THE story of a good man's life is, in his early days at least, the story of his parents' lives, and of no one could this be more truly said that of the subject of this book, Sydney Black. To have known the parents is to account for the devotion, the self-sacrifice, and the enthusiasm for righteousness in the life of their son, for he was the visible embodiment of their aspirations for Christian service, and in him they saw many of their desires realised. It is, therefore, fitting that this chapter should be largely a record of the lives of Robert and Sarah Ann Black.
Robert Black, the father of Sydney Black, was born on 6th June, 1821, in the little village of Twynholm, Kirkcudbrightshire. He was the seventh of a family of eleven. His father, Mr. Hugh Black, was a hand-loom weaver in very humble circumstances, plying his trade in a room in the small cottage which was his home, scarcely able to do more than provide for the bodily needs of his growing family; and thus it came about that his son Robert had to go to work in the fields, and later, to become an apprentice to the village shoemaker. Times were hard then, and bread dear, and every penny that could be earned was needed, so that the lad's schooling was very soon over, though his education in the larger and wider ways of life ended only with his death.
It is not in the nature of things that a young man with Robert Black's energetic, pushing temperament could be content with the little out-of-the-way village, where the days passed so quietly and uneventfully and where the silence would be unbroken for long hours, except for the shrill cry of the plover or the rustle of the trees. Consequently, at twenty-one he came south to England, to push his fortune in company with his village companion and life-long friend, Mr. Milligan. The two young men became assistants to a Mr. Candlish, a draper of Windsor.
The energy of the young Scotsman would not be satisfied until he had reached London, and after only a short stay in Windsor, he found his way to Turnham Green and Hammersmith, where he commenced in business as a draper; and continued, chiefly at Knightsbridge, until 1875, when he retired, having amassed a reasonable competency. His success in business was due chiefly to his sterling honesty, shrewdness and untiring activity; his customers recognised that their interests were safe in his hands, and for more than twenty-five years he secured their entire confidence and was enabled to build up what was perhaps the most successful business of its kind in his day.
It was in the early years of his residence in London that Robert Black met Miss Sarah Ann Wallis, of Nottingham, to whom he was married on 8th April, 1852. Miss Wallis was born on 19th January, 1828, and was one of a family of thirteen children. Her father, Mr. James Wallis, was a member of the Churches of Christ, a small, and then little known, religious community, to which further reference will be made in a later chapter. A leading member of these Churches, Mr. Wallis for many years had edited the monthly journal of the brotherhood, The British Millennial Harbinger, in which task he was assisted by his daughter, who early showed her mental powers and literary ability. Miss Wallis's earliest religious impressions were connected with the Wesleyan Church, where, in her very young days, she consciously accepted Christ as her Saviour; later, she came more directly under the influence of the views of New Testament truth held by her father, and in her girlhood she was immersed and joined the Church. The home life in Nottingham was one informed with the Puritan spirit; its rules were strict yet kindly, the household talk was of religious matters, and the chief end of each member of the family was to glorify God. To this home many visitors came; notable amongst them, in 1847, Alexander Campbell, of America, the leading exponent in that country of the religious tenets held by Mr. James Wallis and the Churches with which he was associated. Mr. Wallis induced his guest to give a series of Lectures and Addresses on New Testament Christianity in London, and it was at one of these lectures that Robert Black first heard what was, to him, a new and almost startling presentation of Divine truth. Brought up, as a child, in the Established Church of Scotland, he had, when seventeen years of age, joined the United Presbyterian Church on the ground that its doctrines accorded more with Bible teaching than those of the Church of his parents. The same independent spirit of enquiry led him later, when in Windsor, to take up his membership with the Congregational Church, under the ministry of Dr. Stoughton. Further reading and study of the Word of God convinced him of the necessity for Believers' Immersion, and in 1845 he threw in his lot with the Baptists, taking up his membership with the Church of that order, meeting in the West End Chapel, Hammersmith.
Upon this Bible-loving, earnest mind the message of the American preacher fell with great force, so that after much searching of the Scripture and meditation, Robert Black, in company with two friends, met together as a Church of Christ in London. In this new enterprise they received much help from the late Mr. David King, of Birmingham, whose remarkable powers as teacher and preacher led many more to associate themselves with the little Church.
It was during this period that the acquaintance between Robert Black and Sarah Ann Wallis, based upon similarity of religious views, deepened into a closer and more tender intimacy, and to a union which was unbroken for fifty-three happy years. After their marriage, they resided in Knightsbridge, London, where, for twenty-three years, Mr. Black carried on his ever-prospering business as a draper, and there Mrs. Black made a home for her husband and for the children born to them. The early years of their married life were years of much sorrow, for their first five children all died in childhood. Sydney, the eldest surviving child, was born on 25th July, 1860, and the five following children all lived, the family remaining unbroken for thirty years.
