Memories of Stanley Pumphrey, by Henry Stanley Newman

Chapter I. Boyhood

In the heart of the City of Worcester, in the Cross, stands St. Nicholas Church, and there in 1837 stood the parsonage, which was for years the home of the late Frances Ridley Havergal, at that time a blithe active girl intent on doing good. Exactly opposite formerly stood a chandler's shop, and there on the 15 th July, Stanley Pumphrey was born of sober godly parents. The lad was named after his father, the first boy of the family, having two older sisters. His mother's name was Mary, the eldest daughter of Samuel Westcombe, and as one child after another arrived, scrupulous frugality was needed, and the mother might seem to be careful and troubled about many things ; albeit there was a strong reserve force of devout Christianity, and much of her own bright character became developed in her children.

On the birth of Stanley, his young sister was sent up to St. John's with the good news, informing her aunts in her own way, '' Polly has got a little bother ! "

His nurse had a summary mode of putting the child to sleep by closing his eyes and keeping them shut with her own fingers. One day he rebelled against the procedure, declaring he did not want to go to sleep. *'Then I shall put your head out of the window," said the nurse. This threat had not, however, the desired effect, and the nurse seized her young charge and thrust his head through the window, astonishing the foot passengers in the street below with the fall of the broken glass.

The boy was early taught the love of Jesus, and the child's heart turned lovingly towards the Saviour. When a very tiny lad on his mother's knee looking at pictures, he said, "What is this picture, mamma?" pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. She told him of the love of Jesus for little children, and he whispered reverently, with the bright happy look beaming on his face, in the same loving way with which he repeated Ann Taylor's favourite lines, '^ My Mother," emphasizing the words, ''Jesus, my Saviour."

When about four years old he was very fond of playing at Scripture characters, describing some character and getting the others to guess who it was.

" Grandpapa, I have got some one for tliee to guess," he would say to his grandfather.

''Then tell me something about him," the old man replied, for he delighted in his little grandchild.

" Well then, thou wilt iind him in the Bible."

" In the New Testament or the Old ? "

" In the New."

*' Was he a good man ? "

*' I don't know," answered the child.

**Not know whether he was a good man or a bad one?"

**No, grandpapa, some things make me think he was good, and some things make me think he wasn't good."

** Then tell me something more about him."

*' He tried to do a miracle and couldn't," again replied the boy.

The grandfather looked puzzled, and Stanley went on —

''Didn't Peter try to walk on the sea, and fell in ?" — and so the mixed character of the Apostle perplexed the lad early in life.

Stanley had such high spirits and was so wilful that his mother often felt anxious. Yet he was a thoughtful obedient boy, and the bias given to his mind in childhood helped to qualify him for the precise work in the Church he was afterwards to fulfil. His mother's narrative of Robert Moffat in South Africa, and other stories, planted within him the germs of that keen interest in foreign missions which made him afterwards such an energetic member of the Friends' Foreign Mission committee, and an efficient helper of the Moravian Missionary Society.

He early learnt that the spirit of Jesus is the spirit of love, and that His followers should not fight their enemies, but do them good. He one day picked up a tea-paper on which there was a representation of a battle with the Chinese. He asked what it meant, and was told that it was the English fighting the Chinese. He was much surprised, and asked if it happened lately, saying that he had heard of the Chinese War but thought that it was a long time ago. He was quite shocked when he found it had just occurred, and he ran off to his little sister Helen, exclaiming in horror, '' Helen, dear ! the English have been fighting the Chinese, the English who have Bibles and ought to know better ! Yes, there has been a war in our time, when Helen was three years old and I was hardly five."

'' The Bible has always been veiy dear to me," he said, afterwards. " I well remember the joy it gave me when I first had a Bible of my own, the gift of my precious mother when I Avas six years old. But long before that it had been my delight to read it, and even then my mind sought to understand its mysteries. 'Mamma,' I said, when one morning before I was dressed I had been reading the account of the Plagues of Egypt, ' how was it that God hardened Pharaoh's heart ? ' It seemed strange to me that the good Lord should thus appear to be the author of evil. Before she had time to reply, my own explanation was ready, and I felt satisfied that it was only just that the very wicked should be thus dealt with. The Book which was the joy of my childhood became not less the joy of my youth, and no time was to me more precious than the half-hour which I devoted every morning to its contents and to prayer."

