The Life And Ministry Of Albert Steele

Earthen Vessel 1900:

I could not have been more than three or four years of age when my association with Keppel Street commenced. I graduated as scholar from infant to senior class, and in later years over the same course as teacher. It was not, however, till I had reached man’s estate that the serious. aspect of religion presented itself to me. I realized that though engaged in teaching the Word of God, I was ignorant of the spirit and power of it myself. I was unhappy. I knew I was a sinner; I knew Jesus Christ was the Saviour; but could not connect the two facts in their personal relationship. This state of unrest continued some time. I was in earnest about the matter: it pressed itself on me day and night. I tried to hide my conflicting emotions from my friends and companions, but, oh! how eagerly I listened for some word from the minister that would afford me hope. I went to the week night prayer-meetings and services, and besought the Lord to “shew me a token for good.”

I came across, and carried about with me that almost forgotten little book of the great dreamer, “Come and Welcome,” and it proved of considerable service to me. At length, I was favoured with a faith’s view of Christ Jesus as the Saviour for me, that His precious blood availed in heaven’s high Court for such a sinner as I; and the voice came with power into my soul, “I am thy salvation.” I was happy.

I corresponded with a fellow-teacher who was exercised about his soul, and we found we were being led in a very similar way to the cross of Christ. This was mutually helpful, and we were subsequently baptized together by our Pastor, Samuel Milner, whose ministry was very much blessed to us both. I remember his words to me when interviewing him on the subject. “Ah! Albert, I’ve had my eye on you for some time: I thought the Lord meant to give you to me.”

Deeply conscious, since then, of many departures and much forgetfulness, I nevertheless cling to the cross, and have faith enough to believe that 

“Whom once He loves, He never leaves,

But loves them to the end.”

I was for many years School secretary, leader of singing, and conductor of the Mutual Improvement Society; and subsequently filled the offices of deacon and Church secretary during the nine years’ pastorate of Mr. W. J. Styles.

In all, my connection with Keppel Street extended to about 40 years. Very happy associations were formed there, not the least among them being the “good thing” I found there in the person of her who has been my helpmeet these 30 years. Circumstances, however, transpired, that terminated my fellowship with Keppel Street, and for some years after I was in union with the Church at Soho. Here I also conducted the service of praise for awhile, until, from some undiscovered cause, I entirely lost my singing voice for three or four months. I seemed to be a useless member of the community. I missed the activities of former years; and enquired again of the Lord. Just at that time I was asked to go and speak in the Lord’s name to a little gathering of friends at Finchley. I respectfully declined, for I entertained feelings akin to awe of the ministerial office. But from another quarter I received a similar request. Then I thought, Can this be the Lord’s directing hand? I could speak, if I couldn’t sing; ought I to ignore this double sign? Briefly, I went, went again and again, and took considerable interest in the progress of the Finchley effort, and not without signs following.

I went to other Causes, and among them to “Spa Road,” then under the pastoral care of the venerable J. L. Meeres. I ministered there with some acceptance, but was never more surprised than when I received a unanimous invite to the pastorate, supported by the loved J. L. Meeres, who felt that his work here was done. I was not led to accept it, but agreed to serve them as “unattached” minister. However, a second invite was not so easily put aside, and I acceded to their wish. A recognition service was held in March, 1898, and there, by the grace of God, and the kind indulgence of the people, “I continue to this day.”

It has been my privilege to share the joy of service with the brethren who constitute the Committee of the Metropolitan Association of Strict Baptist Churches, and for many years I have been honoured with their confidence in my appointment as auditor and a member of the Magazine Trust.

Time does not hang on hand with me, and I am thankful to be fully engaged in the name of that Master, whose, I trust I am, and whom I am permitted in some humble measure, to serve.

I am, dear brother,

Yours very faithfully, 

A. Steele

108, Chetwynd Road, N.W.

June 18th, 1900

Earthen Vessel 1907:

Our esteemed friend and brother, Mr. Steele, passed away on Sunday, 10th, March, 1907. The Sunday previous he was speaking in the Masters name. On the Friday he was taken ill suddenly an operation had to be performed, and though he rallied after the operation he only remained a few hours ere he was taken home. For many years an active Christian worker, he took a deep interest in the work of the Metropolitan Association of Strict Baptist Churches (MASBC), with Mr. W. S. Millwood having audited the Association’s accounts for a long period, and for some few years was the beloved pastor of the Church at Spa Road, Bermondsey. He will be much missed, not only by his dear widow and the fanily, with whom we deeply sympathise, but also in the Churches.

