Though active in the multifarious duties of the pastorate and along many lines of activity and reform in a large city, always foremost, both on the firing line, or in the charge, in that unending battle against evil, John Chambers made the pulpit his first thought. He did this in his own way and according to his own methods. He rarely if ever wrote out his sermons. After due preliminary study and renewing of his strength by waiting, in prayer, upon God, he entered the pulpit. He depended largely upon being in first class physical condition, upon the inspiration of the moment, gaining much by induction from his audience and the circumstances, while trusting heartily in the presence and blessing of the Holy Spirit, upon whom he continually waited.
John Chambers believed in thorough public announcement. A true herald, he first made sure of calling together the assembly. By this he sometimes set as much store, as he did upon the proclamation of the message itself. On himself he laid the responsibility of his hearers' attention. In the main, his preaching was of the character expressed by the New Testament Greek word kerusso (proclaim), as well as by the word evangelizo.
John Chambers was the first minister in Philadelphia to advertize the subjects of his sermons as well as the hour and place of their delivery. He thus initiated for their publishers a line of profitable revenue. In the Public Ledger, especially, one may, by looking over the files, see the range and timeliness of his discourses. The topics were "sensational", in the best meaning of that term.
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Being himself "of infinite wit", the pastor had an eye and a feeling for the humor of some of the situations which he created by his pulpit advertising. As a matter of course and of human nature, around so superb a beacon, many bats and strange birds flitted. Parasites and hangers-on, as well as men and women who wished to exploit themselves financially and for their own glory, and rise into notoriety on his fame, sometimes pestered him. For example, on seeing in the Saturday morning's Public Ledger, that the theme of the popular preacher in the First Independent Church was to be "On the importance of a man's having his life insured", one youth resolved to make gain of godliness. Mr. Chambers, while in his study, a front room in his house at Twelfth and Girard streets, which opened into the hall near the front door, was surprised to have ushered in upon him a young man with a small arm load of insurance literature and advertisements. The visitor strove to prove that a certain insurance company of Philadelphia was the best in the world. Having expected to get Mr. Chambers to recommend from the pulpit this particular corporation, he went away sorrowful, for he had had great expectations. Nevertheless from the tact, worldly wisdom, persistence and importunity of even the average life insurance agent, what lazy Christian cannot learn a lesson?
Mr. Chambers always knew of the great preachers, not only in Philadelphia, but in other cities. Although, very properly, he never recommended his members to attend on the ministry of others, he did warmly urge his nephew, Milner, when visiting Philadelphia, to go and hear Philips Brooks, and he himself went with him to listen to Dr. Talmage.
When the grand rector of Holy Trinity called on me in Boston, as he did more than once (for he, too, loved Japan),[85] and saw hanging on the wall of my study a certain portrait of his Philadelphia neighbor and friend, he cried out: "What a Grand old Roman! Did you know John Chambers?" Then he burst forth into hearty panegyric of the old "war horse", and seemed delighted that I was one of his boys. Later on, when our people in the Shawmut Church helped a native missionary to Japan and several Japanese lads from the U. S. White Squadron, then in Boston harbor, were present, Dr. Phillips Brooks spoke to my people.
After my address in the Chambers-Wylie Memorial Church on the "Historical Night", December 11, 1901, I gave my people in Ithaca an account of the great Philadelphia pastor. The brief notice of John Chambers in the Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition (New York, 1890), is also from the biographer.
It is only fair history to set down that in sermon preparation the pastor and his pen were not always closely acquainted with each other. No two men were more different in this respect than Albert Barnes and John Chambers. Much as they loved and admired each other, their habits were very unlike. The former spent from five o'clock until nine every morning of his life in his study searching the oracles of God in languages old and new. It was his habit to throw down his pen in the middle of a sentence, or even a word, on the clock stroke. The popular preacher made light of spending too much time in the study and urged more personal work with men. More than once Mr. Chambers passed his joke with the scholar.
Yet to-day Albert Barnes is still teaching the Gospel through his commentaries, in many tongues and countries, almost "all nations", after having educated a whole generation of American ministers and Sunday School teachers.[86] On the other hand John Chambers still preaches in the lives of his disciples, in the church edifices which they have reared, in the congregations they have gathered, and in ever expanding circles of unseen but potent influence.
As a boy, when Albert Barnes, aged and venerable, almost blind through his long-continued labors which had so tried his eyes, met me on the street and asked me some question as to the place and person of the funeral of a friend mutually dear, I remember with what reverence I looked up to the great scholar and the fearless champion of spiritual freedom. I realized even then the shade of difference in feeling from that which I nourished toward my grand pastor. Nevertheless, God needs both kinds of servants. The suggestions of Socrates, as to writing both on the skins of animals and on the tablets of the human heart, are in point here.