To his mother he also owed that enthusiastic love of the beautiful in nature and in art which made him ready both in boyhood and manhood to take a rough scramble after a rare flower, or a long walk early in the morning to secure some longed-for view across the landscape at sunrise, or late at night along the Severn in the moonlight. From these country rambles he would return home with his jacket buttoned round a bunch of wild flowers too big for his hands to hold, or kneeling beside some spring flower that he might admire it the more intently, he would exclaim, '' It is too beautiful to pick ! "

At other times he would wake his eldest sister Lucy early in the morning, and they would be off to Berwick's brook before breakfast, hunting for freshwater shells.

Life in the city was by no means congenial to the lad's natural tastes, but he was found busy at work with his sisters sowing grass between the interstices of the flags in the little courtyard where they played at the back of the house, in order that they might have something green to look at, thus acquiring the faculty of adapting himself to his environment, and endeavouring to mould his environment to his own taste.

" How uncommonly good that boy is to his little sister, it is beautiful to see how they love one another," was the remark of Mary Tanner as she saw Stanley at play.

*' I can remember," says his youngest sister, *' how when a schoolboy he condescended to play at dolls with us, and the style in which he did it. One of my dolls had incurred my serious displeasure, and we determined to kill it. So first of all she was Anne Askew, and we tied her to a stake and proceeded to burn her at the kitchen fire, but the fire was low and the process slow, and we changed our minds and pulled her out and drowned her, and then brought her to life again as Lady Jane Grey, and cut off her head. Playing with dolls became something exciting under such dramatizing as this.

** Stanley was a grand story teller. Perched on boxes, or sitting in the summer-house, or on all manner of stiles, rails, and fences, Helen and I used to get splendid stories from him, sometimes historical of King Alfred or the martyrs, sometimes good Quaker ones of William Penn, of the little boy who got into disgrace by saying ' thou ' to some big man who was indignant because the boy did not say * you,' sometimes tales such as Stories for Summer Days and Winter Nights, sometimes magnificent yarns spun from his own fancy. On asking him to tell me a story over again another day, he would reply, * Oh dear, I cannot, I made it up as I went along, and don't remember a word of it now.'

*' Our next-door neighbour was a bookseller, and Stanley was a favourite there as elsewhere, so much so that he used to slip in every morning, and his halfpence were spent in pictures and farthing books. But it was not only little story books that he laid hands upon. He was not six years old when he was found one day reading Barclay's Apology. * I think I shall find these prepositions very interesting,' he said, but he presently found they were too much for him.

" He had a wonderful love for William Penn, and astonished us very much one day by producing a little box he had obtained, made out of the tree under which Penn signed his treaty with the Indians, exclaiming in boyish glee, ' I value that more than anything else I have except my Bible.' "

About this time he was visiting at Hook Norton, and a farmer coming in began to talk to cousin Edwin Pumphrey about the weather and how bad it was for the crops. When Stanley went to bed that night, he prayed that God would send the right weather for the country, adding " I ask Thee this, Heavenly Father, because I know Thou hears me."

But he was not always grave, sometimes he was full of mischief. Being poorly one day, he was doctored with camomile tea, which he did not relish, and called out to his sister,

" Here, Helen, come and drink it for me."

*' That won't do thee the good," she replied.

*' Why, Caroline would do it for me in a minute," he answered.

" No, she won't," said Helen.

'•' Caroline, dear," he called out in persuasive tones, *' I have got such a lot of nasty stuff to drink, come and help me like a nice little sister, now do ? "

Caroline did it, of course, and felt well repaid by the triumphant rejoinder, '* There ! I knew she would."

At play one day his cousin Mary Caroline said, **ril give anybody sixpence who'll walk along the under side of that plank."

8 Memories of Stanley Pmnphrey.

" All right," shouted Stanley at once, as he turned the plank over and ran along, exclaiming, " Done !"

When on a visit at Ackworth the same summer, Stanley Avas one day lost. High and low, indoors and out, he was hunted for in vain. At last he was found in one of the deserted bedrooms reading his Bible, and entirely forgetful how time had been passing ; and the lad was quite troubled when he found the anxiety he had caused.

He early betrayed a great fancy for giving lectures with diverse illustrations. One of his earliest efforts of this kind was an ambitious attempt at astronomy. Sun, moon, Saturn's ring, and the constellations were cut out of paper, and shown to a delighted but very select audience, in a darkened counting house ; a clothes-horse serving as screen, and a lighted candle behind producing wonderful effects. Political lectures followed veiy early, and at the parliamentary election the little lad drew down the front blinds of the house because his candidate did not get in.

