CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library BV1085.W72 H68 Life of Sir George Williams, founder of olln 3 1924 029 336 728 " The course of this man's life had been very simple and yet crowded with events and with manifold activity. The element of his energy was an indestructible faith in God, and in an assistance flowing immediately from him. " Goethe. "For whom thanks be to our Lord Jesus Christ." Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029336728 Sir George Williams THE LIFE OF SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS FOUNDER OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION BY J. E. HODDER WILLIAMS "A whole Christ for my salvation A whole Bible for my staff A whole church for my fellowship A whole world for my parish " NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 3 & 5 West 18™ Street, near 5™ Avenue 1906 Copyright, 1906, bv A. C. Armstrong & Son Published, October, 1906 THE UNIVEH8TTT PRESS, CAMBEIDGE, V. 8. A. Wifie 53oofe is iBebtcateb TO THE MEMBERS OF THE YOUNG MEN's CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ON THE CONTINENT OF AMERICA, AND TO TWO OF THEM IN PARTICULAR TO THE HON. JOHN WANAMAKER AND TO JAMES STOKES TWO LIFE-LONG FRIENDS OF SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS PREFATORY NOTE THIS biography has been written at the request of the family of Sir George Williams, and I have to express my thanks to his sons, and particu- larly to Mr. Howard Williams, for placing at my disposal all available papers as well as affording me assistance in the preparation of the book. Owing to the fact that Sir George Williams de- stroyed all his corespondence, and only kept a diary for a short period after he came to London, I have been compelled to rely chiefly upon the reminiscences and co-operation of those who knew and loved him. It would be impossible to acknowledge in anything like detail the help I have received from all quarters, but I take this opportunity of recording my indebted- ness to Mr. Edwin Catford, of Dulverton, to Mr. George B. Sully, of Bumham, and to the Rev. Harry Butler, of Bridgwater, for their kindness in assisting me to picture Sir George Williams's early years ; to Mr. William Creese, one of the twelve first members of the Association, who has taken the greatest interest in the work, giving me the benefit of his recollections of the early meetings, and ensuring the viii PREFATORY NOTE correctness of what is, I believe, the first authentic account of the beginning of the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, in the upper room in St. Paul's Churchyard ; to my grandfather, Mr. M. H. Hodder, a life-long friend of Sir George Williams and among the earliest members of the Association ; to my father, who was for nearly forty years so closely connected with him in business and in private life ; to Mr. Walter Hitchcock and to Mr. Amos Williams. I am indebted to many unknown correspondents who have written to me of the state of affairs in London warehouses at the time Sir George Williams came to London, and especially to Mr. H. W. Wrench, Mr. W. C. Collins, Mr. P. Joyce, Mr. Chas. A. Mace, and Mr. J. H. Norris. Mr. W. H. Mills, Mr. Basil Hewer, and Mr. Frank Howe of the Young Men's Christian Associ- ation, Mr. L. L. Catt, Sir George Williams's private secretary, Mr. Edgar Rowan, Mr. J. G. Oddy, Mrs. Hindley, the Rev. G. J. Hill, the Rev. Nevile Sher- brooke, the Rev. E. J. Jones, the Rev. H. Epworth Thompson, Mr. A. F. Borton, Mr. J. Marshall Bad- ger, Mr. P. J. Whittaker, Mr. A. Greenwood, Mr. R. Poynton, and Mr. J. A. Stacey have, in ways too numerous to mention, helped by placing at my disposal the materials for the composition of this book. In writing of the history of the Young Men's Christian Association I have constantly made use PREFATORY NOTE ix of the excellent Historical Record by the Rev. J. G. Stevenson, M.A. To Mr. W. Hind Smith, who has in the most generous manner given into my hands his unique collection of reminiscences, reports, and original docu- ments ; to Mr. R. C. Morse, of New York, who has spent much time and thought over the chapter deal- ing with the Young Men's Christian Association in America; to Mr. J. H. Putterill, of Exeter Hall, who has accorded me his advice and help thi'oughout the work ; and to Monsieur E. M. Soutter, of Paris, and Monsieur Sarasin-Warnery, President of the World's Alliance, I wish to express my gratitude. My brother, Mr. Percy Hodder Williams, has been at great pains in revising the proofs and has as- sisted me in many ways. To him I tender my warmest thanks. Of what I owe to one other, without whose constant aid and encouragement this work, written " after business hours," would never have been accomplished, I cannot write. She knows. J. E. HODDER WILLIAMS. Bromley Common, Kent. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Pase The Soil and the City 3 CHAPTER K The Spiritual Homeland and the Fathers in Christ 21 CHAPTER III A Young Man from the Country 45 CHAPTER IV The World and a Young Man 67 CHAPTER V The Upper Room in St. Paul's Churchyard . . 95 CHAPTER VI The Early Days of the Young Men's Christian Association 125 CHAPTER VII The World-wide Growth of the Young Men's Christian Association 149 xii CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII Page The Critical Years of the Young Men's Christian Association 175 CHAPTER IX The Years of Progress 203 CHAPTER X The Religion of a Successful Merchant .... 239 CHAPTER XI The Years of Triumph 271 CHAPTER XII From Jubilee to Jubilee 295 CHAPTER XIII Rest * 313 CHAPTER XIV The Master Builder .... 333 INDEX 351 ILLUSTRATIONS Sir George Williams Frontispiece FAcmo PAaE AsHWAY Farm, near Dulverton, the Birthplace of Sir George Williams 8 Sir George Williams's Homeland 16 A view from the window of the farm on the hill The Village Street at Dulverton 32 Showing the Church where Sir George Williams was baptised, and the house where he first went to school. The Mother of Sir George Williams . 40 From, a coloured miniatui'e in the possession of Amos Williams, Esq. High Street, Bridgwater, in which Mr. Holmes's Shop WAS Situated .... 56 Prom an old drawing in the possession of George B. Sully, Esq. The Friends' Meeting-house, Bridgwater 72 Where, at the age of eighteen, Sir George Williams signed the *' Teetotal Pledge." The Bridge across the River at Bridgwater 80 At the end of the bridge now stands the George Williams Me- morial Building of the Young Men's Christian Association. From an old drawing in the possession of George B. Sully, Esq. Sir George Williams as a Young Man 96 The earliest known photograph, taken soon after he entered Messrs. Hitchcock & Rogers's. William Creese and John C. Sytvionds 119 The first Secretaries of the Young Men's Christian Association. Edward Valentine 112 ** My friend Val " — First Treasurer of the Association. xiv ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Edward BEAUsioifT 112 To whom the idea of the Association was first mentioned by George Williams. A Facsimile of the Letter Announcing the Formation OF the Young Men's Christian Association .... 128 C. W. Smith 144 Who gave the name to the Association. Edward Rogers .... 144 One of the twelve original members of the Association. The Original Card of Membership of the Young Men's Christian Association 144 J. H. Tarlton 160 First Paid Secretary of the Toung Men's Christian Association. W. Edwyn Shipton 160 Mr. Tarlton's successor and one of the great organisers of Asso- ciation Work. Helen Hitchcock (Lady Williams) and Sir George Williams (at the Age of Thirty-two) . .... 176 From photographs taken at the time of their marriage. Sir George Williams . 192 From a photograph taken about 1870. Sir George Williams in 1876 196 From a photograph taken during his visit to America, Sir George Williams in 1898 . ... .... 208 Sir George Williams at the Age of Sixty . . . 208 Exeter Hall ... ... . 224 Opened as the headquarters of the Toung Men's Christian Asso- ciation on March 29, 1881. Sir George Williams . . 240 From a photograph taken soon after the opening of Exeter Hall as the headquarters of the Toung Men's Christian Association. Sir George Williams in Court Dress . 272 Photographed on the day he received the honour of knighthood from Queen Victoria. ILLUSTRATIONS xv FACING PAGE The Casket Enclosino the Scroll Conferring the Free- dom OF the City of London on Sir George Williams Presented at the Guild-hall, June 4, 1894 . . . 280 The Funeral of Sir George Williams at St. Paul's Cathedral, November 14, 1905 320 The Last Resting Place or Sir George Williams in St. Paul's Cathedral 328 The Last Photograph of Sir George Williams .... 336 THE SOIL AND THE CITY CHAPTER I THE SOIL AND THE CITY AS they turned the comer and the spire of L. Bridgwater Church rose into view against the evening sky, the boy's heart beat fast. They had come within sight of the end of their journey. And at the journey's end was the beginning of the world. It had been a long ride. Father and son had started in the moorland mist of the early morning from the home hidden among the hills some four miles above Dulverton. They had made their way slowly, for roads were bad in those days, along the narrow cart-track which leads from the farmhouse to the rough country lane, with its treacherous bor- ders of ditch and gully. You will not fail to notice these if you happen to pass this way ; they must be carefully watched if you would escape an ugly fall ; and they are worth some attention, for, as you shall presently hear, they played a strange part in the career of the hero of this book. They rode down the steep hill to Dulverton Church, whose bells were supposed to chime out the quaint rhyme — 4 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS " Old John Wesley s dead and gone, He left us in the tower ; 'T was his desire that we should play At eight and twelve and vower " — and where even now the curfew is tolled morning and night. They passed the house at the head of the narrow village street where the boy had first gone to school, following the road of which you may read in the pages of Lama Doone, where Jan Ridd first caught sight of " a little girl, dark-haired, and very wonderful," across the old stone bridge over the River Barle, through Tennyson's " land of bubbhng streams," and then into that wonderful open meadow-land, which lies on the borders of Somerset and Devon, the like of which exists no- where else in the world. Here the fields are billow upon billow of brightest green, such green as you may only see in the West country, and between the meadows and orchards so " full of contentment," in an almost oriental contrast of colour, lie patches of red earth, earth red as brick, red as the dust of an African desert, sometimes tinged with coral or shaded in chocolate. The chalky road brought them to little townships, sheltering among a cluster of trees, and in the distance, hidden in some unexpected cor- ner, they caught glimpses of those thatched farm- steads, the time-worn homes of the yeomen of old England, where only a few years back you might still hear the thud of the flail on the threshing- THE SOIL AND THE CITY 5 floor. Everywhere was the sound of brooks, and beyond and above rose the grey-brown Brendon and Quantock hills. At last the fertile land was left behind. Late in the day they reached the town of Bridgwater, and came to a halt outside the drapery establish- ment of Mr. Holmes, which stands at the head of the High Street, near the statue of Admiral Blake, that gallant old Republican who fought with equal spirit and glory on land and sea. George Williams was going out into the world. The phrase is so simple that its significance is often forgotten, but it pictures one of the supreme moments of life — a moment as solemn, as critical, as full of joy and sorrow, as birth or death. Sir George WiUiams, as we remember him, seemed to belong to London, to be a very part of the City, as if the noise and dust of its streets had been breathed into him with the breath of life ; but to George WiUiams, the boy of fourteen, Bridgwater, the quiet country town, which the man of the cities would now speak of as belonging to some far-off land of repose — Bridgwater was the world. For the farm where George Williams was born lies at the end of everything, hes on the confines of the country. Its isolation, even to-day, is complete. It is the last farmstead before you reach a pathless moorland, and the loneliness of that land, especially in winter, when the glory of gorse and heather and 6 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS fern has faded and the hills are shrouded in mist, is almost intolerable. True, it was little more than a twenty-five-mile ride from the home on the hills to Bridgwater, but as I stood in the room where George WilHams slept as a boy and looked out on the silent land, rugged, large, and desolate, where the eye searches long- ingly for some sight of man, and thought of the place of his last rest at the very heart of crowded life, I wondered in what terms one might measure the vast country that lies between the farm and the town, between the country town and the Metropolis, between the farmhouse and St. Paul's Cathedral. George Williams was the youngest of the eight sons of Amos and EUsabeth Williams, of Ashway Farm, Dulverton, in the county of Somerset, and was bom on October 11, 1821. The family came of 'generations of yeoman farmers, and to this day, in spite of the ills that have fallen in England upon the men of the open life, the grandchildren of Amos Williams have never lost their affection for the soil; to this day you will find his descendants fighting the everlasting battle upon the land of their fathers against the elements of the Almighty and the stress of foreign competition. Amos Williams belonged to the days when British farming was an honour- able and honoured profession. He lived before the time when it degenerated, as he certainly would THE