Of these early years the mother would never speak, but their influence upon her life was seen in her tender sympathy for those in suffering and sorrow, and in her absolute devotion to the children still granted to her. In her home life she was an almost perfect mother, entering into the pleasures of her young family with understanding and gentle tolerance, guiding the children's reading with a wise instinct in her choice of books, and ever ready to turn their thoughts in a natural way to the Word of God, so that the Scriptures came to be a familiar and friendly book to them all. Family prayers were always observed in the household, and at times, in the occasional absence of her husband, Mrs. Black would lead the devotions in a simple and sweet directness which was a revelation to those who were privileged to be present. Her love for her family was a passion. All children were dear to her, for the sake of those she had lost. They were never a trouble, and she had always time to listen to and talk with them, to tell them stories in her own quiet way.
The qualities which thus made her the idol of her children and the pride of her husband, caused her to be greatly loved by those to whom she ministered in other homes, for where need was, there she would be found night after night, nursing those who were ill, and who were unable to have paid service. She would often carry out the last sad offices for the dead, if by doing so she could relieve the broken-hearted bereaved ones. Without a shadow of false pride she would at times go from her comfortable home into the poor houses of the suffering, to sweep up their rooms and clean their hearth for "Jesus' sake." With a delicate regard for the feelings of her poorer sisters, she declined to spend an unnecessary penny upon her attire, and preferred to be plainly dressed because, as she once said, "I cannot possibly go smartly dressed into the homes that I enter, where there is often no food to eat and hardly any clothing; it would bring out the contrast and make them feel more unhappy: besides I should not feel it was right to spend money on myself while others need it."
She denied herself that she might give to others, and it could truly be said of Mrs. Black that her life's motto was "Not to be ministered unto, but to minister."
Every cause which had for its object the uplifting of the poor, or the promotion of National or Civic righteousness, had in her a warm advocate. For years she conducted a Children's Week Evening Service, assisted in the Band of Hope and Mothers' Meetings, and regularly attended the Weekly Prayer Meetings. In the larger world, outside the circle of her own immediate Church, she was greatly interested in the British Women's Temperance Association and kindred societies, and took an honourable part in their advancement. In connection with the Churches of Christ she inaugurated, and carried on for years, a large correspondence with members isolated from their own Church fellowship through residence in towns or villages where there were no Churches of their own faith and order, and she received many letters telling the gratitude of those to whom her interesting letters were a source of inspiration and profit.
Public life was, however, not the work most congenial to this saintly woman; she undertook it rather as a duty. Her real life was in her home, and there her influence was greatest. In all her beneficent activities she preserved a sanctuary whether she could repair for spiritual power and uplifting; the result of which was plainly to be seen in a certain clear-sightedness of vision, a loftiness of tone, which led her to test temporal things by referring them to the standard of the eternal. The story of great deeds for humanity grandly done always kindled in Mrs. Black a generous enthusiasm and a hearty response, hence in her later life, the work of Mrs. Booth, of the Salvation Army, met with her warmest approval, and she was almost envious of that godly woman's record. Character always appealed to Mrs. Black more than doctrine, not that she under-valued the latter, for she held strongly to all the essential and permanent elements of the Christian faith, but she felt that ordinances were but means to an end, scaffolding to the structure, temporary, and vanishing when the perfect was come. The end of all Church life was the production in human life of the Christlike character.
Her greatest joy in the later years of her life was in the service rendered by her family in advancing the Kingdom of God: for her children had worthily responded to her training, and were found wholeheartedly engaged in Christian work. She followed with enthusiastic interest, with daily prayers and constant encouragement, the evangelistic career of her eldest son Sydney, and tidings of his success in his chosen work were a matter of profound gladness to her.
In one of the last of her New Year's Circular Letters to the correspondents previously mentioned, she wrote, and in thus writing lays bare her own soul:-
"... The earnest hope that you are holding fast to the things you have learned to know and love in Christ Jesus our Lord, who says to you and all of us, 'Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.'
"May His richest blessing be upon you throughout the coming year, and every year of your busy useful life. I beseech you endeavour in the midst of all your daily work and trials that must come, to cast all your cares on Him because He careth for you. If you feel that nobody cares for you, do not forget that He cares. There is much to discourage us all, but God is strong when we are weak, and all-wise when our way seems dark and the world cold and unfriendly. 'It is a good thing to draw nigh unto Him.' 'He will draw nigh unto us.' 'Trust in the Lord at all times.' 'Blessed are they who put their trust in Him.' 'I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.' And relying always that 'On Christ the solid rock you stand; all other ground is sinking sand,' believe beyond a doubt, that He is faithful who has promised.