He lost his mother when he was eight years old. This made a deep impression on him, and though it is difficult to point accurately to the time of his conversion, he thenceforward was more decidedly a Christian boy, and became increasingly susceptible to the influences of the Holy Spirit.

About the same time, he was placed at a boarding school at Charlbury, and was known as a thoughtful, conscientious boy, singularly guarded in his conduct. His uncle John M. Albright resided at Charlbury, and his sisters were frequent visitors there. Splendid rambles in the woods and through the forest, were the delight of those early days. Of course everything in the way of natural history interested the children, such as hunting in quarries for the fossils of the oolite, and expeditions to Stonesfield, where coppers were eagerly exchanged with old quarrymen for sharks' teeth and fossil shells. Once when the party were caught in a heavy shower of rain, Stanley and his sisters found refuge in the overhanging quarry, and there beguiled the time with never-failing stories and poetry.

"Hail to the chief who in triumph advances,"

was Stanley's selection for the occasion, the ringing chorus echoing through the quarry, no one enjoying it more than himself.

"Say it again," exclaimed his little sister.

"What's the good?" he answered, "thou cannot understand a word of it."

"Oh never mind that," replied the child, "it sounds splendid."

He would often act the teacher, and was fond of giving lessons. Were there ever more charmingchildren's lessons than his ? Was it history ? He must have the map to see how King Charles rode from Worcester, via Leominster to Boscobel. Was it geography ? It was not to be expected that a child could remember a hard list of names, but Worms, Spires, and the Wartburg became living places when the story of Luther was woven in with them.

He had early joined the Juvenile Temperance Society, and one of his earliest efforts at lecturing

10 Memories of Sta7iley Pmnphrey.

was in advocacy of its claims. He gave a Temperance Lecture at Charlbury school, which was so convincing to his playmates that, with one exception, they all signed the temperance pledge.

He greatly reverenced the men who had laboured for the abolition of slavery, and felt it quite an honour to shake hands with Joseph Sturge, who was attending a meeting against capital punishment.

It was but little pocket money the lad was allowed in those days, and when he had once at school been betrayed into spending it in pear-drops and aciddrops, he wrote home humbly to his father, hoping that he should never be so foolish again as to spend it on " such trash."

At the age of twelve, he was sent to Ackworth School, where his uncle Thomas Pumphrey was then superintendent. He was afterwards a pupil at 20, Bootham, York, under the care of John Ford. On his arrival at York, Fielden Thorp examined the new boys in reading, to judge where to place them in class. One boy read hesitatingly, another stumblingly, but young Stanley " electrified " his teacher by the oratorical power he threw into his reading ; *' he read it as it ought to be read, read it well, and knew he did."

j He here became passionately fond of poetry, and • developed those qualities which in after life made ihim the vigorous botanist and the helpful art critic. He set his face against wrong-doing, and energetically exerted himself to put a stop to bad language in the school. The ministry of James Backhouse at York was much blessed to him. James Backhouse had returned from his long missionary labours in South Africa, Australia, and Van Dieman's Land, and Stanley reverenced him greatly. When the veteran had been laid aside with a dangerous illness, the schoolboy prayed that his life might be spared for another fifteen years ; and fifteen years afterwards Stanley Pumphrey was able to publicly acknowledge how fully and exactly the Lord had answered that prayer.

In the First Month of 1852 Stanley was placed in the first class in French, and in Till Adam Smith's German Class. At this time he was diligently reading the Life of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. He was anxious to learn Greek, but his father put a veto on it for a time. The same month the boys attended a lecture by Elihu Burritt on Ocean Penny Postage.

Stanley was also at work on botany, and in the Second Month records with satisfaction that he had two hundred and nine specimens, and that Samuel Capper and Katharine Backhouse paid a religious visit to the school. On the i6th occurs the following entry in his journal, '* The committee for visiting schools was here this evening. After John Ford had read the 28th Psalm, Josiah Forster addressed us. He was followed by John Allen, and then John Pease offered one of the most beautiful prayers I ever heard. It was a delightful and I hope a profitable occasion."

Under date Fourth Month, 24th, he records another school incident, ** Soon after ten started on a walk to Acomb. Joseph Rowntree took a leap, and broke

12 Memories of Stanley Pimiphrey.

the two bones of his leg. The leap was twenty-one feet long, and eight feet descent ! "

The next month he enters another visit to *' Joe's leap."