SOIL AND THE CITY 7 have thought, into a mere business, when machinery and chemistry reduced it to the level of a factory. To his generation farming was almost a form of sport, not, of course, to be taken too seriously, for " no Devonshire man or Somersetshire either ever thinks of working harder than his Maker meant for him," and only in most untoward circumstances would the work on the land be allowed to interfere with the day's hunting. His home was in the heart of the country of the wild red deer and of the hunt- ing farmer; of the famous Exmoor ponies, in build like a miniature cart-horse, in colour " bay or brown mouse," a herd of which was bred by Sir Thomas Acland on old Ashway Farm. Families then lived easily, though without luxury, on the land, while the shadow of the future was as a man's hand in the sky. Wheaten bread was unknown; the food was coarse, though abundant. In many of the farmhouses plates were seldom used. Instead of these the table was carved throughout its length into a series of mock plates, and on these, accord- ing to a recent historian, the meat was placed. Every day the table was washed with hot water, and covers were set over the imitation plates to keep off the dust. It was the custom to serve the pud- ding and treacle first, so as to lessen the appetite and effect a saving in the meat, which consisted for the most part of salt pork. George Williams must have seen in his early boy- 8 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS hood much of the rough and rude side of life. Men were still hanged for sheep-stealing, and smuggling was carried on vigorously in the neighbourhood. The moral state of the lower classes was pitifully low, their habits so degraded and depraved that Devonshire and Somerset were classed in the unenvi- able category of counties presenting the agricultural labourer in his most deplorable circumstances. Cer- tainly the surroundings of George Williams's boy- hood were not calculated to foster false notions of the gross and brutal passions of his fellows. It is often suggested that such a young man as George Williams became must be ignorant of life, innocent of the temptings of the flesh, and in innocence and ignorance finding security. Such a charge could never be brought against the son of a West country farmer. You may be sure that these men of the soil be- longed heart, body, and soul to the old school of traditional Toryism. Their daily round was bound up in a thousand traditions. They were nursed on legends, cradled in the superstitions of the West country. The times, they were forced to admit, were moving. After almost a century of discussion the first Reform Act had been passed. Whispers of Chartism were in the air. But they thanked God that the land, the soil, did not move with the times, and they belonged to the land. A sturdy, courageous, fiery race was this ; slow to move, but terrible when roused. THE SOIL AND THE CITY 9 proud as the king, strong with the strength of moun- tain and moor, a race that had existed unchanged for centuries, but which has been crowded out of existence in less than fifty years by the force of steam and the whirr of machinery. On first acquaintance you might be tempted to judge an Exmoor man, as you might a Highlander, dull-witted on account of his deliberate manner of movement and of speech, but while the shrewdness of the North is proverbial, it may at least be matched in the West, and it is no fancy to suppose that as George Williams grew to boyhood, his father, as keen at a bargain as at following the hounds, realised that the glory was gradually fading from the life on the farm and was not altogether sorry when circumstances suggested another calling for his youngest son. George Williams's mother is remembered in Dul- verton as a small and dainty old lady, simple and charming, who, after her husband's death, caused by the bite of an adder at the comparatively early age of sixty-three, passed her days among her children and children's children: always bright, always sunny, always willing and anxious to help everybody in every possible way. That was the memory I found of her in her own country, and her youngest son would have coveted no nobler epi- taph for himself although he moved in a different and greater world. From his mother George Williams certainly inherited his cheery character, his winning 10 Sm GEORGE WILLIAMS manner; from his father his indomitable will, the tremendous power of quiet determination, and un- quenchable enthusiasm which belongs in special degree to that countryside which fathered the men who, under Blake, defended Taunton for nearly a year against overwhelming odds, who fought and died like heroes at Sedgmoor, and who never quailed or flinched before all the horrors of the Bloody Assizes. It cannot be said that the experience of George Williams's boyhood on the farm played any great part in his subsequent career. It seems, indeed, almost out of place to picture him in suri'oundings that will always be associated with the chase of deer and fox, otter and hare. There is no story to tell of nights spent in study, of splendid dreams and thoughts of greatness among the hills, no record of fierce longings and aspirations or precocious sajf- ings treasured up in family lore. You might sum up these early days in the one sentence: He was an ordinary, though somewhat nervous and highly strung boy, living the rather monotonous and un- exciting daily life of the school and the farm. He was the liveliest member of the household, and, as is often the case in a large family, the youngest son, whose wits had been sharpened by constant contact with his elders, was allowed special license and was particularly smart of speech and quick at repartee. His brothers evidently looked to him to provide the THE SOIL AND THE CITY 11 fun of the farm, and he was ever, ready with some droll story or song when they called upon him as they sat round the great open log fire in the winter evenings. His cheerfulness, indeed, in a country where moroseness has become something more than a pose, is the one thing that seems to have impressed those who can still call his boyhood dimly to mind — that, and the ruddy countenance, the high colour of health, which he only lost during the last months of his hfe. The sons did most of the work of the farm, and when, a few years ago, George Williams visited his early home, he took particular delight in pointing out the path along which he drove the sheep and the cattle to the famous Torr Steps, that relic of a prehistoric causeway across the Barle which lies at the bottom of the hill on which stands Ashway Farm, and how, fearful of ghosts and goblins — for the weirdest superstitions abound in this neighbourhood — he used as a boy to call to mind the old story of the way in which the devil himself built the bridge for a wager. Tennyson records a visit to these steps — "if it were only to see them the journey is worth while " — and his son describes how de- lighted the poet was with the sight of the tawny cows cooling themselves in midstream, of the green meadows leading to Ashway on one side, and of the great wooded slope which faces the farm. George Williams obtained his first education at 12 Sm GEORGE WILLIAMS the hands of Mrs. Timlett, who kept an old-fashioned dame school in Dulverton High Street. It was a rough four-mile ride from Ashway, and one of his earliest recollections was of riding to school in the early morning behind one of the farm hands, tightly clasping the man's leather belt. At an early age he was sent to Gloyn's Grammar School at Tiverton, the town of the two fords — following that same road from Dulverton which Jan Ridd describes as " not very delicate, yet nothing to complain of much — no deeper indeed than the hocks of a horse ex- cept in the rotten places." This is not the actual establishment described in the first chapter of Lorna Doone, but Blackmore, who drew the picture from the remembrance of his own school days, must have come to Tiverton only a year or two after George Williams left, and there can be little doubt that Gloyn's and the famous " school of Blundell's " had much in common. School life was hard and harsh everywhere then, and Tiverton had a reputation for roughness — it was Archbishop Temple who told how at Blundell's he used to chastise Blackmore by striking him on the head with a brass-headed hammer — so that it is no wonder that George Williams's recollections of those days were for the most part of privation and suffering. From time to time Amos Williams would ride over to Tiverton to visit his son, and in this connection a story is told of another farmer from the neighbourhood of Dulverton who, THE SOIL AND THE CITY 13 on one occasion, took the father's place and in part- ing with the boy gave him a shilling. George Wil- liams never forgot, and many years afterwards, when the farmer's son came to London and applied for a situation at the house in St. Paul's Church- yard, the head of the establishment recognised the name and went out of his way to give the young feUow an excellent position, inquired constantly after his welfare, and did everything in his power to advance his prospects. George Williams's religious upbringing as a boy was of the type that sufficed for the country farmer, then, as now, a determined upholder of all the tra- ditions of Church and State. He was baptised and confirmed in the Church of England, and attended Dulverton Church with his family at somewhat irreg- ular intervals. No one can be charged with preju- dice in suggesting that the Church at that time had sunk very low. It was the day of the sporting par- son, who was a sportsman first of all and last of all, a man upon whom the responsibility of a cure of souls weighed with amazing lightness, a day of the driest husks of religion. A typical clergyman of the West country in the days of George Williams's boyhood has been pictured by Whyte Melville in his Exmoor story Katerfelto, the scene of which is laid close to George Williams's home. " Parson Gale," he says, " was one of those ecclesiastics who looked upon his preferment and his parish as a layman 14 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS of the present day looks upon a sporting manor and a hunting box. There were few men between Bodmin and Barnstaple who could vie with the parson in tying a fly, tailing an otter, handling a game- cock, using the fists, cudgelling, wrestling, and on occasion emptying a gallon of cider or a jack of double ale. And to these accomplishments must be added no little skill in doctoring and some practical knowledge of natural history. It is not to be sup- posed that the Rev. Abner Gale found much time for those classical and theological studies, to which he had never shown the slightest inclination." The religious atmosphere, of which so much is heard to- day, was unknown to George Williams's early boy- hood, and often he must have seen the prizes for the village sports displayed within the church itself, the white hat decorated with ribbons in the place of honour by the reading desk, and have joined the procession led by the parson to the village green, where the wrestling and running matches were held immediately after the Sunday morning service. It was a time of great stirrings and strife in the Church, a time when England was in the throes of a new birth, religious, social, and political, and soon after George WilHams left school the sound of these things reached Dulverton. The feehng of expectation and unrest penetrated even to the farm on the hill. The family was outgrowing the home. The great polished table, the pride of every West THE SOIL AND THE CITY 15 country housewife, was overcrowded. The over- worked land yielded more grudgingly ; prices ruled high when the farmer bought and low when he sold. One of the sons was thinking of starting a business for himself at Dulverton, and round the family board there was no small discussion as to George's future. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he took up the work of the farm in earnest, but the brothers were not altogether satisfied with the way he was shaping. Had he, after all, the making of a farmer in him.? For some reason he did not take kindly to the land, it actually seemed as if the love of the chase had npt been bred in his bones. The desire for the larger hf e — a feeling almost inex- plicable to the true British farmer who, to this day, in spite of all his grumblings, is unable to conceive how any sensible creature can choose the town when he might live on the land, and who even now, as I myself have heard, wonders what a man can find to do with himself all day long in London — was be- ginning to stir his fancy and dominate his dreams. And then, as he would tell in after years, a load of hay and a rut in the road settled the question. George was leading a cart of hay home to the rick in the yard. The clouds were coming over the hills and everything was being pressed forward to escape the storm. He was not watching his horses with the necessary care — one would like to imagine that he had lost himself in visions of great work in the 16 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS future, but he himself has admitted that he could find no such excuse and that the accident arose from pure thoughtlessness — and in a moment the cart was overturned and horses, hay, and the boy were in the ditch. That, said the father and elder brothers in solemn conclave, ends the matter once and for all. George will never make a farmer. He is fit only for the town, and to town he shall go. In their judgment they could not have meted out a more severe punishment. It was a sentence of banishment. The brother in Dulverton was consulted, and sug- gested that George might be apprenticed to a draper with whom he was acquainted in Bridgwater. And outside this draper's shop father and son drew rein on this evening in the summer of 1836. George Williams had entered the world. This book, which is a tribute to a man of the city, a man who for more than half a century worked day and night in the crowded, throbbing shadow of the Cathedral, raised upon the very heart of the world, begins then with a tribute to the man of the soil, to the soil itself. We know a little of the falseness of the picture of simple life on the land so beloved of poets and a certain class of social reformer ; we have learnt something of its sordid side, of the meanness of its petty interests, of its viciousness, its narrowness, and the tragedy of an endless struggle to wake a tired soil into fruitful o a THE SOIL AND THE CITY 17 activity. But we men of the smoke and grime, of the narrow, noisy street and stifling warehouse, realise, too, how intolerable a thing this feverish life of ours will be for the children of those whose blood has never been purified by the rare, keen air from a thou- sand hills, whose sinews have never fought their way to strength and toughness against the wind and the storm, whose whole being is builded on the Hnes of least resistance. The men from God's out-of-doors, these are the men who have done and will do the great things for God and man in the world of the strenuous Hfe. Watch how the children's children are paying the price of the city born and you will realise what a mighty part physical force is playing in this fight for existence. Look out for the man who has the brain of the city in the body from the country; he is the man who wins. From the bleak wilds of the North and the open lands of the South, day by day men are still pouring in to the cities and towns, all dowered with the supreme gift of good health, still pouring in as they did seventy years ago when George WiUiams arrived in Bridgwater. George Williams owed something to the soil, more perhaps than he admitted to himself, for he was a townsman bred if not bom, a man with all the in- stincts of the city. None who knew him could fail to be impressed by his extraordinary physical energy, by his power of endurance even to the end, by the mighty reserves of force that lay in the little frame 18 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS and held disease at bay and again and again defied even Death. He took no exercise, no recreation. He never attended to his bodily well-being or comfort. He laughed at any suggestion of harbouring his strength. From morning till night, throughout the years, he toiled with body and brain, taking no thought of health, ignoring, it seemed, the simplest precautions, stretching and straining every nerve to its utmost limit, allowing himself no moment for recuperation. And yet he lived to be eighty-four, and crowded into his life the work of ten. God-given this power was, we know, but some- thing of its secret lay in his " Exmoor toughness," in the deeps of his chest and the mighty capacity of his heart and lungs, in that splendid inheritance from the men of the moors, from his boyhood on the hills. THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND AND THE FATHERS IN CHRIST CHAPTER II THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND AND THE FATHERS IN CHRIST I ENTERED Bridgwater a careless, thoughtless, godless, swearing young fellow " — thus George Williams made confession in after years. He left Bridgwater an earnest, enthusiastic, whole- hearted worker for Christ and His Kingdom. The change was wrought very quietly. It was the outcome of no sudden shock of emotion, no visible upheaval of spirit. George Williams had, it is true, an unswerving faith in the efficacy of " religious excitements," as the old preachers called them. In his time he witnessed many such revivals, at which multitudes were stirred, as by the voice of a prophet, into an agony of abasement and terror, when the Spirit strove openly with men and demons were pub- licly cast out. He took a personal and prominent share in some of the most wonderful of these missions. He was largely instrumental in arranging for Moody and Sankey's campaigns, and one of his last public appearances was connected with the work of Messrs. Torrey and Alexander. But he himself was not 22 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS called by earthquake, fire, or great and strong wind. He was the child of the still small Voice. Of the first two years spent with Mr. Holmes, the Bridgwater draper, we know little, except that the boy was uniformly attentive to his duties in the shop, a favourite with the other apprentices, and remark- ably successful behind the counter, particularly in serving lady customers. In some inexplicable man- ner this farmer's son was bom to the business, his knowledge and taste were intuitive. One of the as- sistants. Miss Thomas, who afterwards married George Williams's friend and fellow-worker, Mr. Beaumont, of Oxford, recorded some years since that her memory of the young apprentice was of a re- markably active, ruddy-faced boy, very diligent and persevering, and especially clever at haberdashery. In his spare hours he would make up lists of every detail he could lay hands on as to prices and cus- tomers, and his pockets were generally filled with business papers of all kinds. In those days the drapery trade was not often specialised in departments. The country apprentice had to begin at the beginning and enjoyed the enor- mous advantage of being compelled to learn every detail of the business. As the youngest and last comer George Wilhams swept out the shop, ran errands, and filled his time with odd jobs of various kinds. There were twenty-seven assistants in Mr. Holmes's house, for he was the principal draper in the neigh- THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 23 bourhood, and all " lived in." It is not a little curi- ous that the old custom which prevailed in London in the time of Dick Whittington, of forming the employees in a drapery establishment into a kind of large family, has survived all these years. The system has many crying disadvantages, is open to much abuse, and is rapidly passing out of favour, but in the case of a master who regarded his re- sponsibilities with just seriousness it was not without compensations, for in such instances there was a wholesome element of control and discipline in the arrangement. The hours of work were excessive, and the morals and conversation of many of the assist- ants in the Bridgwater shop anything but inspiring. Still there was in this establishment a definite re- ligious atmosphere, due no doubt to the influence of Mr. Holmes, who was a regular attendant at the old Zion Congregational Chapel, and whose custom it was to insist that all the members of his staff should attend his own place of worship each Sunday morning. A clause to this effect was included in the apprenticeship indentures, and this rule greatly an- noyed George Williams, brought up as he had been in the Estabhshment. He has recorded, however, that when he was inclined to protest against such a stipulation his mother very characteristically re- marked that he could go to the parish church in the afternoon " to make up for it." In a letter which has come into my possession 24 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS George Williams writes : " There were two other ap- prentices whom I soon found were different to myself. I was much given to swearing, and I saw increasingly that they were going to heaven, but that I was on the downward road to hell. I now began to pray, but, even on my knees, oaths would come into my lips. I had been brought up a Churchman, but my master required all his assistants to attend his own chapel. The gentleman who introduced me to the Bridgwater draper was himself a Unitarian, and on Sundays would invite me to dine with him, and then take me to his own chapel. But gradually I began to see that the doctrine which' made light of the sacrifice of Christ could not be right, and one Sunday when there had been an eclipse of the sun I told the gentleman there was a new minister at the Congregational Chapel and I intended to go there. ' Oh, nonsense ! ' he replied, ' our minister is going to preach on the eclipse of the sun; you must come and hear him.' ' No,' I said, ' I will not.' ' Well,' said the gentleman, ' go if you like, but I will have nothing more to do with you.' He went to my par- ents and said he was afraid George would be no more good, as he had turned ' Methody.' So the whole family consulted together as to what had better be done, and at last one of my brothers wisely remarked, ' I should advise you to leave George alone, as it is possible he may be right and we may be wrong ! ' " Of those who so greatly influenced him at this THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 25 time I can learn but little, and yet I would write the names of his fellow-assistants, Miss Harris, Miss Gerard, Miss Thomas, and William Harman, large across this chapter, for, unknowing, they played their part in the moulding of a great man and in the making of a great movement. Surely they have their reward, the reward laid up for those who make ready the ground for the sower of the seed. George Williams had many earnest talks with his fellow- apprentice, William Harman, who afterwards was prominent in the religious life of Bridgwater, " a man," as one who knew him writes, " of earnest piety, great energy and determination, with the heart of a child," and to this young man George Williams often expressed deep gratitude. But it was the life, not the word, that first attracted him, and that, I doubt not, was one of the reasons why the founder of the Young Men's Christian Association ever dwelt on the supreme importance of living Christ, ever preached the immeasurable possibilities of a single Christian life. " I felt," he said once in speaking of these days, " that there was a dif- ference between me and these other assistants, and I tried to discover what it was." The doctrines of Unitarianism, which at that time had a large and influential following in the West country, failed to answer his questionings, and if, in after years, he was a strenuous foe to all that savoured of mini- mising the importance of the deity of Christ and 26 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS His vicarious, atoning sacrifice, it was because in his boyhood, when seeking for Hght, he found only greater darkness in humanitarianism. One Sunday evening — it was in the winter of 1837, when he was just sixteen years old — he sat alone in a back seat in the little Congregational Chapel now used as the barracks of the Salvation Army. The minister was the Rev. Evan James, a man " of gentle spirit and holy life, whose grasp of principle was very firm," who had established a great hold on the young people of the town. Noth- ing is known of the sermon preached that evening, even the text is unrecorded, and it does not appear that the preacher was possessed of any special gift of eloquence, of any outstanding power of persua- sion. No one can tell what arrow from God's sheaf entered the boy's heart. You must remember that he was seeking Christ, and was placing himself in the way of finding Him. George Williams did not make the mistake, so common with young men, of requiring some special dispensation, some peculiar heavenly vision ; to make use of the old phrase, he did not despise the means of grace. Many years later at the opening of the splendid building devoted to the work of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion which now overlooks the river at Bridgwater, and which was erected mainly by his efforts as a thank-offering for his spiritual homeland, he said: " It is not easy to forget one's first love. I first THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 27 learnt in Bridgwater to love my dear Lord and Sa- viour for what He had done for me. I learnt at Bridgwater to see the vital importance, the tre- mendous importance, of the spiritual life. I saw in this town two roads, the downward road and the upward road. I began to reason, and said to myself, ' What if I continue along this downward road, where shall I get to, where is the end of it, what will become of me.'' ' Thank God, I kept in the clean path, nevertheless I was on the downward road. I saw that this road would certainly lead me to spend my eternity with the devil and his angels, and I said, ' Cannot I escape.'' Is there no escape.'' ' They told me in this very town of Bridgwater how to es- cape — Confess your sins, accept Christ, trust in Him, yield your heart to the Saviour." Some men may write of the psychology of con- version, but I would not attempt to probe and search the great secret which a man may share only with his Maker. This only need be said: that night was the beginning, the point of turning. On his return from Zion Chapel George Williams knelt down at the back of the shop and gave his heart to God. " God helped me," he said very simply, in speaking of his conversion, " to yield myself wholly to Him. I cannot describe to you the joy and peace which flowed into my soul when first I saw that the Lord Jesus had died for my sins, and that they were all forgiven." 