The funeral took place on Thursday, the 14th March. A short but impressive service was held in the house, conducted by Mr. W. J. Styles, with whom our brother had acted as deacon from 1879 to 1888. He spoke with deep feeling of his once dear colleague from “That ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope.” The cortege then wended its way to West Hampstead Cemetery, where the ransomed body was laid to rest. The Church over which our dear friend was formerly pastor was represented by Mr. Stevens, and the MASBC by Messrs. Jones and J. E. Flegg. A large company of sympathising friends were present at the cemetery.—J. E. F.

An Appreciation Of Albert Steele

By W. Jeyes Styles

“There are in this loud, stunning tide of human care and crime,

With whom the melodies abide of th’ everlasting chime;

Who carry music in their heart

Through dusky lane and wrangling mart.”—Rev. John Keeble

One who knew him well, and may with good cause love him, has said: “But for him I had never known what the communion of man with man meant. His was the freest, brotherliest, bravest, human soul mine ever came in contact with. I call him on the whole, the best man I ever, after trial enough, found in this world, or now hope to find.”—Thomas Carlyle, On Edward Irving

It is given to few of God’s children to manifest so very marked a personality—to think, speak, and act in all the circumstances of life, as none beside would or could—as it was to our late friend.

His mother, who was early left a widow, with small means and a large family, faced and fought life’s battle with rare bravery. She obtained for her boys a sound middle-class education, and taught them to fear God, to work hard, and to rely on their own endeavours for what success they might hereafter achieve.

Two eminent men, each good and great in his way, contributed to the formation of his character.

Honourable mention is due to Dr. James Moorhouse, who afterwards filled the colonial see of Melbourne, and subsequently became Bishop of Manchester, in succession to Dr Frazer. He, when a young clergyman, for a short time held a clerical appointment—we believe a curacy—in the parish in which our friend resided; and exerted a marvelous influence for good over the lads of his last school. This really great man was a clergyman of the Charles Kingsley type, who held what might be styled the moral creed of Tennyson, believed in muscular Christianity, and aimed in his ministry at the development of all that was manly in manhood, and preached that “Because right is right—to follow right; Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.” His spirit Albert Steele imbibed to the full, and became, as few are—“dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love.”

Faultless, he was not; but little, mean, selfish-swayed by paltry motives, or betrayed into unworthiness of action, he simply never could be.

The Gospel of Broad Churchmen is, however, unhappily defective in evangelical sentiment, and while admirably insisting on the necessity of what is vigorous and vital in moral excellence, keeps the Redeemer’s cross, in its sacrificial aspect, far too much in the background to meet the wants of sin-burdened souls. To help our friend in this way, however, another Christian teacher was used of God.

Samuel Milner, of Keppel Street, whose Sunday School he attended, became the Divine messenger to his heart. Every whit as manly as the future Bishop, and, emphatically human and tender, he was as a preacher of the Gospel, spiritual, clear, and earnest in the enforcement of truth.

It was when under the ministry of this good man that the influence which transcends all others first affected our dear friend’s mind and heart, and he began to listen with reverent attention to what was delivered from the pulpit. The relief he sought was long in coming, and for some time he was an anxious inquirer, seeking the mercy he knew he needed, but seeking it as it seemed in vain.

A copy of Bunyan’s “Come and Welcome” now fell into his hands. This he carried in his pocket and read a page or two, here and there, whenever opportunity permitted; probably clinging with all tenacity to the truth of the text on which this most helpful little treatise is founded:—”All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.”

The Holy Spirit at length spoke peace to his soul, and he merged into a humble and happy, but singularly forceful, believer in Christ. He was therefore baptised, and commenced the career of a consistent Christian which, through Divine help, he maintained to his life’s close. Thus, though so conspicuously independent and original, he bore to the last the impress of the two men who contributed to the formation of his character in his youth.

“He is my ideal of a man,” said one who knew and understood him; yet he was devoted to the theology in which Divine sovereignty has the foremost place; in which Jesus Christ is “all and in all”; and the Holy Ghost is the Author and Maintainer of all that favourably distinguishes truly saved sinners from the rest of mankind.

All who are heaven-born and heaven-bound exemplify the grace of the Gospel; to him it was given as to few, “to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.”

Some religious professors are so dull and common-place that but few would desire their friendship or court their companionship. He was one for whom the world would have hid high; but though he was formed for society, and would have shone anywhere as a conversationalist, he made those who loved the Saviour his chief and choice friends.

