districts, labour as energetically as their husbands. I
have heard of one lady who has two sewing-classes, with a hundred women
in each. Commander Dawson, conference secretary of the Association of
Lay Helpers, looks forward to the time when every communicant will be one
of the agents of the society, thus stimulating his fellows, and giving
fresh life and courage to his clergyman. It is clear when this
consummation is achieved the Church of England, whether established or
not, will shine with a saintly lustre which has never yet been hers.
Let me give a sketch of
AN EVANGELICAL PREACHER,
"You must go and hear the Church Spurgeon," said an intelligent lady,
residing not a hundred miles from Highbury New Park, to the writer.
"Who is he?" we asked.
"The Rev. Gordon Calthrop," was the reply. "He preaches in a temporary
iron church, St. Augustine's, Highbury New Park."
Soon afterwards, on a certain Sunday, we made our way to the church in
question. There was very little difficulty in finding it out. As you
enter Highbury New Park, leaving Dr. Edmond's new church on the right,
you come into a region of broad roads and handsome villas, into which
poverty, which has an unpleasant knack of pushing itself where it is not
wanted, actually seems ashamed to intrude. In these houses, almost
countryfied, standing in the midst of well-trimmed lawns, shaded by leafy
shrubs, between which flowers of the richest beauty bud and blossom, only
rich people and people apparently well-to-do dwell, and they all attend
at Mr. Calthrop's church. Follow any of them, as on a Sunday morning the
hour of service draws nigh, and bells far and near are calling men to
prayer, and you find yourself at St. Augustine's. Close by, a handsome
ecclesiastical structure is rapidly rising, which is to hold 1400 people.
That is the permanent church, the foundation-stone of which was laid by
the Bishop of London, and where, it is hoped and believed, Mr. Calthrop
may labour for many years to come. As it is, he has been preaching in
this iron church, which will seat about nine hundred, for the last five
years. He came there a stranger, fearful of the future, doubting what
would be the issue. The church was quite a new one. The neighbourhood
had been but recently built on, but he came with a heart full of zeal,
with an experience ripe and varied, and in a little while it was apparent
to himself and his friends that the step he had taken wa
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