28 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS George Williams was admitted a member of the Church on February 14, 1838. The record runs: " Proposed by Rev. E. James . . . dismissed (trans- ferred) to London the Rev. T. Binney." He at- tended his first Church meeting on the end of March, 1838, and at once took a prominent part in the work of the Church, indeed at the first meeting he is noted as seconding the motion for the election of deacons. Immediately afterwards he joined some others in the establishment of a prayer meeting in a room ad- joining the business premises, and after attending for a time the Bible Class conducted by the father of James Sully, the eminent psychologist, became an ardent worker in the Sunday School. " It is not how little but how much we can do for others " — that was the motto of every moment from sixteen to eighty-four. His being was tuned to that keynote at the very moment he made his great de- cision, and through all his days you might hear the insistent refrain : " He lived not unto himself but to the glory of God and in the service of men." A man never escapes altogether from the influence of his first heart's home, and it is true in the realm of religion that the child is father to the man. The spiritual history of the great religious teachers and workers through the ages bears witness that, in spite of turmoil within and controversy without, of change in doctrine and outward semblance of belief, in spite of the wider range of intellect which grows with the THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 29 years and which might well blot out the recollection of the early home, these men never escape, nor, in their heart of hearts, wish to escape, from the vision which came to them in the birthplace of their souls. There is in the new birth more than a verbal resem- blance to natural birth, the expression " Fathers in Christ " is more than a beautiful phrase. And in all our roamings of spirit there 's no place like home. George Williams's spiritual homeland was a shop. The silent, mighty power of the Christian hfe lived under the ordinary commonplace circumstances of business, that was the memory of his homeland which he carried with him through changing scenes and years. Although he was one of those happy men who can point to the hour and place of the changed Hfe, of the end and the beginning, it was the life, not the word, of other Christians that first prepared the way of the Lord to his heart. Did he ever forget.? And the Fathers in Christ? First of all, the Rev. Evan James, the man of no reputation, and, as far as we know, of no peculiar talents. Let the servant of the Most High, who labours in that most barren land of country church and chapel, often, it seems, more barren of hope than the most unlovely lands of heathenism, wearily waiting and watching for sign of harvest among the decorous respectabihty which listens to him Sunday after Sunday, men and women of such cramped hearts and souls that in them he 30 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS is sometimes tempted to think the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head — let him, in the heavi- ness of his spirit, take heart of grace. George Williams is the brightest gem in the unfading crown of a simple country minister of the Gospel, who, in the common round of his work, without taking special thought or making special appeal, was the means of leading him to the Master. Did George Williams ever forget? When riches and honour came to him it was ever one of his chief delights to help and encourage the humblest minister of the Gospel wherever he might be stationed. He believed, with all the certainty that came from ■ the memory of the little chapel in Bridgwater, that the service for Christ unceasingly rendered in pulpit and on platform, by minister and missioner, is never wasted, never lost, never in vain. And then, following this unknown minister, there enters the homeland the famous and startling figure of the Rev. Charles G. Finney, the great American evangelist. Years afterwards, when Finney was conducting his second campaign in London, George Williams attended his meetings, but it was through Finney's books — his Lectures to Professing Chris- tians and his Lectures on Revivals of Religion — that this man's remarkable personality first entered the spiritual homeland of George Williams. No one shall ever measure the power for good that hes and shall THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND SI ever He in a good book. To Law's Serious Call we owe George Whitefield, and to these printed lectures by Finney is certainly due much of the zeal and pas- sion which produced the Young Men's Christian As- sociation. These books were first published in 1837, and must have fallen into George Williams's hands in the first glow of his religious faith. They fanned it into a flame which became a devouring fire. For such a young man no more inspiring works could have been found. George Williams was not a student, not a great reader; matters of criticism and details of doctrine always failed to excite his interest. He knew nothing and cared nothing about the results of linguistic or historical enquiry into the authenticity of the Scriptures. There was neither poetry nor mysticism in his being, and only a very practical religion would have appealed to him. He belonged to that generation of great men who in the twink- ling of an eye were bom, it would seem, into the ful- ness of their faith. Once the decision made, no questionings seemed to trouble him. He was dis- turbed by no doubts. What he believed, he believed with all his might. For a man whose aim was to make others beheve, no endowment could compare with this power of unshaken, unshaJkable faith. And yet there was nothing of complacency in his nature, his conscience was very tender. What was the secret of these men — for George Williams was typical of many others of his time.? They worked — all their 32 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS energies, spiritual, mental, physical, were concen- trated in doing things. They had no time to talk or dream. For good or for evil they had little time even to think. There was, of course, more than a touch of harshness and of hardness in this certainty of belief which is pecuharly unattractive to these latter days when men sometimes place Charity on the throne of the Almighty. In Finney's books you will find the secret, not only of George Wilhams's cer- tainty of belief, but also of his absorbing passion for souls and for the work that wins souls. As you read these addresses you will note phrases, sentences, points of view which will at once be recognised as having been adopted in their entirety by George Williams, and, more than that, there are episodes recounted by Charles Finney, episodes connected particularly with the visible and tangible results of prayer, which might be matched, almost word for word, from the experiences of George Williams. Prayer — that was the rock upon which Charles Finney built, upon which he taught George Williams to build. " I heard," he said in one of his addresses, " of a person who prayed for sinners, and finally got into such a state of mind that she could not live without prayer. She could not rest day or night unless there was some one praying by her side; she would shriek in agony if the prayer ceased, and this continued for two days until she prevailed in prayer and her soul was reheved." George Williams knew THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 33 what it was to experience that deep travail of spirit when a man lays hold on God for a blessing and will not let Him go until he has received it. There came a time when he, too, agonised in spirit for the souls of men, separately, individually ; and would cease suddenly from this wrestling with Jehovah, cease because he knew, with an absolute certainty which no man can explain, that a soul was his to give back to God. Prayer with a definite object was Finney's text; he was always pleading against the random prayer which accomplished little or nothing. Unceasing prayer, too, he taught ; he was an apostle of the cal- lous knees. He would often speak of him of whom it was written that his knees were callous, like a camel's, for he had prayed so much. And with all his fervour and burning zeal, Finney was a man of the utmost practical common sense. To him the man who did not make the business in which he was engaged a part of his religion, did not serve God ; such religion was " the laughing-stock of hell." There was good, sound common sense, too, in much of his advice as to the way of speaking to men on the subject of Salvation ^ — advice George Williams cer- tainly laid to heart. " Take him," says Finney, " when he is in a good temper. If you find him out of humour very probably he will get angry and abuse you. Better let him alone for that time or you will be Hkely to quench the Spirit. It is possible that you M SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS may be able to talk in such a way as to cool his tem- per — but it is not likely." And, above all, Finney was never weary of press- ing upon men the awful responsibihty of each single individual. In one tremendous passage he cries: " Here you are, going to the judgment, red all over with blood. Sinners are to meet you there; those who have seen how you live, many of them already dead, and others you will never see again. What an influence you have exerted! Perhaps hundreds of souls will meet you in the judgment and curse you (if they are allowed to speak) for leading them to hell by practically denying the truth of the Gospel." To Finney the great business on earth of every Christian was to save souls. " If you are thus neg- lecting the main business of life," he writes, " what are you living for.^" " I have quoted these few phrases from Finney's books because they are Httle known by the younger generations, and because, as can easily be seen, they did much to mould and make George Williams what he was. He adopted, he absorbed Finney's creed. To him, from the day of his conversion, to live was Christ and to bring to Christ all with whom he came in contact ; in season, out of season, always, every- where, to preach Christ. There was another side to Finney's teaching of which it would not be so pleasant to write. He was THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 35 at times intolerant and bitter, and even the Rev. J. Barker, who wrote the preface to the collected ad- dresses, finds him " infested with the errors of reli- gious fatalism." He attacks, for instance, the humble habit of drinking tea and coffee, which are " well known to be positively injurious ; intolerable to weak stomachs and as much as the strongest can dispose of," and points out how fearful a thing it is to think of the Church alone spending millions on its tea tables, when a world is going to hell for want of their help. " Parties of pleasure, balls, novel-reading, and other methods of wasting time " are unreservedly con- demned. " Practise the worldly customs of New Year's Day," he says, " if you dare — at the peril of your soul." " Christians ought to be singular in dress as becomes a peculiar people, and thus pour contempt on the fashions of the ungodly in which they are dancing their way to hell." " Christian lady," he writes, " have you never doubted whether it be lawful to copy the extravagant fashions of the day brought from foreign countries and from places which it would be shame even to name.'' And if you doubt and do it you are condemned and must repent of your sin or you will be lost for ever." I am compelled to note these examples of Finney's extreme narrowness because this aspect of his teach- ing undoubtedly had its influence upon George Wil- hams. It might have had a still greater effect, a very damaging effect upon his life and work, if it 36 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS had not been that he was privileged to come under the sweet and mellowing teaching of a second Father in Christ. It is hard to imagine a man who adopted everything from Charles Finney and still kept hi-s hold upon young men throughout two generations of intellectual progress. If George Williams had been fashioned only by Finney, how he would have antagonised and alienated some of the finest charac- ters he attracted to his side. But all that was for- bidding and harsh in the teaching of Charles Finney was smoothed and polished and rendered beautiful by the influence of Thomas Binney. Here, of course, we anticipate a little, for it was after he left Bridg- water for London and became a regular attendant at the Weigh House, whose pulpit was at that time " beyond all question the most attractive and most important in its moral influence in the City of Lon- don," that he fell under the spell of one who rounded off and completed the work that Charles Finney had hewn in the rough. These two men, Charles Finney and Thomas Binney, great men both in their sev- eral ways, who thus met and joined in the heart and life of George Williams, had hardly a trait in com- mon, except devotion to a common Master. And the order of their coming was of God. A man upon whom Binney had first laid his hand would no doubt have been repelled by the unattractive side of Finney's religion, so repelled that he would probably have been untouched by its inspiring power, and without Charles THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 3T Finney — "I report as a man may of God's work " — there had been no George WilHams. Do not let me be misunderstood. I am not exalting one Father in Christ above another. Some element of fanaticism, of exaggeration, of bigotry, if the word must be used, is essential in the initial stages of every great movement. That element Thomas Binney could never have supplied. It is true that there was a time when he was engaged in controversy of a particularly bitter nature, but into this he was forced by an unguarded phrase, and his whole being was compact of sympathy and broadest tolerance. No need to write of Thomas Binney for the older generation which knew and revered him, and re- joiced even in his eccentricities and extravagances. Let those to whom he is but a name refer to the description given by Mark Rutherford, who was a devoted admirer, in his Revolution m Tanner's Lane, where, under the guise of the Rev. Thomas Brad- shaw of Pike Street Meeting House, is pictured the Thomas Binney of George Williams's day. " He was," we read, " tall and spare, and showed his height in the pulpit, for he always spoke without a note, and used a small Bible, which he always held close to his eyes. He had a commanding figure, ruled his Church like a despot, had a crowded congregation of which the larger portion was mascu- line, and believed