Music was born in him. He was long a member of the Sacred Harmonic Society, for many years assisting at the Triennial Handel Festivals at the Crystal Palace, and on several occasions was selected, with others, to sing before Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. His rendering of many fine old English ballads was a treat never to be forgotten. Yet he was happiest when his voice was raised to the praise of God, and for many years he acted as Precentor at Keppel Street Chapel, and subsequently at Soho, winning golden opinions at both. He also shone as an elocutionist of the school of Bellew or Brandram, or Snazelle, and was specially happy in his renderings of some of Macaulays’s “Lays,” especially “Horatius,” and of Tennyson’s “May Queen,” or Hood’s “Song of the Shirt,” in which he out-distanced many reciters of far higher pretensions.

His was a graceful pen, and he could write in delicate and dainty English. Family cares and his many engagements, however, precluded his giving much attention to an art in which he was fitted to excel. His Paper on “Christ the Sole Lawgiver,” on page 168 of our Volume for 1905, affords a fair specimen of his style; the apposite quotation from Lord Macaulay’s “Virginia” being very characteristic.

The order of his mind was essentially aesthetic. Beauty of form and colour, and order, and harmony of arrangement yielded him intense pleasure. He often reminded us—during our days of closer intercourse—of a friend of our younger years, a well-known art writer and illuminator, who was wont to say that “if he owned but three sticks in the world he would study to arrange them to the most picturesque effect.” 

His avocation was pursued at the British Museum, in which almost every ticket, tablet, and inscription now to be seen was the work of his father, himself, or some member of his family under his direction. This post brought him into communication with many of the first scholars of the age, such as George Smith, the discoverer of the clue to the signification of cuneiform (Assyrian) characters, Dr. Birch, Sir Roderick Murchison, and many others. A stroll through some of the rooms with him for a guide, was, indeed, enjoyable.

Memory would fain linger over what he was in his domestic and social life—the tenderest of husbands, the kindest of fathers, the firmest and most thoughtful of friends; but such records must remain deep graven on the hearts of those who knew and loved him best.

It was true of him, as of Charles Hill, whose ministry he so admired, that “to his own inner realization of the power of godliness and his experience of the love and faithfulness of his God in Christ he seldom referred.” This was not because his acquaintance with these things was shallow and superficial, but because their very depth and solemnity made him shrink from parading them before others.

To those that fear God only, should we relate what He hath done for our souls. Invalids who are voluble about their maladies rarely suffer so severely as others who check their groans and hold their peace as to the agony with which their frames are racked.

Those, therefore, who know most of the secret of the Lord are often silent about their soul-trouble and circumstantial deliverances—not because they have but little vital experience, but because they have so much. Many of their memories are too sacred for recital and their feelings too deep for expression. Hence, while some whom we could fain hope are in the good way, say but little of their religious emotions because they really know so little of the vital solemnities of the life of God in the soul, others who could say much, are reticent, and keep their deeper soul-troubles and their most divine joys locked in the silence of their own bosoms.

Thus was it with our friend. He had been “alone on a wide, wide sea,” and in “the wasteful wilderness wherein no man dwelt,” but his record was on high, and he desired that but few on earth should read it.

This is a truth which it is hard to apprehend, and many simple-minded Christians have greatly erred in their estimate of others through their ignorance of it. “Even in laughter, the heart” may be “sorrowful”; while dolorous words and even tears may go with very little feeling that is solemn and deep.

At Keppel Street Chapel in 1879 to 1888 he served the Church in the capacity of deacon during the writer’s pastorate; and rarely has a minister been favoured with a colleague and coadjutor so faithful and loving. Frank almost to bluntness, when our policy and proceedings did not please him, he was withal almost reverential to our office and tenderly respectful to ourself as God’s servant. Like all high-principled men he was always reliable, and to be implicitly trusted with safety.

Of his subsequent ministry as the pastor of the little Church at Bermondsey it is in our power to say but little. Our great sorrow in 1896 and the frequent illnesses which have followed, kept us much apart, not from inclination but of necessity. This, however, we know—that he proved the worthy successor of the greatly loved J. L. Meeres, and that he retained a small but attached congregation, who greatly prized his spiritual and savory sermons, and who regarded him with the greatest respect and affection.

Of his services as auditor to the Metropolitan Association of Strict Baptist Churches, and his genial and inspiring words to those with whom he was thus brought into touch, others have spoken with warm appreciation.

On his almost sudden “home-call,” on the void thus created, and on the sincere grief which the news of his death caused, nothing need be said. “Till the day dawn and the shadows flee away,” we have bidden him our tearful farewell, assured of this, that through the grace of God,

“He was a man: take him for all in all

We ne’re shall look upon his like again.”