Rev. Donald Beaton
This article is reprinted from an early issue of The Free Presbyterian Magazine, of which Rev. D. Beaton was the editor. It is hoped to reprint Mr Bazley’s article on Standing at Prayer in a later issue.
THE subject of this short sketch was the son of a High Church clergyman. He was born in the year 1842, at the Rectory of All Saints, Poplar. He received his early education from his father, who had strong sympathies with the Tractarian movement. In 1855, at the age of thirteen, he entered St. Peter’s College, Radley, which was under the care of Dr Sewell, an intimate friend of his father. Sewell’s idea was to train up his pupils “in all that is lovely in nature, worship, and art; they were to live in a world of beauty and grace, and so be moulded into Christian gentlemen.” But, however perfect this system of education may have been from the High Church point of view, it had not always the effect of moulding the pupils into Christian gentlemen in Dr Sewell’s sense; in fact, in Bazely’s case his mind revolted against this High Church training, and the first recoil in his mind against Episcopalianism was felt.
In 1861 he was elected to an open scholarship at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he took up his residence until October of that year. The Tractarian movement by this time had lost its supremacy at Oxford, and an anti-clerical reaction had set in. Scepticism was abroad, and the rationalism of the Essays and Reviews exercised an evil influence on the undergraduates. But amidst all this wild unrest in the theological world Bazely never lost confidence in the truth of the revelation God had given in His Word. It was soon manifest that his sympathies were on the side of the evangelical party. He pursued his studies with diligence, but his mind was already deeply engrossed with the question of church government. What was the true system? This was the question that he now set himself to solve. In 1865 he took his B.A. degree, and it now remained for him to make his choice of a profession. Many things pointed him to the work of the ministry. His whole mind was taken up with the study of theology. In 1864 he was appointed to one of the valuable Hulme Exhibitions at his college, which required the holders to reside two years in the university and to devote themselves to theological study. As already pointed out, his sympathies were now with the evangelical party, and in 1866 he joined the Oxford Union for private prayer. It was now thought he would take orders in the Church of England, but grave doubts arose in his mind as to the scripturalness of Episcopacy; and the prevalent Arminianism of the great bulk of the English clergy turned away his mind from the Established Church of England, for by this time he had become a decided Calvinist.
In this state of mind he determined to visit Scotland and see Presbyterianism actually at work. He travelled by sea, and passing Aberdeen he pushed on to Lerwick. There he spent the Sabbath, and on Tuesday made his way by yacht to Unst, where the Rev. David Johnston was minister. Of this visit Mr Johnston said: “I was struck by the circumstance that, though he had been trained in the Church of England, of which his father is a clergyman, he appeared to be strongly in favour of the simple forms of worship which characterise genuine Scottish Presbyterianism, and admired the constitution of the Church of Scotland as by law established.” He could scarcely have met with a better and safer guide among the minister of the Established Church of Scotland, for the Mr Johnston referred above to was the Professor Johnston who afterwards held the Chair of Biblical Criticism at Aberdeen. Dr Johnston, as is well known to the readers of this Magazine, was in full sympathy with the simple forms of Presbyterian worship. That Bazely appreciated the help he received from Mr Johnston is acknowledged in a letter where he says: “My chief object in going to the North this summer, viz., that I might get some insight into the actual working of the Church of Scotland, has been accomplished, through the ordering of God’s providence, to an extent beyond, far beyond, what I ever anticipated.”
In the autumn of 1866 he decided to take some of the theological classes at Aberdeen. The first rude shock he got was the want of evangelical truth in the sermons of the ministers of the Church of Scotland, and the second was the character of the students preparing for the holy ministry. “I certainly expected,” he writes, “to find the candidates for the ministry of the Church of Scotland very superior, in a spiritual point of view, to the majority of those preparing for ordination in Oxford, but the very reverse I find to be the case. The course of education for the ministry appears to be in itself very excellent and thorough, but I must confess I do not see any good effects of it in the students. They strike me as being a very worldly set of men, addicted — which is perhaps a national failing — to smoking and whisky drinking: I am very much disappointed.” Again he writes: “If well administered, I know no church more calculated to train up the members of Christ’s mystical body in faith and holiness. It may be that I expected too much. I did expect to find that the majority of the clergy of such a church were men of superior spiritual attainments, but I must own that I have been greatly disappointed, and from what I have seen of the divinity students there does not appear to be much reason for anticipating better things in the future.” Notwithstanding his bitter disappointment in the ministers and students of the Established Church, he presented himself to the Presbytery of Edinburgh for license in December, 1869, and, having satisfactorily delivered his discourses, was licensed by them to preach the gospel.
