Chapter III (2)

But after the removal of Mr. Fuller, great discord and confusion prevailed in the Church and congregation. The friends of the late pastor, who were attached to his person and ministry, were greatly displeased with the conduct of those who had been the means of his removal. Many things were done and said which were very painful to both parties, created much ill feeling amongst themselves, and exposed them to the derision of the men of the world.

After some time they sent an invitation to Mr. Saunders, of Bedworth, who they understood was desirous to remove; but the invitation not being unanimous, it was declined.

Their attention was soon after directed to the Rev. T. N. Toller, who was a student in the academy at Daventry. Mr. Toller first preached to them as a supply, October 1st, 1775, when he was not quite twenty years of age. The first text was Acts xiii. 26: "Unto you is the word of this salvation sent." In the following April, two of the deacons went to Daventry to invite Mr. Toller to become their stated supply for three months; at the expiration of this time, he was again invited for nine months; after which he received an invitation to become their pastor, which invitation was cheerfully signed, June 15th, 1777, by 87 persons, as the call of the Church to the pastoral office. The ordination service was held May 28th, 1778, when Messrs. Gregson, of Rowell, Palmer, of Hackney, Addington, of Harborough, Robins, of Daventry (Mr. Toller's tutor), Toller, of London (uncle to the pastor), and Bull, of Newport, engaged in the services of the day.

Thus commenced the longest pastorate with which the Church had yet been favoured; for Mr. Toller continued to labour amongst them until February 26th, 1821, making forty-five years and five months from the time of his first preaching at Kettering until his death. It was a ministry of much acceptance, extended influence, and great usefulness. It restored peace to a divided people; it preserved them in unbroken harmony through all its course; the congregation having often a crowded appearance, and the Church being generally in a prosperous state; not so much perhaps by the numbers added to the Church, as by the advancing piety, devotion, consistency, and intelligence of its members.

There were 221 members added to the Church during the course of Mr. Toller's ministry. These members, we have no doubt, might have been greatly increased, had the methods adopted in some places for bringing forward candidates for the communion of the Church prevailed under the ministry of Mr. Toller. We should like to convey some idea to the mind of the reader of the nature of that ministry with which the congregation at Kettering were now favoured. It was in his stated services amongst his own people that the peculiar excellencies of Mr. Toller were developed. It was our privilege in early life to sit under that ministry, but we think we shall fail to present a correct view of the impression we have on our mind as to the distinguishing features, the peculiar beauties, of that ministry; and if we were to do this, the general reader would think it too highly coloured, as our first impressions of sacred things, our deepest and most lively emotions of a religious nature, in connexion with all that we may since have known or attained, appear to us to have been derived, under God, from the ministry of Mr. Toller. His person was above the middle stature; his appearance in the pulpit venerable and commanding; his voice deep and powerful; his manner all his own, and of such a character as to chain the attention of the audience--always earnest, sometimes most fervent and impressive, rising to a high degree of impassioned eloquence when his assemblies were crowded, as on the afternoon of the Sabbath. His language was always clear, forcible, and plain, suited to the manner of his preaching; his sentiments most decidedly scriptural, evangelical, and practical, with a considerable portion of experimental piety. His ministry presented a full exhibition of the Christian temper. His discourses were distinguished by great conciseness yet fulness of matter, presenting often the most familiar but beautiful illustrations. Some of his most impressive sermons were formed entirely on the applicatory plan--some of them founded on Scripture inquiries, such as, "What think ye of Christ?" "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" &c. During a very large portion of his ministry he delivered expository discourses on the morning of the Sabbath, which were distinguished by great beauty, variety, and richness of improving remarks. The afternoon sermon generally rose out of the morning exposition; not so frequently from a text taken from the paragraph expounded as a passage suggested by the main subject of exposition. But the prayers he offered in the stated services of the sanctuary were perhaps the most remarkable of the whole--the manner was so solemn; the tone so devotional; the adorations so sublime; the confessions so abasing; the petitions so full, fervent, and appropriate; the thanksgiving so expressive and exalted; the surrender so complete and unreserved; the whole placing us so much in the presence of God, leading us to feel what we were before him, what we needed from him, what provision was made for us, what we were receiving, and what services we should render; often leading us on to the dying hour, and to the opening grandeurs of eternity. The value of such a ministry was apparent in the many cases of eminent piety that appeared amongst those that were trained up under it. Much of the Christian temper, the spirit of devotion, lively faith in the Redeemer, and the power of practical religion, were manifested in a considerable number of cases, considering the size of the place. There were "living epistles of Christ, known and read of all." We remember an eminently pious female member of the Church, of whom the pastor said, when improving her death, "He should esteem it an honour to be permitted to hold up her train in the heavenly world." While this showed the deep humility of the pastor, it showed the high estimate he had formed of the devoted member.