in predestination and the final per- severance of the saints. Although he took no active 38 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS part in politics, he was a Republican through and through, and never hesitated for a moment in those degenerate days to say what he thought of any scandal." Thomas Binney's preaching and teaching brought the fervid enthusiasm of Finney into touch with the reaUties of a young man's life in London. Probably no man of his time developed so pre- eminently in the pulpit the tendency of the thinking and reading of the age. He preached the reality of the battle that is life, and as he jjlctured it the fight was glorious, the victory sure. He had the greatest sympathy with the aspirations of young men, with their hopes, their intellectual and moral efforts, and, withal, he was gifted with just that touch of sarcasm which seems to be an essential part of a young man's rehgious, as of his secular, education. The story has often been told, for instance, of the way in which he repHed to certain young men who had spoken with undue positiveness at a Church meeting, by the suggestion that they should make a study of 2 Sam. X. 5, " Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return." There was in his preaching, too, a fine scorn of the tendency to behttle trade, which was prevalent in those days. He hated hypocrisy, and said so in unmeasured phrase. Character was his favourite text, and he had a right to preach from such a text, for he was a man every inch of him — "a king of men," according to Archbishop Tait. Sir George THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 39 Williams learnt something of his pride of business from Thomas Binney, through whose discourses rang a constant endeavour to maintain the nobility of the commercial character. There was nothing petty or sentimental in his theology ; he taught the dignity of manhood, the splendour of the life of honest work. " How the devil must chuckle," he once said, " at his success when he gets a fellow to think himself wonderful because he can dress in scarlet or blue, and have a sword by his side and a feather in his hat; and when he says to him (and the poor fool believing it), 'Your hands are far too delicate to be soiled by the counter and the shop ' ; and then whispers to him, ' Keep them for blood — human blood ! ' Fifty to one, as Buxton says of Plaistow and the Pope, fifty to one on the great unknown; on Brown, Smith, and Jones, or any one of them, against Caesar and Napoleon ; Wood Street against Waterloo the world over." Perhaps the favourite theme of Thomas Binney, especially during the later years of his ministry, when George WilKams came under the spell of his vivid eloquence, undimmed to the last, was sympathy, charity, love to the brethren. " Oh ! let us have more faith in one another, though we sometimes lean on a reed that wiU pierce our hand, and perhaps pierce our heart ; still do not let us give up faith in man — in Christian man. Do not let us give up a hearty and honest faith in manhood, truth, sincerity, right- 40 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS eousness, and purity of motive and purpose. Let us live with one another as if we really believed there was such a thing as brotherhood; and do not let us go through the world always frowning with sus- picion, and always acting towards others as if we were afraid of what they would turn out. I think that if we are ' simple concerning evil,' there will not only be guilelessness in ourselves, but there will be an honest, noble, hearty, candid, confiding faith in one another." It was through the influence of Thomas Binney, too, that that other noble merchant and philanthro- pist, Samuel Morley, was moulded to his broad sym- pathies and capacity for service. It was no wonder that a preacher who more than any one else in his generation made men think for themselves, take large views of life, attempt great and generous things, was followed to his last resting-place by such men as Dean Stanley, Dr. Stoughton, the Earl of Shaftes- bury, Dr. Moffatt, Samuel Morley, and George Williams. George Williams was to the end strict, stem, posi- tive in his rehgious beliefs. He belonged to the old Evangelical school of thought, and he held to its creed with intensity and intense sincerity. But his heart was so great, his charity so broad, that the austerity of his doctrine was covered by the gracious mantle of kindness and sympathy. Sympathy could never have produced the Young Men's Christian v.. <^ " 1 §•"■"'" ?. ■<%^^s^ ^ip^ '■■ ■ -a B^^i?^^«HnD^ B^^ J ' - i jB f^^y^ ^.kA #^'i Hi..-.^' -^' The Mother of Sir George Williams THE SPIRITUAL HOMELAND 41 Association, Calvinism could never have produced the Young Men's Christian Association. But these two, peace and the sword, love of the sinner and hatred of the sin, were welded and fused in the steadfast and loving heart of George Williams, who clung with fierce tenacity to the rigorous doctrines of the guilt of man and the wrath of God, but was so full of pity that under most bitter provocation he would think no evil, and was ever seeking for the face of goodness behind the mask of sin. His was the ardour and passion of Charles Finney, but Thomas Binney taught him to draw men to Christ with cords of love. A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY CHAPTER III A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY WHEN, at the age of nineteen, George Wil- liams's apprenticeship at Bridgwater came to an end, he was for a time undecided as to his future plans. His brother Fred, who was one of the first to leave the farm, had been for a short time in the employ of Messrs. Hitchcock & Rogers, a firm of retail drapers on Ludgate Hill, London. During his brother George's apprenticeship Fred Wflliams returned to Somersetshire and started for himself as a draper in North Petherton, a small village a few miles distant' from Bridgwater. To him George Williams repaired after leaving Mr. Holmes's establishment, and for about six months he helped in his brother's shop, and was there " blessed to my brother's wife, who was a Unitarian and whose eyes were opened so that she owned Christ as her Saviour," while in his spare time he was much occupied with Sunday School work in the neighbour- ing villages. When Fred Williams next visited London, in October, 1841, to buy the new season's goods, he took George with him and introduced him 46 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS to Mr. Hitchcock. At first the head of the London establishment declared that he could not find an open- ing for him. " No," he said in his abrupt way — and the boy's face fell — "I 've no place for him. He 's too small." The brother pleaded that, though there might be little of him, it was very good, and after some discussion Mr. Hitchcock went so far as to promise that if they would come again next morn- ing he would see what he could do. " So," writes George Williams, " in fear and trembling I went again, and then Mr. Hitchcock said, ' Well, you seem a healthy young fellow! I will give you a trial.' I entered the establishment and began work behind the counter, where I remained a few years, until one day a buyer was seen cutting off a piece of silk and hiding it in his drawer. Mr. Hitchcock found this out and dismissed him, and I was put in his place. I succeeded so well," he adds, " that in a few years' time I had increased the turnover more than £30,000 a year." Messrs. Hitchcock & Rogers, when George Wil- liams entered their employ at a salary of £40 a year, did not confine themselves entirely to the retail trade, although this was then the principal part of their business. Mr. Hitchcock was himself a Devon- shire man, and had gone through much the same routine of training as George WilUams. He had been apprenticed to a draper in Exeter, and, after serving for some time in various London estabhsh- A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 47 ments, entered into partnership with Mr. Rogers in St. Paul's Churchyard, then, as now, a leading mart for drapery goods and a favourite shopping resort for ladies. Mr. Rogers was compelled at an early age to retire from active control in the business, but under Mr. Hitchcock's guidance the firm soon acquired a reputation for energy and enterprise,, and became one of the leading retail houses in the City. So quick was the growth of the business that ten years after it had been established it was found necessary to employ a staff of about 140 assistants drawn from all parts of the country. Milliners and dressmakers and country drapers, attracted by the opportunity of a large selection of varied goods and by the convenience of lengths cut to suit their re- quirements at a low trade price, often visited the business, and in this manner a semi-wholesale trade of considerable magnitude was done, Messrs. Hitch- cock & Rogers making a specialty of silk goods and shawls. Their windows were among the most noted in London at that time, and the business was of the best class and without competition in the neighbourhood. The hours were then from seven to nine in the summer months and from seven to eight in winter, shorter hours than in many other houses. Mr. Hitchcock informed all newcomers that they were expected to attend church, but it was said that only a single pew was provided for the 140 assistants! 48 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS Needless to add that the custom was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Whenever a new hand was engaged he had to sign a book agree- ing to take his discharge at a moment's notice if required. All young men in the establishment wore black broadcloth coats, and a white tie was essential, while a moustache, if it was not, as in most similar establishments, a sin " beyond the imagination of the wildest youngster," was at least so uncommon that the sole assistant allowed the privilege was quite noted throughout the City as " Hitchcock's French- man." In those days a red tie or a tweed coat would have ruined the credit of any drapery house. Although Messrs. Hitchcock & Rogers's establish- ment was among the most progressive in London, one who entered the house about the same time as George Williams writes that there were two or three beds even in the smallest rooms, each bed occupied by two assistants. " On the last stroke of eleven bang went the outer door, and any on the wrong side of it were reported next morning. Many were the amusing scenes caused by the young fellows scurry- ing across the Yard to get in before the fated stroke, though the prolonged chiming and deliberate strik- ing of the Cathedral clock gave timely warning to those in the neighbourhood. Soon after closing time, 10.30 for the apprentices and 11 o'clock for the other assistants, the shopwalker would come round to see that lights were out, and then, of course, when A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 49 his back was turned, they were soon lit again, and we began to spend the evening." Of course, there was the inevitable public-house adjoining the shop — the famous " Goose and Gridiron " — which was used as an office by Wren when rebuilding the Ca- thedral, and which has now been absorbed in the establishment of Hitchcock, Williams, & Co. This place was, writes my informant, " a sad thorn in the side of Hitchcock & Rogers, for the young fellows, under pretence of going to see if the windows were properly dressed, would slip in for a drink. The woollen cloth shop at the Paternoster Row end of the building had rather a bad name in this respect. One or two bedrooms having windows overlooking the ' Goose and Gridiron ' were occupied by young men who had an understanding with the landlord, so that when he heard a whistle he was to be on the qui vive, and the coast being clear, a Wellington boot was lowered at the end of a string, and bottles of beer having been placed in it, another whistle was the signal to heave it up again." There is no reason to believe that at the time this young man from the country arrived in London he had formed any very definite or exalted ambi- tions. He was not one of those who, from the start, map out a brilliant future for themselves, who fix the goal of their ultimate ambition and work steadily towards it - — and sometimes reach it. Although George Williams has been likened by some to Dick 50 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS Whittington, herein at least there was nothing in common between them. As a matter of fact, a few years later, while in the employ of Messrs. Hitch- cock & Rogers, he gave serious consideration to the question of returning to Bridgwater and purchasing Mr. Holmes's business, then in the market, and it was due to the very strenuously worded advice of some of his older Bridgwater friends that he aban- doned the idea of settling down as a country draper. There can be little doubt that the determining factor in his decision to enter London was not so much a desire to better his position as a deep conviction that in the City he would find larger opportunity, a wider field, of work for Christ. Within a few months of his conversion he had changed the whole aspect of the Bridgwater shop. It was said in after years that when he joined Messrs. Hitchcock & Rogers it was almost impossible for a young man in the house to be a Christian, and that, three years afterwards, it was almost impossible to be anything else. This was certainly the case in Bridgwater, for in a few months the prayer meeting and the Bible class had become almost a part of the business routine. The passion of the pioneer was consuming him. He yearned for greater and grander conquests. And the call came to him from London. He had prayed for wider opportunities, for more arduous work for his Master, and the Master opened the way to the city of cities. In the fulness of A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 51 years all things — wealth, honour, and