After this he devoted himself to evangelistic work, preaching in the streets and at markets and fairs, and though he had many opportunities of becoming a parish minister in Scotland he refused them all. In 1871 he hired a hall in Oxford, where he conducted meetings after the strictest forms of Presbyterianism; in praise only the Psalms, no instrumental music, and standing at prayer. It was very uphill work for him. Financially the Alfred Street Chapel was a serious tax on his resources; he appealed to the Church of Scotland for help but in vain. He became disheartened and questionings arose in his mind as to what if, after all, he had taken a wrong step in becoming a Presbyterian. He had never lost his love for the Evangelical party in the English Church, and in 1876 when he saw them bestirring themselves he cast in his lot with them again. In the same year he received Deacon’s orders from the Bishop of Oxford. But he had no sooner begun to act as a clergyman in the Church of England than all his old scruples came back. The prayer book was too much for him, and in the autumn of that year he returned to Presbyterianism. In the following year he was ordained by the London Presbytery of the Scotch Church to St. Andrew’s Church, Stepney. This church had at one time a congregation of 600, and notwithstanding the attractions of instrumental music and hymns, it had dwindled down to forty. Bazely was willing to become their minister, but only on condition that no instrumental music or hymns should be used.
In 1878 he built, at his own cost, a church at Oxford where he ministered until the day of his death. His time was now almost wholly devoted to evangelistic work, attending racecourses, where he preached the unsearchable riches of Christ to the gambling devotees of the turf. He was a good friend to the poor, visiting them in their homes, and giving them liberally of his means. It is impossible in this brief sketch to even refer to the many efforts he made for reforming the fallen and depraved in Oxford, the Homes he opened, and his work among the outcasts of society. Notwithstanding his ardent devotion to the work of His Master there is very little recorded of his spiritual experience in his diary, but of him it could be truly said, that he was an epistle read of all men. His watchword in all the affairs of life was the Word of God. “Shew me from Scripture,” he wrote on one occasion, “what my duty is, and I am prepared to do it at any cost.” His love for the Lord’s Day was another feature of his loyalty to Christ. He would never undertake any preaching that necessitated his taking a carriage on the Sabbath, and at great inconvenience he would walk every step to Abingdon and back again in addition to the heavy work he had at Oxford. When in London he did the same, and never entered an omnibus or tramcar on the Sabbath.
In his last illness he often repeated the Psalms, and near the end, in an interval of peace from intense suffering, he was heard repeating:
“Into thine hands I do commit
my spirit; for thou art he,
O thou Jehovah, God of truth,
that hast redeemed me.”
And immediately after, the weary sufferer seemed to get a glimpse of the peaceful haven. “It will be all peace there,” he said. “No controversy; no controversy.” He fell asleep on the 12th of March, 1883, at the comparatively early age of 41 years.
He wrote a number of pamphlets dealing with theological and ecclesiastical questions. He has a fine one on the exclusive use of the Psalms in public worship.
A word may be allowed in conclusion on the church which he built, and where he conducted public worship during the latter years of his life. It was his intention, says his biographer, had he been spared, to endow this church. After his death an attempt was made to continue the services but it fell through because Mrs Bazely, acting on the dying wish of her husband, could not give her consent to the new forms of worship. The supply of funds was in consequence discontinued, but Mrs Bazely at the time the biography of her husband was written (i.e. 1886) expressed a hope that there would be a revival of the work her husband had so much at heart. “Brethren,” he said on one occasion preaching in London, “I would not dare — and I say this solemnly as in the sight of God — to introduce a hymn book supplementary to the Psalter into this church, although I knew it would attract five hundred worshippers within a month. . . . Brethren, it does stir my indignation, it distresses me sorely, to see the songs of the Spirit of Truth thus repudiated for the songs of erring men.”
Such then is a brief sketch of a remarkable religious life, beginning with High Churchism and ending, through the marvellous leadings of the Lord, in Presbyterianism, and that of the most Scriptural type.
Postscript by Mr E. Greene:
Readers may be interested to learn that, although the church which Mr Bazely built at 13 & 14 Nelson Street, Oxford, was demolished to make way for housing in June 1976, the Strict Baptist chapel two hundred yards away in Albert Street introduced metrical Psalms into its worship in January 1995 (though as yet not exclusively, nor unaccompanied, nor for the most part in the version preferred by Mr Bazely). It is also of interest that St. Andrew’s Church in Stepney, where Mr Bazely was ordained and subsequently laboured, stood on Philpot Street, at its junction with Walden Street, only one hundred yards from the building in Varden Street where the London congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland now worships.