In the year 1799 Mr. Toller received invitations from the congregations at Carter Lane, London, and at Clapham, to become their minister, with an offer of great pecuniary advantages; but such was the attachment felt to him by his people at Kettering, as manifested in their great anxiety on the subject, and in the affectionate addresses presented to him on this occasion, that he gave a decided negative to these urgent and repeated solicitations.

In an address he delivered from the pulpit, in answer to those which he had received from his people, he bore a noble testimony to the kindness with which he had ever been treated by them; observing, "Twenty-four years ago I came to this place, under considerable and peculiar disadvantages, arising from extreme youth, inexperience, and the then critical and disjointed state of the congregation. I entered upon the station with fear and trembling, and with scarce a peradventure of being able to give any general or lasting satisfaction. During this interval, I have gone through many trying afflictions, some of which you have known, and others, some of the most trying, you have never known. I have many faults to remember this day before God, much coldness of heart, many neglects of duty, and much unfruitfulness in my office; but I will do you the justice to say, that I have no injuries from you to enumerate, no personal ill behaviour from a single individual in all this time to complain of; and if you had all treated my great Master with a regard proportioned to that I have received from you, I should have been the happiest and most blessed minister on earth," &c.

He closed his days and his ministry together. Apoplectic seizures had weakened his frame, and at length had rendered him incapable of fulfilling all the duties of his office; while they indicated to him that his end was drawing nigh. In a letter written to his people, he intimated his wish to have an assistant. They invited the eldest son of their pastor, then preaching at Wem, in Shropshire, to become assistant to his father. This invitation he accepted; but before he entered on this new sphere of duty, the earthly career of his beloved and venerated father closed in death. "He preached on Lord's-day morning, February 25th, 1821, with much of his usual animation, from Isaiah lxiii. 7-13, and remarked at the close of the discourse what encouragement this passage affords the widow and the fatherless to put their trust in God, finishing his last public discourse with these lines of Doddridge:

"To thee an infant race we leave,
Them may their father's God receive;
That ages yet unborn may raise
Successive hymns of humble praise."

He spent the evening surrounded by his family, and conversing with his children in a strain of cheerful piety; and after a night of sound repose arose as well as usual the next morning. About noon, leaving the parlour, he was found a few minutes after in an apoplectic fit, or a seizure resembling apoplexy. Several medical men repaired to the spot, but life was extinct.

His remains were interred in the ground belonging to the Meeting House on Thursday, the 8th of March. On that occasion Mr. Horsey, of Northampton, read the Scriptures and prayed, and Mr. Edwards, of the same place, delivered the funeral oration. Mr. Hall, of Leicester, preached the funeral sermon on the same day from Heb. xiii. 7--a sermon which presented a most impressive representation of the responsibility attaching to a people that had been favoured with such a ministry, and the tremendous consequences that must follow the misimprovement of such advantages.