On Fourth Month, 25th, he writes, ** Woke at seven minutes past six a.m., and read the Life of Zwingle, and part of the Life of Calvin."

" Fifth month, 31st. — I wrote a letter to Willie, attempting to comfort him on the death of his brother. I felt a little of the love of God in my heart. I received an answer from him full of faith about the loss of his brother. In the evening, John Ford gave us an account of the London Yearly Meeting, and concluded with a solemn exhortation on the duty of prayer. In bed the Almighty was pleased to fill my heart with His love, and I prayed earnestly for myself and my beloved schoolfellow Willie."

" Sixth Month, ist. — Woke early, and offered up my heart to my Maker in thanksgiving and prayer. May he keep me near Him, and enable me not to slip from the path He has opened for me. His love surrounded me through the day. ' Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.' "

" Sixth Month, 3rd. — After breakfast the Parable of the Sower w^as read to us. I felt a fear that I might be like the seed cast on stony ground, which is compared to those who at first received the word with joy, but when trials and temptations come, they quickly wither away. Oh Heavenly Father, be pleased to make me like the seed sown in good ground, and enable me to bring forth fruit to Thy glory."

The next day he says, " In the evening I got into a passion about a little trifle ; but I believe the sun did not go down upon my wrath, and I trust I found forgiveness for my sin."

On the following Sabbath he woke early, and prayed especially that he might have "good meetings." '' In the morning meeting I was enabled to turn my thoughts heavenward most of the time, but I found it very difficult to keep my thoughts from straying. James Backhouse gave us an excellent sermon on the necessity of approaching God in the name of Jesus. After dinner I walked about with Willie in pursuance of our intention to talk together on religious subjects. My heart was full and I could hardly speak, but at last I told him that the Lord had been very good to me in the week. Willie also said that the Lord had been very good to him."

" Sixth Month, 8th. — In the evening I knelt down and offered up a prayer to God which I trust was accepted."

''Sixth Month, 12th. — I received twelve shillings in prizes to-day and fear I am rather elated about it. O Heavenly Father, be pleased to help me for Jesus' sake ! "

*' Sixth Month, 13th.— I walked with Willie after dinner, and after a long silence I confessed to him that I had advanced but little, if I had not indeed gone back in my heavenward journey. He afterwards spoke, and then I offered up a short verbal prayer for us both. O Gracious God, be pleased to preserve me in the right path, and enable me to love Thee more and serve Thee better than I have done! "

Chapter II. Apprenticeship

At the age of sixteen Stanley Pumphrey was apprenticed to William Sparkes, ironmonger, High Street, Worcester, and won esteem by thorough attention to his master's business. He was very conscientious. There were many unseen tumults tossing within his soul, but the good was conquering the evil.

The verger of Worcester Cathedral one day politely requested him to take off his hat on entering its ''holy" precincts, and was rather astonished to receive in reply a pretty free dissertation against the superstitious consecration of churches, and the supposed holiness of piles of masonry.

The evenings were often spent at home with his father and sisters, and thus was avoided the isolation from home that falls to the lot of many apprentices. "The most pure and gentle life" of his beloved sister Helen was one of the powerful influences for good that moulded his character. The Sabbath evenings were mostly spent in reading with her ; but often the book would be dropped, while the two young sisters he delighted to teach, listened with eager interest to his narratives of things he had seen and heard, and the earnest thoughts which made them think, even as children, *' Our boy will certainly become a preacher."

But there was another ''pure and gentle life" that was now moulding his career, and filling him with a holy enthusiasm for right doing. The young man's romantic account of his first attachment may stand in his own words.

" Just after I left school I first met with Ellen Horsnaill, the sister of two amiable companions ofmine at Charlbury School, herself then a scholar at my aunt Lucy Westcombe's. It was an evening party, and I at once remarked her as the loveliest of the group, her features beautifully formed, her complexion perfect, her golden hair falling in curls over her shoulders. It is not only I who pronounce her beautiful, or my testimony might be suspected, for as Dante of Beatrice (a name under which I have often been accustomed fondly to think of her) I should say that she was far lovelier than any other I have met. I sat down beside her, and talked of her brothers whom I had loved, and as she spoke her features beamed more radiantly, and her smile seemed something too beautiful for earth. When I lighted the company in the passage as they parted, she was the only one who extended her hand to me, and then I felt that I had indeed loved her. The Sabbath, too, seemed more blessed, because I then always saw her. As I sat in meeting my eye would continually turn towards her, and my worship was often interrupted to bestow upon her the blessing of my soul. In my most serious moments I trembled, as I thought she usurped too large a place in my affections, and I asked myself whether I did not really love her more than God.

