel by the well-known photographer, Mr. Walter Stoneman, and somehow Dr. Morgan, who presided, was actually prevailed upon to give twenty minutes to "Reminiscences". I look at my shorthand notes and marvel at the interesting material he crowded into that short time. H; began with a memory of the home at Cardiff during the years 1870 and 1871. "In that room," he said, "I first preached. I had one living person in my audience, and quite a number that were not alive. I preached regularly there week after week and time after time to my sister and her dolls. It was then that there was born within me the passion to become a preacher.
"y father was a preacher, and, I do not hesitate to say, a great preacher. My greatest joy in those days was to go with him to hear other preachers. I think most of those I heard were Methodist preachers, which may account for much, although my father was not a Methodist. The names that come back to me are those that will not be known probably to many: Richard Roberts, Morley Punshon, Gervase Smith, Mr. Rattenbury, the grandfather of Dr. J. Ernest Rattenbury. I also clearly remember hearing Newman Hall. Across the years I remember the keen delight with which I used to listen. It was thus that the passion for preaching took possession of me."
e spoke of his first sermon, the circumstances under which he left the Jewish school, to which I have referred. "So," he continued, "I found myself thrust out. I had no resources. I had had to give up the idea of going to the University. I had no money with which to go to any theological institution. I have never been to one. I have been the President of one-but perhaps that needs no special training!"
r. Morgan was Principal of Cheshunt College, Cambridge, for three years. "I went forth," he continued, "into the evangelistic field. I took my first series of meetings for a week, conducting two meetings a day. I was entertained happily and comfortably in a home. At the end of the week my host gave me an envelope and said, 'Your travelling expenses are there and anything over you will keep for yourself.' The expenses totalled 4s.7d. for a return ticket from Birmingham. The whoIe contents of the envelope was the sum of ten shillings!" He mentioned his evangelistic work in connection with the Methodist Church. "I had joined them," he said, "because of their love and passion for evangelism, although I had not been born or born again in that Communion.
n the midst of my evangelistic work, a Congregational Church at Stone in Staffordshire asked me to become their minister. I accepted the invitation and thus entered the ministry by irregular methods. The Holy Spirit often does irregular things that are nevertheless regular in the economy of God.
" owe my acceptance by the Congregational Union to Dr. Charles Berry. My ministry then began at Stone, rightly named so far as my experience is concerned. Rugeley, a happy smaller country Church with a loving band that gave me time for reading and thought. Thence I passed to Birmingham, the Westminster Road Church in Handsworth in '93, where I spent a happy time. Then in '97 to New Court, London."
aving spoken of his coming to Westminster, and the many years he spent in the States, Dr. Morgan concluded: "My last reminiscence is that of a visit to England in 1932, a quiet talk in a beautiful study with Hubert Simpson, too sacred to say much about, and I came back. I may and will say that nothing would have brought me back other than that talk with him, a saint of the Most High, by whose side it was a joy to stand. I came, desiring to help him." In November, 1936, came the celebration of his diamond jubilee as a preacher. In that same year two other outstanding men attained their diamond jubilee- Dr. J. Scott Lidgett and Dr. Dinsdale Young. "Dr. Morgan," says Dr. Ferrier Hulme, "would have been a Methodist minister, too, but for the interposition of one or two of his intimate friends, who were not as wise and far-seeing as they thought they were. However, God has His own way of overruling the mistaken judgment of man, and causing it to turn out for the greater good of His Church."
t the great Diamond Jubilee Meeting, Lord Craigmyle, who presided, said: "Come with me into the circle of my intimate friendships. My hearers, one of God's greatest mercies to me has been that He has chosen for me among my most valued friends in life, great divines; eminent, scholarly, truly spiritually-minded and profoundly reverent men, to company with whom was a veritable inspiration. Shall I make so free as to recall from among them three great souls? Robert Rainy; my heart burns within me when I pronounce his name; Alexander Whyte, the father of many spiritual children still living on his teaching, and cherishing his memory; Fairbairn, of Oxford, whose eloquence was like a searching flame. These three men, mighty in Scriptures, march in my mind and memory through the years. In these latest happy times they march not three, but four deep. Who is the fourth divine? I declare he is their kindred spirit and of the same enriching and accomplished quality of friendship and of mind. His name is Campbell Morgan."
r. John Hutton said London was in no doubt as to the quality of Dr. Morgan. "He stands for what men are coming to see they desperately need. He has obeyed the Pauline instruction and example: One thing I know, and one thing I do." Dr. Sidney Berry spoke in warm affectionate terms for the Congregational Church, and the Rev. C. Ensor Walters, the President, for the Methodist Church; Dr. Charles Brown for the Baptist Church.
ow brief and simple was Dr. Morgan's reply to all the good things that had been said about him: "I notice how all my brethren have claimed me, and that is a great joy," he said. "I have been a Methodist Local Preacher. I am a thoroughly convinced and unrepentant Congregationalist ecclesiastically. I have had the joy of being a Presbyterian minister, and I have been brought up in my early years in Baptist surroundings.
"ooking back over the sixty years, to quote the Psalmist's words, if I am a wonder unto many, I am a greater wonder to myself. I am an on-looking man, and am far more concerned with the great future than with the past, that whatever remains of service should be to the glory of Him Whom I love and have tried to preach through the sixty years. I thank God for the sixty years, in which God has never failed me."
n a recent sermon which I heard at Westminster, Dr. Morgan had a question to ask, though he said he tried to get away from it, and somebody ought to answer it. In the new Bible as Literature he can understand why the genealogies have been left out, but why, Oh why, he asked, have the wise-acres who prepared it left out the Letter to the Ephesians? "If anybody can explain," he said, "let them come and see me, but don't let them come guessing, for I can do all the guessing that is necessary!"
o! No one has ever expected guess-work at Westminster Chapel. The veteran preacher has expounded, in many volumes, practically the whole of the Bible. He would gladly go on doing it for another sixty years. And as he flashes his torch on this word and that, the man is forgotten in the wonder of the Book and the beauty of his Lord.
hen, years ago, Dr. Morgan was bidden God-speed on his first departure for Northfield, Dr. Joseph Parker said in his presence: "The one ministry that will last and be as fresh at the end as it was at the beginning is a Biblical and an expository one. Mere anecdotes fail and exhaust themselves; the word of the Lord abideth for ever."
think here of the poet Cowper's ideal preacher:
Would I describe a preacher . . .
I would express him simple, grave, sincere, In doctrine uncorrupt, in language plain,
And plain in manner, decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impressed Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look,
And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.

" have endeavoured to speak the things I how," says Dr. Morgan himself. "I have many doubts, I have many questionings. There are certain departments of theological thought in which I find myself utterly at sea. I never take them into the pulpit. Sometimes the truths I have tried to teach have all been expressed in one of the sweetest verses in the whole realm of hymnology:
I worship Thee, sweet Will of God,
And all Thy ways adore,
And every day I live I seem
To love Thee more and more."
hat is there one can add to that? Nothing at all. Except that we who owe him so much pray that his life of praise may be prolonged, and that at eventide it may be very light.
THE END