the rich pleasures of success — were added, but this young man from the country entered London seeking first the Kingdom of God. The London that George Williams came to was a hard place for a Christian young man. London will always typify all that is fiercest and most glori- ous in life's battle. It will ever be the place of heroes and of hideous failure, where everything that is good and evil in man is magnified. There is little enough of heaven in the great City to-day ; there is, at least, less of hell than there was sixty years ago. Sir George WilHams was right when he said, speaking of his early experiences in the City warehouse, that the first twenty-four hours of a young rilan's life in London usually settled his eternity in heaven or hell. In those days a young man was either burning hot or ice-cold, was utterly and completely possessed of God or just as completely given over to the powers of darkness. There was no middle road between the saint and the sinner. In the strictest sense that is ever so, but we of this generation have many resting- places on our Hills of Difiiculty, many arbours set up in recent years by good men at the order of the Lord of the Hill. I know well that these may be, for some, places of slothful ease, that not a few linger now on the hill and fail to reach the highest heights. But it is surely better to have climbed half-way than never to have climbed at all. This is 52 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS no place for a defence of that vast host of common- place lives which some, not knowing the heart, would judge as Laodicean. I would rather bless the means, sacred and secular, which have made it possible for a man to live a clean and honest life before God without setting himself apart from his fellows. It is well enough to say that persecution and the brutal onslaughts of unrighteousness made heroes in the days that are past. That is true. They make heroes still. But it is well to remember that in ten thousand cases they damned those who had not in them the stuff of martyrs and saints. I would not make little of the strength that comes from resisted temptation, but we are none the less Christian be- cause we pray to be led in a smooth path rather than across the rock-strewn hills. Such paths run the length and breadth of London to-day. Sixty years ago you would have had to search diligently to discover a single one. It is difficult to realise that little more than half a century separates us from the London which greeted the apprentice from Bridgwater. Most of the con- veniences and luxuries of present-day Hfe, to us the obvious necessities of existence, were then either un- known or in a vague experimental state. In many respects we are further removed to-day from the early Victorian age than that age was from the time of the Norman Conquest. Roughly speaking, the early nineteenth century was only the better of the A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 53 eleventh to the extent of printing and gunpowder. The throb of steam was just beginning to shake the country, the hand loom in the worker's cottage was giving way to the power loom in the factory, the flail to the threshing-machine, the sewing-machine was just emerging from the scientific toy stage to the sphere of practical use, and it was not, as Sir Walter Besant has pointed out, until the year 1837 that the eighteenth century truly came to an end. The light of the greatest revolution the world has ever seen, the morning of our modem renaissance, was breaking. A great darkness still shrouded London, and the life of the City shop assistant was still little removed from that of a slave. To-day nearly every young man has attained his ideal of a forty-eight-hour week, and although longer hours prevail in suburban establishments, it will be generally admitted that the early-closing movement has brought about a fairly satisfactory and equi- table state of affairs. In the early forties things were indeed different. The living-in system was con- ducted on lines that contemptuously ignored the moral and physical welfare of young men. Many striking and terrible pictures of these days are given in the reports and other publications of the Metropolitan Early-Closing Association, established the year George Williams came to London under the title of " The Metropolitan Drapers' Association." This Association offered a prize of twenty guineas for 54 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS " the best practical essay on the evils of the present protracted hours of trade generally, but more es- pecially as they affect the moral, physical, and in- tellectual condition of the drapers of the Metropohs." The prize essay, published in the following year, was the work of one who wrote from his own bitter experience, and affords a vivid picture of life as George Williams found it when he reached London. The hours varied from six, seven, and eight in the morning to nine, ten, and even twelve at night. Even in Messrs. Hitchcock & Rogers's the first batch of assistants had to be at work at seven o'clock to dust the warehouse. These were known as the Literary Squad, a name taken from a comic song, " The Lit- erary Dustman," then greatly in vogue. The shop would be closed at from eight to nine p. m. in v/in- ter and from nine to ten p. m. in summer, but on busy days, and during nearly the whole of the spring and summer seasons, the young men were seldom at liberty to leave until two or three hours after closing time, for much of the work now done by porters fell to the lot of the junior assistants, who had to put every article — from a piece of silk to a paper of pins — into its appointed place, and clean out the premises in readiness for the morrow. During the busiest part of the year it was a common thing for these young men to be penned in the unhealthy atmosphere of the shop from six or seven o'clock in the morning until ten or eleven o'clock at night. " This," says the A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 55 writer, " presents the business of the day in its most favourable aspect." There were many shops in which the young men were employed for a period of seventeen hours out of twenty-four. On Satur- day, as if in mockery of preparation for the Sab- bath, the closing hours were in all cases later, and the assistants were often unable to retire to rest until one or two o'clock on Sunday morning. In few houses of business was there any sitting- room other than the dining-room, which was often a basement kitchen, while the sleeping apartments were small and badly ventilated. The harmful effect upon health and morals of such long confinement, of the foul air and lack of exercise, of hurried meals — the average time spent at three meals, breakfast, dinner, and tea, was often not more than half an hour ^ — are so obvious that we need not follow the writer in his attempt to make a case in favour of a shorter working day. One of 1 This almost Incredible statement is vouched for by the writer of the " Prize Essay on the Evils which are produced by Late Hours of Business " (London : James Nisbet & Co. , ISiS). He writes : " To sit down (in the shop) for any period, however short, is universally forbidden. Be it also observed that while the me- chanic or day labourer has half an hour allowed him for break- fast, and an hour for dinner, out of his twelve hours of labour, the assistant draper has no fixed time for either. Five or ten minutes is the usual time spent at breakfast or tea ; and dinner is hurriedly snatched as it can be during some momentary intermission of business. We may safely assert that in nineteen shops out of twenty the average time spent at the three meals — breakfast, dinner, and tea — is not more than half an hour." 56 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS the evil results of this tyranny was that the men were, of necessity, withdrawn from most opportuni- ties of reading and study, and the lack of popular newspapers deprived them of any intelligent par- ticipation in the movements of the day. Even when the tone of the establishment was not actively immoral, life was lived on a low, dull plane. Business, supper, a walk, and then to bed — that was the daily round. Of these young men it might truly have been said that no man cared for their souls. And when George Williams came to London there were at least 150,000 such assistants in the City of London. The essay contains the significant statement that in a prominent Mechanics' Institute there was only one linen-draper out of nearly seven hundred members. Worse still, this system was a direct incentive to vice. Young men engaged in shops do not differ from their fellows in their craving for some kind of recreation and amusement. Their late hours prevented them from the enjoyment of what little rational and wholesome recreation was available at that time in London, v/ith the natural result that the desire for something which would take them, even for a few moments, out of themselves and away from the restrictions and sordid grind of their work, found gratification in the lowest form of sensual enjoyment. When at last they were free, they turned, by an irresistible impulse, to the tavern, to strong drink, to the grossest forms of immorality. Surely, says the author of this essay, A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 57 the ruin of their souls was chargeable, in no sHght degree, to that system which furnished at once temp- tation and excuse. This tale of long hours does not, unfortunately, exhaust the evils peculiar to the shop life of the period. The new reign had brought with it a great revival of trade. As a result new hands were con- stantly being taken on, and Uttle or no care was given to the selection of the men who offered themselves, for the employer always guarded himself by the stipulation that any one might be dismissed literally at a moment's notice. Thus these houses of business generally contained a very mixed set of men. Those of pure mind and high ideals were forced to associate in closest intimacy with the vicious and depraved. In this way every possible aid was given to the cor- ruption of good manners by evil communications. In the conduct of business the code of commercial morality was degraded in the extreme. It was a time when all scruples of truth and honesty were ignored when a sale was to be effected, when a pre- mium was set upon misrepresentation, when intem- perance and dissolute living were winked at in the case of a skilful salesman, when in one large West End house the example of a man, notorious for the unblushing lies he told and for the unmerciful way in which he jfleeced customers, was held up for imi- tation by the junior hands. " There was," wrote one who was at that time employed in St. Paul's Church- 58 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS yard and who afterwards entered the ministry, " no class more degraded and dissolute, none who were sunk deeper in ungodliness and dissipation than the shopmen of London." The subject does not bear enlarging upon. The effect upon a boy fresh from the country of being compelled to live and work, to share a bedroom, and in many cases the bed itself, with veterans in vice — men so sunk in debauchery that they took a hellish delight in contaminating and defiling all around them — these things are best left to the imagination. Here, surely, was a condition of life which might drive the best meaning of young men, through sheer desperation, into grossness and depravity. With no time for wholesome intellectual or physical recrea- tion, even were such facilities available, no place to spend a quiet hour other than a reeking dining- room or the barest of bedrooms, it is little wonder that they were driven out into the street, to seek there such ignoble joys and pleasures as might be found. And there, you may be sure, the pleasures were in- deed ignoble enough. Nowadays, if a young man determines to go to the devil, he must first deliberately, and of free choice, reject a thousand and one oppor- tunities of good. But in the early part of the nine- teenth century he had to scheme and hunt for such opportunities, and all round him men were playing fast and loose with the little time they had not sold to their employers. A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 59 The young fellow of the period, in search of a moment's freedom from the cares and trammels of business, found his way, as a matter of course, to the tavern with its sing-song and free-and-easy. Here heavy drinking was the rule — heavy in quality and quantity. Gambling was rampant everywhere. The place reeked with tobacco smoke, the songs and conversation were coarse even beyond the bounds of obscenity. In the summer Highbury Barn and Cre- morne Gardens, pleasure grounds of very doubtful reputation — " for one man that is ruined in a gin- shop there are twenty that are ruined at Cremorne " ■ — were sometimes patronised by those fortunate individuals who could escape for a few hours. Tavern life was then near its end, and the last days of a popular institution are rarely its most attractive. The tavern, as Dr. Johnson knew it, was little changed in . outward appearance, but for intellect and wit had been substituted the inane vulgarity of the so-called comic song, roared out in chorus by young and old to the accompaniment of clattering pewter and glass. The public-houses, which pros- pered so greatly in the neighbourhood of every large warehouse, were not unlike the supper-rooms patro- nised by the young bloods of the period, differing only in degree of freedom and ease. Unfortunately few of them could boast of even an occasional visit from a Colonel Newcome. It was seldom that any voice was raised in protest, seldom that the " harmony " 60 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS was disturbed by such an outburst as was called forth from that gallant gentleman by a similar entertain- ment