"I am getting far on in life and my lonely years will soon be gone. This brief letter I trust you will accept with my kindest love and best wishes for a bright and useful and prosperous New Year in all you find to do. It may be my last feeble year, but may yours by His mercy be lengthened out to the number that I have been spared to see if that be His will."
And in a last letter to one of her sons, written in a period of much suffering, she said,-
"Pray for me that pain may be abated and strength given for what may yet be. I do so love you all and wish I could see you again and hear your voice. But what He wills is wise and good and kind. And whatever comes may we all praise Him more and more."
On the 28th of February, 1906, this gracious and noble woman "fell on Sleep," leaving behind her the memory of a beautiful life. She had literally fulfilled the ideal of the virtuous woman, her husband indeed praised her, and her children rise up and call her blessed.
Of Robert Black equal testimony can be borne, for both in his private and public life he was in all things an upright and good man. The history of the Churches of Christ in London was for many years his history. He it was who established the little Church in Sydney Hall, Chelsea, out of which sprang the larger effort in College Street, Chelsea, and later still, the work known so well as the Twynholm Mission at Fulham Cross. His adherence to the tenets of the Churches of Christ remained unchanged throughout his life, for once assured that the truths offered for his acceptance were scripturally true, Mr. Black never looked back, but continued faithful to their simple, democratic, reasonable view of Church life and polity.
During the years of active business life Mr. Black had steadily refused, though repeatedly invited, to become an Elder of the Church, on the ground that he could not then devote the time to the Church's welfare that such a position demanded. In the year 1875, however, having retired from business, he consented to accept the position, and for thirty years he was a faithful servant of Jesus Christ in the highest office to which the Church could call him. He proved to be a worthy pastor, one who knew all the sheep in his fold, and lived amongst them. Counsellor, guide and friend, his were no formal visits. The Church's welfare was his daily thought, its needs he constantly supplied, its failures he mourned over as a father mourns for an erring son. Early and late, if the Church required him, he was ready to serve. Not a meeting was held but he would be there. The members looked to him in all their troubles; the house of joy, and still more the house of mourning, knew his kindly and comforting presence. Human need constantly called to him, and the poor and destitute were sure of aid if only he could be found. Thousands must have been helped, the record of which only heaven has kept. His advice was sought constantly on matters of difficulty, and he was ever ready to spend himself in the interest of others.
As a speaker Mr. Robert Black was no orator, yet his gentle, admonitory, persuasive speech always claimed for him the attention of his audiences. His Scottish accent, which he never lost, seemed designed to fit the nature of his words. The Psalms were specially dear to him, as they are to all true Scots. His addresses dealt almost entirely with the experimental side of Christian life, and were exhortations to holy living; for while he believed profoundly in the doctrines of the Church, he yet felt that the members needed to be directed more in the practical duties of life, so his speech was plain and easily understood. He had some delightful eccentricities and quaint mannerisms which, to think of now, touch the heart as with a happy memory. He was never afraid to speak to others of their soul's welfare, and must often have disconcerted his friends by his direct enquiry as to their personal standing before God. He was the means of bringing hundreds to a saving knowledge of Jesus, less by the power of his preaching than by the eloquence of his godly and devout life, and by the deep interest he showed in their salvation.
It greatly pleased him to see young men enthusiastically earnest in the work of the Church, and his opinion of and regard for them was in direct proportion to their regard for the things of God. There must be quite a number of those, who today are Evangelists under the auspices of the Churches of Christ, who can trace the beginning of their work to the advice and encouragement received from Mr. Black. He was held in the highest esteem by the Churches throughout the land, and at their Annual Conferences, any words of his were listened to with marked attention. In 1873 he was Chairman of the Conference held in Wigan.
In conversation on current topics of the day one soon discovered how strongly Radical were Mr. Black's views. The late Mr. Gladstone had no greater admirer than he: and he esteemed very highly that ardent and militant Nonconformist leader, Dr. Clifford, who was his friend. He had a scorn of meanness, and could not tolerate hypocrisy; clericalism he looked upon as the greatest disintegrating force in Christianity, and believed that if people would but study for themselves the Word of God, the unhappy divisions in the churches would soon cease. In his habits he was simple almost to severity, yet he was full of quiet and deep content. He could read character, was quick to discern between the real and the false. He was by no means austere, but could enjoy, with a Scotsman's peculiar pleasure, any harmless joke, and would laugh heartily at any story provided that it was free from malice or wrong suggestion.
The harmony that existed in the family was beautiful to see. None of his children would take any important step in their life without laying it before him. If he sometimes did not think it to be the wisest course for them, he would state his view of the case, but such was his confidence in his children that he rarely, if ever, found it necessary to oppose them.