The comparison made between Albert Barnes and John Chambers is much like that in the modern story of "Verbeck of Japan" and of Samuel R. Brown, "A Maker of the New Orient", perhaps, also, as the parable of the leaven in each case.
These were the days of the infidel's Bible as well as the saints' Word of God, the era of King James's Version and of the old crude theories of verbal inspiration. It was on such theories and on such alone, that such unlearned men, meretricious platform speakers, and ephemeral secularists, as Joseph Barker, Robert Ingersoll, and Charles Bradlaugh could thrive. The climates, both of popular and orthodox theology and of infidelity, were somewhat different from the cosmic influences of to-day. The arguments of unfaith were, for the most part at least, the old common, shallow, and blatant ones. The theological parasites and bacilli were as harmful, and in God's providence as useful, then as[87] now, but I think popular orthodoxy and the average pulpit furnished much of the food for the obnoxious microbes, and even made congenial "cultures" for the peculiar varieties existing then.
The unbeliever fed his mind and starved his soul on the arguments of Mr. Paine,—not the Thomas Paine of the American War of Independence, when he sounded the trumpet for freedom, but the Thomas Paine of the French Revolution, who, long after his stirring appeals to American patriotism, wrote the Age of Reason. In view of the fact that the little thoroughfare in old New York, named in his honor, Reason Street, has long since become corrupted into Raisin street, (wherein we read a parable) Mr. Paine's arguments seem jejune enough. For Paine the patriot and public servant, all Americans should have the highest respect. I remember that my English grand-father, Captain John L. Griffis, of the Mariner's Society of Philadelphia which usually met in historic Carpenters' Hall, received his certificate of membership from Thomas Paine, the secretary. He had then no taint of theological rancor associated with his name, which clericals, who are not necessarily better Christians than laymen, are too apt to shorten to "Tom".
There was a society of biblical critics and amateur theologians, commonly called infidels or even "atheists", who gathered under the name of the Sunday Institute. These worthies met together on the Lord's Day in a hall in Sixth street above Race, and frequently discussed the themes and sermons of Mr. Chambers, sometimes, as it seemed, in a blasphemous as well as irreverent style. Like Mr. Chambers, they advertised their subjects in the Public Ledger. I remember one of them, seeing I was a "Chamberite", pointed out to me the "discrepancies" of the Bible, such as apologists on the one hand were in those days continually[88] trying to "explain", while the sceptic on the other enlarged them under his microscope. This old scorner called my attention to the fact that "artillery" (I Samuel XX: 40) was mentioned in the Bible as belonging to those early days. Hence it could not be inspired of God! He prophesied that Christianity as a delusion would soon pass away, and he recommended me to read Volney's "Ruins". How tired such men must be waiting for the religion of Jesus to die! Alas, for them, the corpse always fails to be ready!
Many a time have I seen in the church gallery a Voltairean looking old gentleman, who took notes and seemed to be immensely tickled at some of the denunciations of himself and his fellows by the pulpit orator. Dr. Chambers was rather free in handling the English Philosopher, whom he usually spoke of as "Tom Paine" thereby making at least one boy determined that, if ever he became a minister, he would give, if possible, even the devil his due and speak of doubting Thomas with his full name.
The Sunday Despatch was the first newspaper in Philadelphia to practice seven days' journalism, thereby shocking the feelings of those who could conscientiously read a Monday morning paper printed during Sunday hours. Of course the preacher fulminated against this innovation. It is a curious commentary on the change in public sentiment and practice, that on the spot in which Sunday journalism was so often and perhaps righteously denounced, there is published the popular newspaper which knows no Sabbath in its issues.
The days either of the destructive higher criticism of consecrated critical scholarship had not yet come to this side of the Atlantic, nor had the grand work been done by Dr. Charles A. Briggs, the pioneer, and the host of consecrated biblical scholars after him, which has cut the ground from[89] under the feet of Ingersollism. Practically unanimous in brushing away the cobwebs of scholasticism and tradition, these consecrated men have helped, by God's blessing, to make the Bible the Heavenly Father's book as fresh as if written yesterday. They have driven infidelity out of its old strongholds and compelled doubt and unbelief to find new excuses and fortifications.
In the wars of the Lord the pastor liked nothing better than opposition and obstacles, especially such as could be overcome by spiritual weapons. With the inheritance of his fighting ancestors he had the true Irishman's instinct for the martial fray; only his inheritances were turned to a nobler use and grandly were they consecrated. His preaching was just of the sort to equip his average hearer against the insidious attacks of unbelief, the freezing effects of conventionalism, and the paralysis of sinful pleasure. Many a mighty blow was delivered against the lit............