Mr. Toller only published during his life a sermon on the "faithful saying," entitled "A Plain and Popular View of the Evidences of Christianity"; a sermon occasioned by the death of the Rev. Samuel Palmer, of Hackney, Mr. Toller's most intimate friend, from 2nd Timothy i. 10--in which occurs this striking passage:--

Suppose this house had been three times its present size, and had
been filled for half the century past with a constant crowd of
hearers; suppose the fame of the venerable man now gone had been
shouted to the skies, and he had been held up as the pride and
prince of preachers; but after all, this had been _all_:--suppose
selfish motives had been supreme, under the disguise of love to
souls; a mere notional religion had been propagated; people had been
only amused, and amazed, and made to wonder and admire; but no minds
really instructed, no hearts humbled, no sinners turned from the
errors of their ways, no Christian graces implanted, no Christian
duties promoted; in this case all these fifty years (as we have
seen) must end; and what is the consequence? What would all this
parade and popularity have proved to him? Only the bursting of a
glittering bubble; the retreat of an actor from the stage amidst the
clappings of the theatre, which he was to hear no more. There is one
passage of Scripture which, when realized, is worth all the cases of
this kind which could occur put together, viz., when a dying
minister can look round on a weeping, affectionate flock, and say,
"Ye are our epistles, written upon our hearts," &c. I say, the
genuine application of such a passage as this to a dying minister
would be worth infinitely more than all the applause and popularity
in the world.

Two discourses, occasioned by the death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, were also published.

Since the death of Mr. Toller two volumes of sermons, and a volume of expository discourses on the Book of Ruth, have been published, as transcribed from the Author's shorthand manuscripts. To the first volume of sermons was prefixed a memoir of Mr. Toller, by his friend the Rev. R. Hall.

We will transcribe from that memoir an ever-memorable anecdote, or rather, the ever-memorable use the preacher made of a domestic incident to illustrate a most important subject:--

On one occasion he preached from Isaiah xxvii. 4--"Let him take hold
of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make
peace with me." "I think," said he, "I can convey the meaning of
this passage, so that every one may understand it, by what took
place in my own family within these few days. One of my little
children had committed a fault, for which I thought it my duty to
chastise him. I called him to me, explained to him the evil of what
he had done, and told him how grieved I was that I must punish him
for it. He heard me in silence, and then rushed into my arms and
burst into tears. I could sooner have cut off my arm than have then
struck him for his fault; he had 'taken hold of my strength, and had
made peace with me.'"

After the death of Mr. Toller his son was invited for six months as a probationer for the pastoral office; at the expiration of that time he received a unanimous call to that office, which he accepted, and was ordained in October, 1821, when Messrs. J. Hall, Horsey, Edwards, Scott, Bull, and Hillyard were engaged in the principal services of the day. Thus, the eldest son of the late pastor, who had been educated for the ministry at the academy at Wymondley, succeeded to the place of his father in the most harmonious manner, and with the most cheering prospects of comfort and usefulness. During the 31 years that have elapsed since then, that harmony has been uninterrupted, that comfort and usefulness continued--the son pursuing a similar plan to that which the father adopted, in expounding the Word of God on one part of the Sabbath, to give enlarged views of Scripture truth, and to present the almost boundless variety the Book of God contains, habitually aiming to preserve a connexion between one part of the Sabbath services and the other. During the ministry of the present Mr. Toller 211 members have been added to the Church.

In the year 1849 very extensive alterations were made in the Meeting House, together with the building of a new vestry, school-rooms, class-rooms, and a dwelling-house for the sexton; the whole cost of which was about L1400, which was paid off within two years from the re-opening. The place is greatly changed from what it was. The large chandelier, with its dove and the olive leaf, is gone; the beautiful gaslight taking the place of the candles. The old pulpit is removed from its place, having long ago lost its noble sounding-board, it being now understood that the voice is better heard without such an appendage. The spacious windows on each side of the pulpit are lost, to make way for the new school-rooms, which are open to the Chapel. But the whole, we believe, has been greatly improved; additional room having been made for the hearers on the Sabbath, for the week-evening lecture, and also for the accommodation of the Sabbath-school, its Bible and its Infant classes. The present number of Church members is nearly 200; the scholars in the schools about 280.