at the " Cave." " Does any man say ' Go on ' to such disgusting ribaldry as this? For my part I am not sorry that my son should see for once in his life to what shame and degradation and dishon- our drunkenness and whisky may bring a man." It was to such places that the young men of the City had to turn to escape the counter and the dormitory. It was in surroundings such as these, among men such as these, that the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation saw the light. And not the Young Men's Christian Association only, for while London life in the early forties was, for the most part, low in standard, while morals were coarse and appetite un- restrained, there were many who had already seen and hailed the star of the morning, many who had watched the faint streaks of light on the horizon, the radiance on the distant hills, and rejoiced in the certainty that midnight was passed. These prophets of the days of the Son of Man were as yet scattered and lonely, but as the years passed they caught sight of many " lights at other windows," and took courage and worked even more strenuously for the coming of righteousness and justice. It was, as we have said, a period of strange contrasts. A man's con- versation was devout or filthy, his recreation the service of Christ or the amusement of Satan. It was at once a time of sloth and fiery energy, of A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 61 ignoble ideals and loftiest ambitions. From the point of view of material success it was a time full of good hope, for to those who won through its temptations the business life of those days was a splendid train- ing, while the chances of promotion were much greater than they are to-day. There was a mighty uplift in British trade, and young men of quickness and ability were wanted everywhere. Determination, hard work, integrity, and energy reaped an imme- diate and rich reward. It was the day in which the boy without the proverbial sixpence made a fortune in a few years. It was a day of days for the young man who could see visions, who dared to fight for the realisation of his dreams. And some were already dreaming them true. When George Williams arrived at Messrs. Hitch- cock & Rogers's, Charles Kingsley was planning with all the vehemence of his impetuous nature a hundred and one schemes for the improvement of the material and moral conditions of the working classes. He had just published Yeast, wherein he had shown " what some at least of the young men in these days are really thinking and feeling." Charles Kingsley was among those who heard with awe and rejoicing a clashing among the dry bones. " Look around you," said Bamakill to Lancelot as they stood within a few yards of the place where George Williams was working, " and see what is the characteristic of your country, your generation, at this moment. What 62 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS a yearning, what an expectation amid infinite false- hoods and confusions, of some nobler, more chival- rous, more godlike state! . . . What a chaos of noble materials is here — all confused, it is true, polarised, jarring, and chaotic; here bigotry, there self-will, superstition, sheer atheism often, but only waiting for the one inspiring Spirit to organise and unite and consecrate this chaos into the noblest polity the world ever saw realised." Carlyle was issuing Past and Present — Carlyle was coming to his own, forcing men to think deep thoughts, to ask deep questions, to " begin to try." Ruskin was at work on Modern Painters; Tennyson and Dickens, in their several ways, were struggling to lighten the darkness ; Lord Ashley was waging his magnificent warfare against oppression, tyranny, and injustice. On all sides voices were calling young men to come out from the world of cant and lies, to come out and dare. In the religious world the Anglican revival was be- ginning, the Oxford movement was at the height of its power, Maurice was in the midst of his Christian Socialism campaign, Newman was making his great decision, and Chalmers was daring all for liberty. Revolution, violent and horrible ; revolution, peace- ful, sometimes silent, but no less effective, — revolu- tion was in the air. In politics, in arts, in religion, it was a time of upheaval. But the mass of the people still slept. A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 63 George Williams was not, it may be, consciously stirred by the mighty activities of the day, although Thomas Binney, that veteran watchman on the tow- ers, was ever proclaiming the dawn and teaching young men to read the signs of the times. George Williams was of those whom poets despise but God honours, who see things to do, see them and do them. This young man was so absorbed in business, not only, or chiefly, for his own gain, but in business for his Master, that he seldom spared a moment for a sight of the world's horizon. Under his very hands there was so much to be done, so little time to do it. In any age his work would have prospered; but it was, without doubt, the splendid hope, the eager ex- pectation of those days that secured for it such quick and enthusiastic recognition. Everywhere men were waiting for a leader. Everywhere men were launching out on glorious ventures of faith. The air was tingling with enterprise and progress. To the sound of turmoil and strife, of revolutions, riots, and bitter controversies, Britain was fighting its way to religious and social liberty. "And lo, in the East ! Will the East unveil ? The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed A flush ; 't is dead ; 't is alive ; 't is dead, ere the West Was aware of it : nay, 't is abiding, 't is unwithdrawn ; Have a care, sweet Heaven ! 'T is dawn." It was the day of the Young Man. THE WORLD AND A YOUNG MAN \T CHAPTER IV THE WORLD AND A YOUNG MAN IN order to appraise and understand a man's work you must know something not only of his environ- ment but of his personality, of that inner life through which and in which the work first has its being. This young man from the country was chosen of God to start an unique and wonderful movement in the world. Three years after his arrival in the City the call came. He was ready. Some attempt must be made to picture the man as he was during these years of preparation ; and this is not easily accomplished, especially when one is writing of days beyond recall of all but the few. In such circumstances it is safest to rely upon letters and private documents of various kinds which reveal the hidden things of the soul. Unfortunately Sir George Williams left little ma- terial of this kind. During the latter years of his Ufe he was often urged to put on record his reminis- cences of things done and seen, but his invariable reply was that his life had been so uneventful that he had nothing to give to the world. Moreover, 68 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS contrary to the accepted idea of the garruHty of old age, he was a man who seldom spoke of the past, seldom indulged in reviews of the years gone by — that favourite pastime of life's evening. Up to the last he lived in the future, for the future. It is no exaggeration to say that he died a young man. Thus it is that I have before me but few papers of a personal nature. In his later years he kept a small pocket diary, but this contains only notes as to the time and place of the innumerable meetings at which he presided or in which he took some prom- inent part. To those who knew the man the repro- duction of this diary of his daily engagements would mean much. It is the eloquent record of work that was never finished, of the daily life of one who, al- though often tired, was ever ready to serve the least of his brethren — His brethren. But it contains no revelation of the man's thoughts, of his innermost life. That must be gleaned for the most part from the acts of a nineteenth-century apostle. There exist, however, three small books in his hand- writing which are very precious. One is a manu- script volume of the sermons he heard during his early years in London. It is dated " January, 1841," the year of his arrival at the drapery establishment of Messrs. Hitchcock & Rogers. On the fiy-leaf he has written : " February 6th, 1838 — Joined the Church at Bridgwater, and since that period proved an unworthy member. January 30th, 1839. Signed THE WORLD AND A YOUNG MAN 69 the teetotal pledge after hearing a convincing lecture from G. Pilkington, at the Friends' Meeting House, Bridgwater." I have already written of the ser- vices which he attended during these early years in the City, and of the men who did much to mould his religious behefs. These transcriptions of sermons are interesting only as pointing to the preachers he most appreciated, and also because they contain, at the end of each sermon, a characteristic note, giving the names of the young fellows in the ware- house whom he persuaded to accompany him on each occasion. George Williams had the instincts of a missionary. If he could do nothing else, he could always discover some excuse for bringing men within the sound of the Gospel. The diaries are of a much more intimate and personal character, and call for more detailed notice. They form the valuable autobiography of a Chris- tian young man. Commonplace they may be — it is fortunate that men of twenty do not often write with an eye on posterity — but no excuse is needed for quoting some sentences from them, for, trivial as these may sound, they are at least full of self- revelation. The world is so crowded with hypocrisy that in surveying the life of such a man as the founder of the Young Men's Christian Association, one naturally asks the question which so often discovers the giant's feet of clay: Did he practise what he preached.'' 70 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS He asked much of young men ; no one, indeed, could ask more. He demanded of them a great sacrifice, the greatest of sacrifices. Did he deny himself.'' Easy enough for the man of years and honour, for whom success has made the pathway smooth, to talk of the Christian life a young man should lead in the City, of the beauty of holiness, of keeping one's self unspotted from the world. Easy enough for one raised above the press of care and throng of work to speak of the claims of Christ upon a young man's time and thought and money. What of the young man himself when he was young? Was he ever young.? Or was he one of those unattractive phenomenons who are bom old.? Easy enough to talk of a young man's temptations from the serene heights of age and wealth, when the blood has cooled and desires have dulled, and a settled, certain comfort has rolled the roughness out of existence and softened its harsh conflicts. What of the young man himself, in the fierce heat of the fight, when he was making his way, forcing his way.? What of the days when the tempter was a roaring lion, when passions flamed within him.? Did he, like so many, conveniently forget in after years the days of apprenticeship and stmggle? Did he, like so many, build an imaginary past out of the desires of the present.? Did he, greatly daring, preach a piety, a purity he had never practised.? Fair questions these ; questions often asked, I THE WORLD AND A YOUNG MAN 71 doubt not, of such men as Sir George Williams ; questions to which he could never reply in his life- time. Strange it is how many of life's questions can only be answered by death, how often a man's lips are sealed till his eyes are for ever closed. It is true that I might refer to the testimony of the few contemporaries of those early days who still sur- vive him, but memories of such matters of the secret life are too often rose-tinted by time. Let me show how, in these days, as in the years that followed, his life never mocked his lips. As a man thinketh in his heart — these are his heart thoughts. On the first day of the New Year, 1843, he writes: " Went to Woodbridge prayer meeting quarter after seven o'clock; attended our prayer meeting from nine to ten ; heard Mr. Binney — ordinance day. Afternoon met various schools at Weigh House; closed about half-past four o'clock. Returned to Hitchcock's to tea. Attended our prayer meeting ; went to chapel ; heard Mr. Binney — a good day." But, it will be said at once, this is a record of a Sunday, of the first Sunday of the year — the day of the new leaf in most Kves — this is no fair test of a young man's religion. Many are the sneers at a one-day-in-the-week piety. But it may safely be said that you can gauge with some accuracy the fervour, if not necessarily the sincerity, of a busy man's faith by his life on Sunday. I know the arguments which may well be brought against a 72 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS restless day of rest, a day crowded with work, as George WilKams lived it through his career. I know, too, that in spite of the long and tedious hours of labour sixty years ago, the mental and moral strain of business was light judged by the standards of to-day, so that it would be unfair to reason that what was possible for a young man in the City in 1843, is equally possible, or, if possible, wise and justifi- able, at the present time. Still, Sunday offered then, even more than it offers now, the one opportunity in the week for recreation, was then, even more than it is now, the one day of escape. One of the secrets of George Williams's success in all his undertakings, religious as well as commer- cial, was his extraordinary capacity for work, his tireless energy of brain and body. It is a com- monplace to speak of change of work as recreation, but that was the Sabbath rest as George Williams understood it. So far from the first Sunday being in any way an exception, it is one of the quietest recorded in these diaries. In addition to the Sunday School work at the Weigh House, which occupied him increasingly, he was soon visiting the slums on Sunday afternoon, and holding