The Death of Christian Britain

— The Death of Christian Britain —
was not the machinery for the moral elevation of a town population.
The people were let alone. Some of the elders of the Tron Church
were excellent men, but their chief duty was to stand at the plate,
receive the free-will offerings of the congregation as they entered, and
distribute them to the poor by a monthly allowance. Their spiritual
duties and exertions were but small. 41
The aggressive system changed this, leading evangelicals to self-sacrifice. In
the age of refined sensibilities, good taste and decorum, it called for doing
things and going places that could be repellant or deeply embarrassing. In
1853, a minister in Belfast recalled his resistance to the congregation’s expectation
that he would preach in the streets of the city: ‘It appeared a lowering
of the gospel to proclaim it in the street – an act of personal degradation
to stand in the open air and preach to any who might stop to hear’. But
he agreed to do it: ‘Looking at it more closely, however, I felt that
Christianity is essentially aggressive, that its command is, “Go out into the
streets and lanes, and highways, and hedges”.’ He recalled his first attempt:
I shall never forget my first effort, when I stood on a chair in the
street surrounded by two or three dozen persons, and took off my
hat to commence worship. I felt, for the first time, what it was to be
ashamed of the gospel. Some passers by looked to laugh, others to
pity; others looked to condemn as utterly demeaning to the preacher
and hearer; but others, thank God, looked to listen, and, I believe,
went away to love and pray. The first laugh I heard I wished myself
at home, and my courage well nigh gave way; but when I finished
the singing, had closed my eyes, and had poured out my soul in prayer
to God for the outpouring of his Spirit and the assistance of his grace,
I did not ask in vain, – all fear fled, all shame vanished, and I never
preached the glories of the gospel with greater pleasure to any people
or in any place. 42
Open-air preaching became a fixed feature of the mid- and late nineteenthcentury
city. The site of the Great Exhibition in Kensington in 1862 was
described as having ‘a moral grandeur thrown around it’ because two
preachers (one a former navvy and ‘admirably adapted for the work’)
preached to the building workers every lunchtime and distributed tracts. 43
The work of evangelising the very poor in British slums often lacked
the lustre of other Christian activities – notably, for the adventurous, the
overseas mission. A poem challenged why an evangelical should be idle:
Ah, why indeed? It maybe, thou art seeking
For something great to do, beyond thy sphere;
To preach, perhaps, in some remoter region:
And yet thou carest not for sinners near. 44
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