Services are conducted in seven villages by members of the Church, chiefly on Sabbath evenings.

An impartial review of the whole will, we believe, present to the pastor and the flock the most abundant reason to "thank God and take courage."

In the history of this Church, we cannot but observe the very interesting fact which it presents, of 75 years having been already filled up by the ministry of the father and the son (and we trust that there is a probability of years of useful service being added in the case of the latter to the period that has passed), during which a Christian society and a numerous congregation have been preserved in peace, with the interests of vital religion advancing. While such a fact speaks well for the spirit and continued improvement of the people, it says much also for the Christian temper, the consummate prudence, the able and successful labours of the pastors, while to God they would unitedly ascribe all the glory.

At Warkton, about two miles from Kettering, occasional services are held. In this village Mr. Thomas Stone, another of the Puritan ministers, was rector--"a person of good learning," it is said, "and great worth: a zealous Puritan, and a member of the classes." "He died, an old man and full of days, in the year 1617." Bridges observes, "that he was inducted into the living of Warkton in the year 1553." If this statement be correct, he must have been rector of that place 64 years. He was a learned man, of great uprightness, and uncommon plainness of spirit, minding not the things of this world; yet, according to Wood, "a stiff Nonconformist, and a zealous Presbyterian." At Geddington, the birth-place of Mr. Maidwell, the first pastor of the Independent Church at Kettering, there is a Chapel regularly supplied on the Sabbath evenings. This place of worship was provided by Mr. Nathaniel Collis, for many years a respectable bookseller in Kettering, and a deacon of the Church--Geddington was his native place.

Services are also conducted on Sabbath evenings at Great Oakley, five miles from Kettering; occasionally at Orlingbury, five miles in another direction; also at Thorpe and Loddington.

BROUGHTON.

The Dissenters of Kettering have conducted occasional services in the village of Broughton, about three miles distant on the road for Northampton, for many years past. But rather more than five years ago, there were four or five young men in this village who began to think of the things which belonged to their everlasting peace; they formed themselves into a little band, and resolved that they would meet weekly and study the holy Scriptures, and encourage each other in the ways of God. They subsequently joined a Christian Church at Kettering. Becoming anxious for the welfare of those around them, they had a cottage licensed for preaching; that was found too small for those who wished to attend. In the meantime several other Christian friends came to the village, and at length, in the year 1850, a Chapel was erected; it is a neat structure, capable of containing about 200 hearers. In January, 1851, a Christian Church was formed, consisting of 19 persons; Mr. Toller and Mr. Robinson, of Kettering, being present, and conducting the services. This village Church is formed on the broad principle of Christian union, designated simply a Christian Church, without denominational distinction; its present number of communicants is 22. There is preaching here on the afternoon and evening of the Sabbath, by friends from Kettering and other places. An interesting Sabbath-school is conducted, numbering more than 60 children. The teachers express the earnest desire that many of them may be gathered into the fold of Christ, and become useful in their generation.

This place was once noted as the residence of the eminent Puritan divine, Robert Bolton, B.D. He was presented to the rectory in the year 1609, and continued until his death, in 1631. It is stated concerning him, that "he was a most authoritative and awakening preacher, being endowed with the most masculine and oratorical style of any in his time;" that "he was so deeply engaged in his work, that he never delivered a sermon to his people in public till he had preached it to himself in private."

"His remains were interred in the chancel of Broughton Church, where there is a half-length figure of him with his hands erected in the attitude of prayer, resting on a book lying open before him; and underneath is a monumental inscription in black marble, of which the following is a translation:"--

Here lies,
peaceably sleeping in the Lord,
the body of Robert Bolton,
who died December the seventeenth,
in the year 1631.
He was one of the first and
most learned of our Church.
His other excellencies all England knoweth,
lamenting the day of his death.

Mr. Bolton published a number of works; those most known in the present day are his 'Directions for Walking with God,' and his 'Four Lost Things.'