*' Thus time passed over, and I was unconscious whether my love was returned or no, when one morning in meeting, after I had been more than usually earnest in prayer for her, I looked towards her and found her eye steadily fixed on me. Mine I withdrew, but instinctively looked again, and still that sweet, mild glance was turned towards mine. That glance was long the best assurance I had of her answering affection, and he who is not a lover cannot know the comfort it was to me. At last the time drew near that she should finally leave Worcester, and I well remember the emotion I felt in that evening meeting, the last in which I could expect, for a long season, to behold her face. Our evening meetings generally wxre silent, but twice in the solemn worship of that summer's eve the warning was uttered by the preacher to keep from idolatr}'-. I felt that the rebuke was due.

''The next time I met her was during my summer vacation in 1856, when I was welcomed to her father's house as her brother Cleverley's visitor, though I need not say there was one whom I was much more solicitous to see. I spent four or five very happy days with them, and the beautiful scenery which I saw in her company round Rochester is still vividly before my mind. Independently of the special charm that household has for me, it is a delightful one to visit. Seldom have I felt so strikingly the governing principle of love, seldom have I been more impressed than I was in William Hors-

Apprenticeship. ly

naill with the beauty of the Christian character, for I know no one in whom Christianity more delightfully pervades the every act of life.

*^ The three meetings I attended there, were memorable ones, though there was not a word of vocal ministry. In the first I felt as I had never felt before what it is to have fellowship with the Father. In the second I was shown that it was still possible that I might fall away, and the awful consequences were set before me of so doing after having tasted the good Word of Grace. The third was a time of conflict, for I was much discouraged at not having received some surer evidence of my Ellen's love, but the cloud was at last dispelled, and if ever God made a promise to me. He promised then that my beloved one should be mine. This has often been an unspeakable comfort to me, for more than ever I can now regard her as a gift of His.

" I met her next at Worcester, where she came on a visit in the Spring. It filled me with joy to meet her again, and those whom I met wondered why I looked so happy. I passed several delightful intervals in her society, and received from her some few assuring words. Her presence urged me to complete some verses of poetry which I had long had in hand, for I was anxious that she should be among the first to hear them. When I produced the manuscript, I did not say whose it was, but my sisters suspected it was mine. After I had recited it, they changed their minds, but in her quiet look of pleasure, and I thought of pride, I read a different verdict, and judged, that as was fitting, my beloved

1 8 Memories of Stanley Picmphrey.

one had thought most worthily of me. I am assured that her heart is true to me as mine to her, and that God is preparing us to enjoy together the voyage of life. I do not love her so passionately as I once did, because, blessed be God, my heart is more firmly centred where it ought to be, so that I could answer unhesitatingly the question that troubled me in days gone by, and feel that through His grace I could give her up if she stood in the way of my service unto Him. But I believe that in great kindness He has ordered differently, and that she shall be my own, and it is my frequent prayer that we may be prepared one for another, to serve the Lord together all the days of our life, our strongest bond of union being our mutual love for God and our Saviour. I would further acknowledge that I believe her influence over me in youth was extremely valuable. I could not at the same time delight in sinful and unworthy things and love her whom I pictured to myself as the very ideal of all that in woman is pure and lovely."

In the foregoing, Stanley Pumphrey alludes to his efforts at poetical composition. There is a time in most men's lives when they incline to be poets, before the sternly practical battle of life sets in upon them with absorbing force, and as the days of poetry with Stanley were the days of early manhood, it may be well here to insert one of his poetic efforts. When his whole life became a poem to the praise of God, it was by firm allegiance to the will of His Master that he realised the higher harmonies of heaven.

If to thee there has ought been given

Of knowledge, or wisdom, trnth, or love,—

And if for thee the founts of heaven Have been opened from above ;

Not for thyself is the gift imparted ;

Thy love is given for the weary-hearted,

Thy knowledge that others may also know,

Thy wisdom to guide them as they go, Thy truth to make them free.

Give thou then with unsparing hand

The wealth of thy mind or soul, Sow thy seed broad-cast o'er the land,

Let thy bounty know no control.

The truth that thou givest shall still be thine, Thou as a star on high shalt shine, The joy is thine of enforcing right, Some soul through thy words may receive the light,

And reflect it back to thee.

Of light and heat does the generous sun

Pour forth its unchecked supply ; Freely the rivers onward run,