The writer, privileged to enjoy twenty years of unbroken friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Black, cannot forget how much he owes to them: coming as he did to London, a young man scarcely out of his teens, he found in their counsel an inspiration to good. When the great city was bewildering in its multitudinous appeals to the low and base, their home was to him a place of refuge and repair. Their simple unaffected regard for the things of God taught him how real a thing the Christian life could be.
One cannot better close this brief epitome of these saintly lives than by quoting a paragraph from an address presented by their children on the occasion of their Golden Wedding in 1902.
"We acknowledge with deepest appreciation our lifelong debt to you both. You have indeed understood how to bestow the best gifts upon your children. We rejoice greatly as we recur to our invaluable heritage of sound minds and bodies; to the simple spiritual instruction of our earliest childhood; to the watchful and prayerful training which has shielded us, as a wall of fire, from the destructive vices of society; to the tender interest in our all-round welfare, which has never failed us, and has passed undiminished to our children; and to that eminent zeal for pure and undefiled religion, which has ever been, and still is, a daily source of strength and inspiration."
It was in their home, sanctified by their tender wisdom and gentle care, that Sydney, their eldest son, grew up, a sturdy, well-built lad. His early schooldays were spent at the Western Grammar School, off the Brompton Road, but, later, he went to the Nonconformist Grammar School at Bishop's Stortford, where he was as successful in athletics as in learning, for he not only proved a diligent student, but carried off the challenge cup for prowess in sports. He was foremost in Cricket and Football and in all the usual games of healthy lads; full of fun, yet with a vein of seriousness, which must have led him to often think about higher things, so that one learn with small wonder that, at the early age of thirteen, he had already decided that his life must be definitely surrendered to God. With such parents, home training, and influence, this was a natural outcome. Sydney was too shy or too overcome with the solemnity of his decision to speak of his desires to his parents, so he wrote to his mother, and told her of his wish to be baptised. The slip of paper was treasured by her to the day of her death. Surely no request is more to be rejoiced over by a mother, nor can there be one which should be more quickly approved. On his next return home from school, Sydney was immersed into Jesus at College Street Chapel, Chelsea, and for thirty years he witnessed a good confession.
These early days of his Christian life were those of an ordinary, healthy, happy lad. Without a trace of affectation or priggishness, he enjoyed life naturally; was a hero amongst his companions on account of his strength and skill in games, and was respected by them for his sense of honour and truth. He was conscious always that, since he was a Christian, he must never do anything mean, but play the man.
He left school at the age of sixteen with little more than an ordinary education, for his father took what he considered a practical view of the matter, and did not approve of his son continuing at school for any period longer than was necessary to fit him for his work as a draper, for he wished Sydney to come into his own business. The lad was apprenticed, for a short time, to Messrs. Shoolbred & Co., of Tottenham Court Road. Leaving there after the period of his apprenticeship was over, we find him occupying a position in Messrs. Peter Jones & Co., of Sloane Square, where he continued at the work designed for him by his father until he was called, in 1883, to the greater work appointed to him by God.
In these seven years of waiting Sydney Black was not idle, for his great ambition was to be a preacher and to serve the Church, hence he used all his leisure in study and preparation. On Sunday he would spend the whole day in active service in the meetings and at the school.
At the age of seventeen he preached his first sermon. No record exists of the text, the matter or the manner of this first address. Probably, to the hearers, it contained no hint of the powers which were to grow out of that timid first effort, except that one may be quite sure his mother would discern the beginning of great things and would be praising God in her heart for her boy's word. After this first essay in preaching, Sydney's ambition was intensified, and as the Church wisely encouraged the young man, he had many opportunities of developing and improving his undoubted gifts.
In 1882 he attended the Annual Conference of the Churches of Christ, which was held that year in Leicester. At that meeting a strong appeal was made to brethren, who had sons qualified by education and ability to do the work of an Evangelist, to allow them to be set apart for the work, and where possible to provide for them to do it. It was a memorable occasion, and the appeal moved the assembly with unmistakable power. It is certain that it deepened the desire which for years had been forming in the heart of Sydney Black, and led him within the following months to decide to give up all thoughts of a business life, and give himself wholly to the work of Gospel proclamation.
In the light of later years it is not surprising that he should come to this decision, for to any one who knew him and his burning zeal for active, aggressive Evangelism, it is almost inconceivable that he could have been much longer content with the routine and petty detail of a draper's shop. Yet the experience of life he had so far gained helped him in his chosen work, for he was specially interested in the shop and warehouse lads and young men of London, and by his sympathy and understanding of their trials and needs was successful in leading many into the better way.
In February, 1883, after a conference with his parents in which he laid before them his ambition to be wholly devoted to the service of God in the Evangelistic field, he started upon his first preaching campaign, happy in the knowledge of his father's hearty approval and support, and inspired by the memory of his mother's smile and benediction: "Go, my son, and the Lord be with you!"