services in the dark- est districts of London, whose darkness in those days was night indeed. Mr. Creese tells how the first day he spent in London he accompanied George Williams to the slums to visit absentee Sunday School children. " He ran up the almost perpendicular stairs with 5) •o 0) s -2 o CJ a> c-i c: u t^ m < J3 ^ o ■O a In reference to the men of Berea (Acts xvii. 11 and 12), who " received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so." A sect of this name was founded in Scotland in 1773 by the Rev. John Barclay. THE UPPER ROOM 117 reports to men who held higher positions in the busi- ness world and accordingly took precedence at the meetings they attended. In a few weeks the movement had prospered to such an extent that another move became necessary, and in October George WilHams and Edward Beaumont were deputed to obtain more convenient premises. After some little trouble, for most of the possible meeting-places were not available for gatherings on temperance hnes, a large room was secured at Radley's Hotel, in Bridge Street, Blackfriars, opposite the site of the present Ludgate Hill Station. The cost of this room was seven shillings and sixpence a week, an increased expenditure which seemed to many almost too daring a venture. It was let to the society on the strict condition that they did not sing, a restric- tion which probably weighed heavily on the young enthusiasts. Despite this drawback Radley's Hotel became the headquarters of the Association for the next five years, and until it was demolished an annual breakfast was given there by George Williams so that the members of the Association might fitly com- memorate its humble beginnings and give thanks for its wonderful extension. The first home of the Young Men's Christian As- sociation was the coffee-house and the tavern, placed amid surroundings which suggested to all the too " free-and-easy " entertainments with which young men beguiled their spare hours. In 1844 the only 118 Sm GEORGE WILLIAMS accommodation for such meetings as these was to be found in the tavern, a state of things which the Association with its splendid buildings, its institutes, its club and class-rooms, has done so much to remedy. A word may in this place be said of the societies for young men started in 1824 by the revered David Nasmith, the founder of the London City Mission, which some have confused with the Young Men's Christian Association, while one or two misinformed persons have gone so far as to state that George Williams's work was in reality only an imitation of that started by David Nasmith in Glasgow. Such assertions have from time to time been brought into prominence, and as they have caused some pain to the friends of the Young Men's Christian Association it is as well that they should be answered definitely once for all. It has never been suggested that there was any- thing original in the scheme for a society of Christian young men. Such associations date from about the year 1678, when, according to the account given by the " pious " Robert Nelson, the eighteenth-century precursor of the Earl of Shaftesbury, a few young men belonging to the middle station of life began to feel their need of spiritual intercourse and of mutual encouragement in the practices of piety. It is of peculiar interest to note that these societies had to contend with precisely the same " prejudice and sus- picion " which beset the early path of the Young THE UPPER ROOM 119 Men's Christian Association. Their promoters were charged by men of " duller sensibility in religion " with setting up a Church within a Church, with using their associations for party purposes, and with forming " sects and schisms " ; but in A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of Eng- land, Robert Nelson defends them against such accu- sations, and writes of them as doing much to " revive that true spirit of Christianity which was so much the glory of the primitive times." These particular societies came to a melancholy end during the decay of religion under the Georges, and at one of their last annual meetings at Bow Church in 1738 a special sermon was addressed to the members warning them against being led astray by the irregularities of Whitefield. But others of a different character took their place, and among them Whitefield and Wesley found many of their most earnest fellow-workers. And, as far as can be ascertained, none of the twelve first members was acquainted with the societies estabhshed by David Nasmith." In the year 1839 David Nasmith had stated that he had resolved to start no more of his young men's societies, and had predicted the speedy termination of those in existence. He had organised them on a broad basis that " he might enclose within the fold the youth of all condi- tions and of every phase of faith," believing that the " association even of the worldly-minded and unbe- lieving with the earnest few would be beneficial," but 120 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS with sorrow he was forced to admit that the work had been marred by the disorders which had arisen among the members, by " the unseemly violence of opinion, the exhibition of un-Christian temper, and the alarming influence of improper persons at the meetings," so that he much feared for " the sta- bility of even good young men under such trying circumstances." That these Nasmith Societies had no connection, and indeed little in common with the Association started in the upper room in St. Paul's Churchyard, can be abundantly proved from their official organ, for in the Young Men's Magazine and Monthly Record for January, 184<5, there is a long extract from the first report of the Young Men's Christian Association, which is commended to the serious con- sideration of its readers. In the April issue it is distinctly stated that " beyond what we borrowed from that report we were then unacquainted with the plans and views of the Association," and that now, having paid some attention to its proceedings, " we should be failing in our duty did we not give it our cordial support, and use whatever influence we may possess towards attaining its all-important object," an object it should be noted which the writer clearly understands to be diff'erent from that of the Young Men's Societies which he is addressing. He goes on to lament, indeed, that up to that time " no adequate effort " had been made towards the improvement of THE UPPER ROOM 121 the spiritual condition of young men, that the best attempts hitherto made had met with but Httle suc- cess. Finally, he promises to keep the readers of the magazine " acquainted with the progress of an Asso- ciation which has entered upon a field of more than ordinary promise." At this date the magazine contains particulars of some twenty-five meetings of the Young Men's So- cieties to be held in London during the month, but when it is noted that according to the rules laid down in the official list at the end of the paper " the society shall consist of men of good moral character, not professing opinions subversive of evangelical reli- gion," and that the chief work at the meetings is the reading of essays, it will be clear to all that these societies, whatever the original intention of David Nasmith, were little differentiated from the multitude of Mutual Improvement Societies which abounded at that time, and had little but the name in common with the definite religious association founded by George Williams. CHAPTER VI THE EARLY DAYS OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION IT has been well said that the three great factors which combined in the genesis of the Young Men's Christian Association were: Personal contact, united prayer, and the study of the Bible. From the single association in the single house of business, there grew an association of associations as the young men of the separate houses came together in a common bond of fellowship and union, co-operating to widen and further their interests and influence. The records of the early work of the Association are full of encouraging reports of the way in which, as the result of the personal contact of each of the members of the first Committee, this work was spread- ing from young man to young man and from busi- ness to business. George Williams himself was one of the most assiduous visitors to other establishments. Naturally, he met with many rebuffs, even from those interested in matters of religion, for while a number of the young men in the drapery establishments were willing enough to join in the house prayer meetings 126 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS and Bible classes, many were reluctant to identify themselves with anything in the form of a public religious association. As one writer, reviewing the history of the work, remarks, the causes for this reluctance were obvious. These young men had been brought up in different religious persuasions, some of them in the Church of England, many in various Nonconformist commu- nions, and it was not easy, even in so broad a move- ment as that which George Williams originated, to induce Church and Chapel to shake hands, in spite of the fact that the whole plan of the organisation, even to its name, was designed to meet such a diffi- culty. Moreover, there was a certain prejudice on the part of the employers to be overcome, for some pretended to see in the success of such an association of young men a strengthening of the movement for the earlier closing of places of business, which at that time was regarded by many with suspicion. It was publicly contended, indeed, that the Young Men's Christian Association was merely an offshoot of the Metropolitan Drapers' Association, then in the fore- front of the fight for shorter hours. It was in meeting such objections as these that George Williams's in- variable good humour, his sense of fun, his quickness of repartee, stood him in excellent stead. From the very beginning the winning personality of this young man was one of the great mainstays of the Associa- tion, and this it remained for more than sixty years. EARLY DAYS OF THE ASSOCIATION 127 One might find himself unable to agree with George Williams's methods or suggestions, but there could never be the least trace of bitterness or rancour in such opposition, for it was only on the rarest occa- sions that George Williams allowed anything to cloud the sunniness of his temper, and his undimmed, inex- haustible enthusiasm for what he believed, was, in itself, the most forceful of arguments. This personal contact, the comer stone of the Asso- ciation, was supported and strengthened on every side by the study of the Bible and by united prayer. The practice of singling out certain individuals for peculiar intercession was adopted by the Association with the same wonderful results as had been obtained when the two or three had first met together for prayer in the upper room. Mr. Creese writes : " The plan adopted in our house was this. The number of young men thought to be unconverted was taken, and these were apportioned among the members of the Association, averaging about five to each of them. No formal resolution was taken, but it was felt by every member that a solemn engagement had been entered into to embrace every suitable opportunity of speaking a loving word to these young men, of praying earnestly for their conversion, of trying to prevail on them to attend the prayer meetings and Bible classes, and to accompany us to our places of worship on the Lord's Day. The first months of the Association's existence were 128 SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS marked by many signs of steady progress. Religious services were established in fourteen other houses of business, while weekly meetings were held at Radley's Hotel, " from which gatherings the members of the Association separated to their various places of busi- ness strengthened and cheered by such fellowship for the difficult task of keeping their flag flying in dormitory, shop, and v/arehouse." The members were increasing constantly, and fresh conversions were announced at every meeting. At this time, certainly, no attempt was made to appeal to what is known as the popular taste. Apart from friendly social con- versation over tea and seed-cake, which George Wil- liams always considered the best preliminary to a successful gathering of any kind, the meetings v/ere of a strictly " spiritual " nature, and none but mem- bers of a Christian Church were admitted to fellow- ship. That there was nothing narrowly sectarian about the Association is proved by the fact that of the first twelve members three were Episcopalians, three Congregationalists, three Baptists, and three Methodists. It must not be forgotten that the work started as an association of Christian young men, young men full, it is true, of missionary zeal, but anxious, first of all, so to strengthen each other by this bond of companionship that they might, by their united stand, show a bold front against the forces of evil which threatened to overcome the weaker brethren. 72. SI. Paul's Church YarJ. ><_>^>t^^t-<^ Suffer UB to brhig before your notice' some important considerations; to \vhiil(. for some time past, our miatls have bet-n directed, auil irtich intimately concern the eterniil welfare of a liirge cliiss ofonr fellow imiuortiils. ' W« hiive looked with dec]) concern and anxiety upon the almost totallj-neplccted spiritual condition-«r the masB uf roung men eiigu^od in the pursoitH of bueineER, — es]iecially tliofie connected with our own irado,— luid feci deHirous, by the assistance of Goil, to make some effort in order to improve it: iind, as we regard it to bt a sacred duty, binding upon every oUilJof Huii, to use all the means in liii- pow'cr, anil tu direct all his eiversieji, in and out of season, towards llie promotion of the Siiviuur's kitigdom, and the salvation of souls, we carncBtly solicit your agsiatanee in the great and important iin